Issue 08 · Print view
14 pages · 43 panels
Recap Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Recap splash
[art pending]
The tunnel. Same composition as Issue 5 page 9, but reverse polarity — the brothers are leaving 1966, the light flowing forward. Jesse mid-chord, green guitar bright as a lantern, Dev mid-tap. Around them, faint translucent silhouettes of Lou, Moe, Nico, Sunny — the band held in memory as the tunnel takes the brothers away.
Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Splash
[art pending]
Landing. The brothers burst out of mid-air into a residential alley in Las Vegas. Late afternoon, late spring. Sun on the stucco. A row of palm trees. A jackrabbit bolts. A 2020s pickup truck parked half on the curb. Behind it, a low Spanish-tile house. From an open garage door across the alley — music. Loud music. Drums, bass, a vocal mic somewhere. A band rehearsing. Jesse on his back in a recycling bin he has just crashed through. Dev on his feet, somehow, sticks in his hands, looking around. The green guitar against the side of a parked truck. *Allred — Standard register. The Vegas of now — the contemporary American sprawl with the dry desert light Mike already knows how to draw.*
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Jesse climbs out of the recycling bin. A 2026 Yuengling can rolls out behind him. He brushes himself off. He picks up the green guitar.
No copy.
[art pending]
Dev, listening to the music from across the alley. His head tilted. Allred — let his face be a study. A man who in his own time has never heard anyone outside the garage play.
[art pending]
The brothers crossing the alley. They approach the open garage door cautiously. Inside — a four-piece indie band, mid-twenties, mid-rehearsal. Cables snaked across a stained concrete floor. A mini-fridge. A practice amp. A bass leaned against a couch. They have not noticed the strangers in the alley.
No copy.
[art pending]
The band's drummer notices movement in the doorway. Stops playing. The band trails off. The four of them, looking at the brothers.
Page · 5 panels
Layout — 5 panels
[art pending]
Jesse, very carefully:
[art pending]
The bassist of the 2026 band — a woman with a half-shaved head and a denim vest — squints at the green guitar.
[art pending]
The 2026 band's lead singer — late 20s, oversized t-shirt, half a tattoo sleeve — looks the brothers up and down. The brothers look like they have been wearing the same outfits for two weeks (because they have).
[art pending]
Jesse, gobsmacked.
[art pending]
Dev, very quiet, to Jesse:
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
The 2026 band's drummer — a wiry guy in a tank top — extends a hand.
[art pending]
The bassist, leaning on the workbench.
[art pending]
Jesse, processing. Allred — the panel where Jesse, who has spent his whole life believing other people are dangerous, gets confronted with the possibility that some of them just aren't.
No copy.
[art pending]
The singer crosses to a coffee table piled with band stickers. Tosses one to Jesse. The sticker reads: DESERT FUZZ HOUSE SHOW — 14 MAY — 9PM — BYOB. Underneath, in smaller text: a residential address.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
The brothers and the 2026 band, two hours later, finishing pizza in the garage. The band's gear half-packed. The brothers' green guitar leaning against a wall — the 2026 band keeps glancing at it.
[art pending]
Sunset outside. The band loading gear into Cam's pickup. Jesse carrying the green guitar. Dev with sticks.
No copy.
[art pending]
The truck pulling away from the garage. The brothers in the bed of the pickup, holding the green guitar between them, Vegas streets moving past. Dev with his head back, looking at the sky.
[art pending]
The truck pulling up to a small Spanish-style house in the Charleston neighborhood. The yard is covered in junk-art sculptures — old guitars, hubcaps, neon signs welded into a desert garden. The Desert Fuzz house. A small crowd of mid-twenties Vegas indie scenesters already milling on the lawn.
Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Splash
[art pending]
The Desert Fuzz house, exterior. A full-page splash of the house from the street. String lights wrapped around a saguaro in the front yard. A hand-painted sign on the door: TONIGHT — 6 BANDS — DOORS 9 — $5 OR A SIX-PACK. The yard alive with people in their twenties, all dressed in some combination of jean jackets, vintage t-shirts, denim cutoffs, cowboy boots, beat-up sneakers. A keg under a folding table. A pit-mix dog wandering between legs. Two girls smoking on the porch swing. A guy with a beard plugging a bass into the amp on the lawn. The desert sky going pink behind the rooftops. The brothers and the 2026 band at the curb, unloading. Jesse looking at the house. Dev grinning ear to ear. The musical-staff motif in the margin: the staff is alive — different small melodies and rhythms scribbled all over it, like a tour-poster background, multiple songs at once. *Allred — Standard register, contemporary Vegas, but with the Romantic register's warmth. This is the panel where the modern reader recognizes their own city.*
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Interior. The living room turned venue. Couches shoved against the walls. A makeshift stage at one end — a slightly raised wooden platform with a few cheap par lights clipped to a beam. PA speakers stacked on milk crates. Maybe forty people inside. The first band of the night, a stoner-rock four-piece, mid-set, drum-heavy. Jesse and Dev pushing through the crowd toward the stage. Carrying gear.
