"The Ballad of Pepper Slamowitz"
(Screenplay For 8 Page Comic)
Story/Characters by Jesus Marquez
Written by derrick Stahl
(New Edited Version - The older one was too long. We had to shorten things a bit, and change the page layout.)
PAGE 01
Page Setup: I pictured a splash page. An angled bird’s eye view of the arena (on the left of the page) with tons of people gathered around it, and a long line of people forming down the page toward the “camera.” Story-boxes could be used along the top and right side of the page.
01.
Pepper is walking toward the arena, the line of people on his left. He’s getting a few nasty stares from some of the guys. A murmur follows him, words attacking his back as he passes.
MISC. PEOPLE FROM THE LINE: “Yeah, just go ahead and skip to the front!” “What a jerk …” “Hey! Back of the line!”
02.
Pepper, not even registering that the shouts are at him, sees a kid with a notepad. He holds out his hand, palm out, like an apologetic “stop” motion.
PEPPER (TO KID): “Sorry, no autographs before the match.”
03.
The kid gives him a funny face, not extending the notebook in the least.
KID: “Who are you supposed to be?”
04.
PEPPER (UNDER HIS BREATH): “Gah! … little brat.”
Continues to walk on toward the building.
PAGE 02
01.
A guard at the side door halts Pepper as he tries to go in. He’s holding a clipboard (with a pen attached by a string to the top of the clip).
GUARD: “Name, please.”
02.
PEPPER: “None other than … Precious Pepper Slamowitz!”
Pepper yells this dramatically, striking a pose. (I see stripes and dramatic effects in the background, like in cartoons when someone does something like this.)
03.
GUARD: “Huh, that so?”
04.
Guard looks at the list on his clipboard, not at all impressed by Pepper’s shouting or pose.
GUARD: “Pepper … Pepper … Oh, here, I have a Penney Slamowitz. A Mrs. Penney Slamowitz. One of our female wrestlers, I’m guessing. She your sister or something?”
05.
PEPPER: “It’s Pepper! Do I look like a girl to you?”
06.
A cockeyed glance. The guard points at Pepper’s head with the pen.
GUARD: “Well, with the long hair and all, I could see how the confusion--”
07.
PEPPER: “Just let me in!”
08.
The guard swings the door inward with one hand, waving Pepper through with the other (in an exaggerated, bowing, sweeping motion).
GUARD: “Yes, ma’am.”
PAGE 03
Page Setup: I see the left side of the page being a locker room with a few rows of tall lockers (maybe double lockers … Pepper’s can be on the bottom, next to a smelly floor drain or something). Most of the lockers look empty, a few are missing their doors, one of them has a mousetrap inside it. The locker room is old and run-down … a moldy, smelly place that definitely needs a cosmetic pick-me-up.
There are a few benches bolted to the (broken, cracked, and some missing) tile floor, in between the rows of lockers. A bulletin board hangs on the back wall, displaying the night’s matches.
01.
Upon entering the locker room, Pepper immediately gets verbally assaulted by the arena’s producer. He takes a dramatic stare at his watch. He has veins that look like they’re about to pop from his temples. Spitting though his clenched teeth, he begins to yell.
He points a stocky finger toward the door.
PRODUCER: “You’re late, Pepper! You were supposed to be out in the ring nine minutes ago!”
02.
PRODUCER: “Making the fans wait for you only works if you’re the one they came to see! And with your lazy attitude, girly haircut, and lackluster fighting, that will never happen!”
03.
He gets right in Pepper’s face, still screaming his head off. A little of his flying spit lands on Pepper’s cheek.
PRODUCER: “I’ll give you about three seconds to change into that sorry excuse you call a costume, and even less time to get your worthless carcass out there on that mat!”
04.
Turning away, his shoulders slumped, Pepper sighs under his breath. Defeated, Pepper goes to his locker and grabs his gear.
05.
Story jumps to Pepper walking beside the ring. He sees his opponent, a very old and pitiful looking man, standing in the corner of the ring. He's wearing (what looks like) a bath robe, with the name "Geezer McPleaser" embroidered in fancy letters next to the breast pocket.
Three young, beautiful, drop-dead-gorgeous women are flocking around him (on the floor by his corner). The intentions of the women are obvious by their positions (leaning through the robes to touch him, rubbing there fingers on his cheek, etc.) and the amount of close attention they’re giving. One of the girls, a blonde, is sitting close (almost on top) and is playfully running a fingernail down Geezer’s cheek.
A walker is positioned next to the ring, two legs capped with bright, yellow, fuzzy tennis balls. Behind the small group, you can see an oxygen tank on a dolly, with nose-tubes hanging loosely at its sides.
06.
Pepper is completely disgusted, as you can see by his face. It almost looks like he’s about to hurl.
PEPPER: “Gah! That’s disgusting! He’s, like, a hundred and eight!”
PAGE 04
01.
Geezer looks over, throwing off his robe. Geezer is wearing what looks like an old one-piece bathing suit out of the early 1900’s, with knee-length leggings and a “suspender style” top. He is a very old man, skinny and sickly looking (with a body like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons).
