http://adventuresinpulp.com/hawk-and-a-handsaw-week-8/
This page
went as smooth as silk. Which is good since it is a major turning point.
Perhaps THE turning point in the story. As I said on page seven, it was
important to establish that Baxter appeared paranoid and, with his last
accusation, delusional. However now that Dr. Felicity/Dr. Destructo has dropped
the act, we see that he is possibly/probably quite sane. This page does
everything it sets out to do. We touch on the Demon's Eye bracelet again, I
planted a little seed for later, we pulled off a big reveal/turn and end on the
threat of death. It's good that we pulled it off because it really is the first
page of the three page climax. I'm proud of this one, especially the Destructo
reveal. Earlier we had revealed that Dr. Felicity was not what she appeared on
pages three and four. That was very deliberate on my part. I hoped that
everyone would think that I was done with her and that the previous reveal was
her big twist for the story. Lightening would not strike twice in the same
spot, as they say. I hope I got you.
As far as
whole pages go, this one was closest to what I envisioned. Funny story though:
When the page rolled out I complimented Matt on how he bled panel four into the
shadow of panel three, I went on and on. Long pause on his end, then: "Um,
that's how you scripted it." As I mentioned, it had been a while since I
read the script, I had forgotten that and had not yet done a page check against
the script. Matt was probably thinking I was either being a self congratulatory
jerk or snide towards him since he deviates so frequently from the script. It
was neither. Matt did go back and add a few lines to panels one and three after
the straight jacket debacle. I absolutely love the expression on Destructo's
face with the big reveal.
One more
story: Ok, so over dinner
one night Matt looks at my wife and says, "You should watch out for him.
This is two stories in a row where the sweet innocent woman turns out to be the
villain. It says a lot about him, I think." To her credit, she did not
miss a beat, she replied, "No, that just means you have to watch out for
me." That's a great line to end on, but I just can't, I have to defend
myself. You see while "Hawk and a Handsaw" was our second story
published, it was actually the third plotted. The currently untitled story
formerly known as "Starlight" was going to be our second tale. It was
going to be a detective story set on an alien world inhabited by immortals and
follow the case of the first murder in centuries. However, we agreed that two
detective pieces back to back might not be a good idea so we put them as far
apart as possible. "Formerly-known-as-Starlight" will be our fourth
and final piece for "season one." It never occurred to me (or Matt
for that matter, now that I think of it), that our "Femme Fatale"
stories would now be back to back. If I had it to do over, we would have gone
with "Four Horsemen" second. Another lesson learned.
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