No copy.
[art pending]
Backstage area — really just the back porch. Cam, Theo, the singer, the brothers. The singer is on her phone, scrolling.
[art pending]
Dev, sitting on a porch step, watching the night settle. Looking at the daisy in his hand. He has not stopped touching it since 1966.
No copy.
[art pending]
Jesse beside him. He notices the daisy. He does not say anything. He just bumps Dev's shoulder with his own.
No copy.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
9:40 P.M. The brothers being introduced by the house's host — a guy in a flannel with a clipboard.
[art pending]
The brothers walking onstage. Jesse plugs the green guitar into a borrowed tube amp on the floor. The pickups glow on, faint green, brighter under the par cans. A few people in the crowd notice the glow. Murmurs.
[art pending]
Dev sits at Cam's kit. He adjusts the snare angle by a quarter inch. His face is calm. Allred — this is Dev arriving at his element. He has played 1966 New York. Now he is in his hometown. Two hundred and thirty-four years before his hometown forgets that bands exist.
No copy.
[art pending]
Jesse at the mic. The room half-listening. He clears his throat.
Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Splash
[art pending]
Scouter, first 2026 show. The Desert Fuzz house living room. Jesse mid-strum, green guitar bright as a flare. Dev on Cam's kit, body locked in. The forty-person crowd — twelve seconds into the song — has stopped talking. Phones, in mid-2020s reflex, are coming up. The host of the show is at the back of the room with his clipboard, motionless, mouth slightly open. The bassist Theo is in the front row, mouth open. Cam is grinning the grin of a man whose drum kit is being cooked by someone good. The singer, behind the kit at the wall, has put her phone down. The musical-staff motif in the margin: a single chord across the whole staff — the destination chord. The same chord that lives in Alex's diagram. Allred — Standard register, but pull every trick. Crowd movement. Speed lines. The green light pouring out of the pickups bouncing off forty mid-twenties Vegas faces.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Mid-song. The crowd has moved up. The room is dense at the stage now. Phones high. Some people just watching with their hands at their sides — the way the 1966 audience watched, but younger.
No copy.
[art pending]
Cam, against the wall, leans into the host.
[art pending]
Jesse, eyes closed, hitting a sustained chord that bends with his hand. Lou taught him the bend. He has not stopped using the bend since.
No copy.
[art pending]
Dev, mid-fill. He looks up. He looks across the room. He sees something that wasn't there a minute ago. Allred — close on Dev's face. The smile drops.
No copy.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
What Dev sees: at the back of the room, leaning against the doorway to the back porch — a tall figure in matte-white plastic shell, single horizontal LED band across the face, vintage fedora. The DeciBot. Calm. Watching. Not yet moving.
No copy.
[art pending]
Dev keeps drumming. He does not show it on his face. He looks across the stage at Jesse. Allred — eye contact. Brothers communicate without speaking. Like Issue 1.
[art pending]
Jesse, mid-song, eyes flicking up. He sees the DeciBot at the back of the room. The DeciBot's optical band flickers in recognition. The DeciBot raises one hand. A polite wave. Allred — Brutal register punching into the Standard register. The DeciBot is a wrongness in this room.
No copy.
[art pending]
Close on Jesse. The decision. Allred — slow it. He has a choice. Stop the song and run. Or finish the song.
Page · 5 panels
Layout — 5 panels
[art pending]
Jesse hits the bridge — the chord progression building. Dev locks in harder, riding the snare and the floor tom in escalating cycles. Allred — pull the kinetics. Toriyama-as-Allred. The performance peaking.
No copy.
[art pending]
The DeciBot, at the back of the room, does not move. It is observing. Its arm screen is recording. The fedora is at a slight angle, somehow looking interested. DECIBOT'S ARM SCREEN: TARGETS ENGAGED IN PUBLIC PERFORMANCE. PROTOCOL: WAIT FOR PERFORMANCE END. RECOMMENDATION: COLLECT EVIDENCE FOR LICENSING DIVISION.
[art pending]
Mid-song. The crowd — they have no idea that the man in the back is a robot from the future who has come to kill the band. They are too busy losing it. Allred — push the disconnect. The audience is having the best night of their life. The DeciBot is timing its execution.
No copy.
[art pending]
Jesse, into the mic, mid-song:
[art pending]
Dev, into the count:
Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Splash — final page
[art pending]
The chorus. The forty-person Vegas crowd, mid-jump, mid-scream, hands in the air, captured in mid-motion. Jesse mid-strum, head back. Dev on Cam's kit, sticks blurred. The pop of every flash on every phone in the room. The room is radiating light from the green pickups, from the par cans, from the screens. The host of the show has dropped his clipboard. Theo and the singer and Cam are jumping in the front row. In the back of the room — calm, motionless, fedora tilted — the DeciBot. A hand raised, beginning a slow clap, perfectly in time with the song. The musical-staff motif in the margin: the staff is exploded — notes flying off the page, ink bleeding off the panel borders, the song too big for the page. Allred — Standard register at maximum. The biggest panel in the issue.