Spit flies from his open, tooth-deprived maw as he yells.
GEEZER: “This is who’s been making us wait?! You cross-dressing hobo! I’ll teach you to make an old man wait. Now I’m gonna’ miss Matlock!”
[Hahaha … can we really put that in? -d]
02.
BLONDIE: “Come on, baby, don’t get too riled up during the match …”
OTHER GIRL: “Yeah, you promised to wrestle with us after the fight!”
All three giggle.
[You can change Blondie’s “baby” to whatever pet-name you want. -d]
03.
Pepper climbs through the ropes to get into the ring.
PEPPER: “You’ve got to be kidding …” *Sigh* “I better go easy on the old man.”
04.
The bell rings! We see a clock (you can pick what time it is), and then see the big hand changed by about three minutes. The bell rings again!
05.
Back to the ring. Pepper is on the mat with Geezer standing over him. Geezer is pinning Pepper’s shoulders down with the front two (fuzzy tennis ball) legs of his walker!
PEPPER: “How did this happen?!”
06.
Geezer is back in his corner, breathing deep from an oxygen mask, while Pepper shambles out of the ring and back to the locker room.
MISC. PEOPLE FROM THE CROWD: “You suck!” “Get a haircut!” “Worst. Match. Ever.” [Hahaha, I think that’s funny. Would we get sued for it? -d]
It seems as if everyone is laughing at poor Pepper, his head hung low. A man in the crowd, heartbroken, who looks down on his luck, as if he spent his whole lifesavings just to come to this match, mumbles to himself. (The reader needs to feel sorry for him.)
POOR LOOKING MAN: “I want my money back …”
Page Setup: This last part can just be a word box (or flag-looking thing, you know what I’m talking about?) If you have the room, maybe you could put the word-box over a few “snapshots” (Polaroids? Hah!) of shower or sitting on the john, or whatever.
07.
After a heartbreaking and humbling defeat, Pepper returns to the “safety” of the locker room. He hides himself in the back of the bathroom., trying to wash away his shame with a shower, and trying to submerge his defeat like the swirling mess he just flushed down the toilet.
Hours later, after building up the courage to show his face again, Pepper emerges from hiding … only to slink out the back exit.
PAGE 05
01.
Pepper, back in his normal clothes, is walking down a back alley. He has an envelope (addressed “Wrestling Commission for Mrs. Penney Slamowitz”) in his hand and is looking inside. There is a ten and three fives. The bills look used and crinkled. The ten has a V-shaped cut on the corner, making the 1O look like 1U.
PEPPER: “Gah! Only twenty-five bucks …?”
02.
Coming from the backside of the arena, Pepper finds himself walking down dark, gloomy-looking backstreets. He’s passing a dead-end alley, marked with a crooked “Barber St.” sign hanging from the brick wall. Pepper notices something out of the corner of his right eye.
It appears to be a large mass of shadows--a silhouette of four robed men (one of them really short), surrounding a woman--all huddled about halfway down the alley.
PEPPER: “Huh?”
03.
Over Pepper’s shoulder, the reader will see that the woman has her back against the brick wall, fending off the men with a swinging purse. She is now recognizable as the blonde that was hanging around Geezer.
PEPPER: “Hey, won’t ol’ Grandpa Geezer be a little upset you’re running around on him?”
04.
Pepper’s comment brings five heads swinging in his direction. The shortest of the robed men has a disfigured face, almost non-human. Pepper is a little stunned. His arms go out to the sides in surprise, his knees a little bent, and he just stands there in shock.
Blondie takes another swing with her purse, connects with the side of one of the taller one’s head (due to the fact they’re all staring at Pepper).
BLONDIE: “What are you doing?! Help me, you klutz!”
05.
Pepper rushes forward, plowing right into the middle of the group, and tumbling the robed men like bowling pins.
06.
As one of the men is falling to the ground (his arms and legs flailing about), Pepper grabs him by the ankle and swings to his right (like a left handed batter). Like an awkward baseball bat, the man slams into one of the others.
07.
Pepper releases the man’s ankle, and both of the robed men hit the far brick wall and slump to the ground, one crumpled on top of the other.
08.
During this initial confusion, Blondie hikes up her skirt and hightails it out of there! (Leaving behind a shoe? Maybe one of the big-heeled, stripper-looking ones? A dead goldfish in the see-through heal?)
PAGE 06
Page Setup: Save the right edge of the page for the portal. This will lead into the portal being on the left side of page 07. It will look like Pepper not only got sucked through an “even flowing” hole, it will look like he got sucked right through the paper and onto the next page of the comic.
01.
The third tall man, caught completely by surprise, takes a fist right in the middle of his nose. He falls straight back, “flumping” spread-eagle onto the ground.
02.
As the man falls, Pepper (and the reader) is able to see that the short man has retreated to the back end of the alley. Facing toward Pepper, the man stands just before (and below) a metal fire escape on the back wall. He has his arms raised in front of his chest, his hands and fingers only a blur of motion as he calls upon some kind of thaumaturgic power.
He seems to be talking to himself.
