Nuyk, Nuyk, Nuyk and All Roads Lead to the Empire State Building

ADVENTURES IN PULP WRITER'S COMMENTARY

DICK RUBY AND THE CASE OF THE LITTLE GREEN MEN PAGE 9

http://adventuresinpulp.com/dick-ruby-page-9/

 

     Again, I'm pretty glad we manager to keep the action rolling. My original script description for panel one reads: "Ruby striking the MIB in the eye with the thumb of his now free hand. Of course, the "man in black" alien and "green" alien are still switched to keep continuity with the last page, but I guess Matt decided Dick was a "Three Stooges" fan since he goes for the "Moe Howard-two-finger-eye-poke."

     Matt does add two additional panels to the layout: If I recall correctly (and I may not) he said the first one (panel two) was to make the action flow more smoothly. The second (panel four) was added to hammer home that the fact that all MIB were aliens in human form since we missed that beat on the last page. (I absolutely love that panel with the human head with a grotesque alien mouth as well as the black post-contact "spray").

     I had revised the third panel describing the action as: "Ruby throwing the chair at the alien. Perhaps position him like a baseball player swinging a bat." This was so it would tie into page one. I forgot to send it to Matt, so his copy only read: "Ruby throwing the chair at the alien." It worked out pretty well - I guess there are only so many ways to chuck a chair at an ET.

   Finally, I get to pay off  "the rule of three" I planted along the way. The obvious first one was on page one with a direct reference to the Empire State Building.  Next on page three, Dick goes into the sewer on 5th Avenue near 33rd Street. Empire State Building of course sits between 33rd and 34th on 5th Avenue. On page six, the radio reports the sewer collapse near the Empire State Building.  So now we show it and Dick knows he has to go... I thought I used some good reasoning to bring New York's most iconic building into the story. Sure the tallest building doesn't mean much when they could have gone to Mount Chimborazo, but I didn't want to do a story about a gumshoe in the Andes. Besides Roswell is closer to New York.