SHORT MAN: “Oh man, the boss ain’t gonna’ like this. He’ll kill me if I don’t bring ‘em back a sacrifice.”
03.
He giggles to himself, a weird smirk across his face.
SHORT MAN: “If I weren’t already dead, that is.”
04.
Pepper steps over the man lying unconscious on the ground before him.
PEPPER: “What …?”
05.
The short man looks up at Pepper, a mixture of glee and madness shining in his eyes. He starts to talk to himself again. A portal opens up behind him (full with the Kirby Crackle effect, if you so desire).
SHORT MAN: “But this one’ll be better anyway. The boss prefers the sacrifice to be a virgin!”
06.
PEPPER: “Wait, what?! What makes you think I’m a--”
But the rest of his sentence is cut off as he’s pulled into the portal.
PAGE 07
Page Setup: The back end (and opposite facing) portal is on the left side of the page. I see it set up as a mirror image of the portal from the end of page 06. (See “Page Setup” notes from page 06.)
Part 01 can be just the overlapping background of the page, not a panel. Parts 02-A and 02-B could even take place inside part 01. (Make sense?) So 01, 02-A, and 02-B would just be one big section all combined. All three should not take up more than 1/4 of the page.
01.
Pepper falls through the portal, landing face-first. A cloud of red dust and ash, caused by his hard landing, puffs up into the air. He is in a very large cave, the “ceiling” so high it is hard to see. Mountains of pointy rocks, lakes of lava, and smoke are everywhere. Rocky stairs are leading off into weird-shaped openings, or leading off into the distance, miles and miles away.
And waiting in the gloom of all this, there stands a giant beast-looking creature. He is looking down at Pepper with sadistic mirth.
Page Setup: Parts 02-A and 02-B can be the same panel. Have Pepper and his words small on the left side, while the Main BG can be large, and have his words kind of “echoing” over Pepper’s.
02-A.
Regaining his senses, Pepper begins to stand on trembling legs, noticing his surroundings for the first time.
PEPPER: “Huh … what is this place?”
02-B.
MAIN BG: “I saw thee fight my minions in the other realm. I couldst use thee to advance my plans.”
A wicked smile.
MAIN BG: “Or I can waste thee as a sacrifice. Thou may choose.”
03.
Pepper looks up to see the speaker … and his eyes go wide. Tentatively Pepper stutters.
PEPPER: “W-what do you want f-from me?”
04.
MAIN BG: “Kneel unto me, and I will grant thee the greatest desires of thou heart.”
A short pause.
MAIN BG: “In return, thou shalt be my servant.”
05.
Pepper’s eyes narrow, his eyebrows coming down, as he truly thinks about this.
06.
He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, pointing back toward the portal.
PEPPER: “I want to be famous … back home, that is. I want to have it all. Money, fame, girls … everything! The greatest Luchador to ever enter the ring!”
07.
(Little side box.)
SHORT MAN: “Girls? I though he was …”
Shrugs his shoulders.
08.
Pepper starts to lower a single knee, ever so slowly.
When Pepper’s knee is only an inch of the ground, the Main Bad Guy speaks.
MAIN BG: “Yes, thy requests art fulfilled. Thou shalt, for all time, be my--”
09.
At the last possible moment, pepper springs up and forward. In a powerful uppercut, with full follow-through, Pepper punches the main bad guy right in the man-beads.
PAGE 08
Page Setup: The first 1/3 (or maybe even half, if need be) will be used to show Pepper going back through the portal. The rest of the page will be a splash of Pepper in the arena.
01.
The main bad guy’s eyes cross, along with his legs and hands, as he semi-kneels in pain. A shrill squeal escapes from his ugly maws.
Meanwhile (in the background of this scene, running away from the “camera” with his arms raised and flailing) Pepper has turned back toward the portal and is running like away like a little girl!
02.
A shout can be heard from the background.
MAIN BG: “Capture him!”
03.
He points a wicked, curling finger. Right before Pepper reaches the portal, a second shout echoes through the cavern,
MAIN BG: “I will have vengeance, mortal!”
05.
Pepper jumps up, using the short guy’s ugly bald head as a stepping stone, and vaults himself through the portal. To freedom!
06.
The remainder of the page will be a splash of Pepper standing in the middle of a ring. His arms are raised in victory, gold belts around his waist and hanging over his shoulders. His mask and costume are of the same design he had used on pages 02 and 03, but are made of much better material and look more “professional.”
The stadium is filled to almost overflowing with cheering fans. Banners with Pepper’s name (finally spelled right) on them are handing from the domed ceiling and balconies. Confetti and streamers are everywhere. Gifts, flowers, and plush toys are being thrown at Pepper, and they lay all over the ring’s mat.
And Pepper is truly happy.
… for now.
07.
In a small section at the very bottom right tip of the page, we show a hand reaching through a portal.
The End
Comments (6)
This script is for an eight-page comic that will be drawn by Jesus Marquez and then submitted to the ZudaComics.com competition.
The characters and most of the story ideas were created by Jesus Marquez. You can go to his web site here, or you can view some of his artwork here.
Let Jesus and I know what you think by leaving some comments.
Peace.
comic book? that's cool.