jasonfranks

DEUCE:
Dramatis Personae

George Bodenham
A businessman who may have had some dealings with some mafia guys… but probably not. Deuce’s first victim.

Moira Bodenham
George’s widow. Moira’s completely shattered by her husband’s death; all she can do is cry and cry and cry… but god help anyone who interrupts her.

Richard Bodenham
George’s brother and business partner. Richard is macho and tough-talking, but also nervous and emotional—he goes from depressed to paranoid as the story progresses.

Sharon Bodenham
Smart, impatient and resourceful, Sharon works in the IT department at a university. You might call her 'feisty', but you'd probably be understating it a bit. You might say that she's difficult to be around, but even though she'll brook no nonsense she cares about her friends and her husband, Richard. Sharon will snap at you if you if you waste her time, but she keeps her head in a crisis and she doesn't hesitate to act.

Alvin Winch
A friend and former employee of Richard and George’s, Alvin’s a family man who has gone on to work for a big firm. Even so, George helped him acquire an account with the Tortelli Holdings, who might, just maybe, be mafia. Or, you know, just kind of Italian. Alvin’s a bit of a wuss, but he’ll do what he can to protect his family and friends.

Lydia Winch
Alvin’s wife, Lydia, is a bit of a Stepford model. She’s perky and upbeat and resilient, no matter what.

Well, maybe not quite.

Ali Nahas
Ali’s a single guy a bit younger than the rest of the group. He’s a 3D artist by day and a ladykiller by night. Lock up your daughters.

Detective Remmel
Police Detective Remmel is practically retarded. He’s slow, stupid, and obvious. He’s the joke of the Homicide department, and no other cops will partner with him. Naturally, he’s in charge of the investigation into George’s death.

Deuce
Deuce kills people for pleasure. He doesn’t speak, but he whistles or hums sometimes. He likes coffee and cigarettes, although he doesn’t smoke and he doesn’t appear to eat or drink—he treats them like props. He’s really hard to see, although he’s not invisible... it’s almost as if people pretend he isn’t there. Traffic lights turn green for him. Locked doors open without him asking them to. The bad guy, the black sheep, the bastard right royal, the bad dude... you love to hate, except you don't really hate him, because he is far too cool. Deus ex Machina; a walking plot device, he knows the story is about him and he loves every second of it.

Deuce isn’t exactly the God in the Machine; he’s the Deuce.

And now about five thousand words from Nic:

Kay, so, here's the low down:

DEUCE
Script: Jason Franks
Art: Nicholas Hunter

FORMAT:
Approx a miniseries or a graphic novel comprised of  6 x 22 page chapters, standard US format (or perhaps 3/4 size). Full bitchin' colour. Note: pagecount is an estimate.

GENRE:
Suspense/ drama/ horror/ crime/ weird shit

AUDIENCE: Mature readers. Coarse language and nasty, nasty violence.

PRODUCTION/ PUBLICATION: I have a particular publisher in mind, but I can see this book at a number of others. We'll pitch once we have 22 pages in hand.

HIGH CONCEPT:
Deconstruct the conventions of a slasher movie without irony.

If you've seen Michael Hanneke's FUNNY GAMES you're on the right track. (The original version, anyway; I didn't see the English language remake but I believe it's shot-for-shot the same)

PLOT
When George Bodenham is murdered on his way to work by a maniac with an Uzi machinegun, there are a lot of questions to be answered. The event took place in broad daylight, on a busy street in the middle of town during rush hour... but nobody saw it happen and nobody remembers the assailant.

George's friends and family don't know how to handle it. What could George have been involved in? Who else is involved? What the fuck? They're ordinary, decent people; young married couples mostly, they have no idea how to deal with this. To make matters worse, the police detective assigned to the case is a borderline retard. They try to deal with the death as best they can and go back to their lives, but it's too late.

The murder, 'Deuce', is amongst them, wandering through their lives unseen and unnoticed-- not really snooping, just hanging around, waiting until it feels like the right time to kill another one. And then another.

Who is this guy? He doesn't hide. He doesn't speak. He just walks around, plain as the day, doing whatever he likes... and he's really lucky. Traffic lights turn green for him. Doors unlock themselves for him. Guns misfire when they're pointed at him. He's just some deuce... excuse me, deus ex machina horror movie villain, right?

But that does that even mean?

OBJECTIVES:
The first objective is to show a realistic view of ordinary people coping with terrible events, without resorting to melodrama. No former green berets, no dark secrets, no soap opera dramas... these people are citizens. They're flawed, they're weak, but they're honest, law abiding types who are just settling into their lives as adults. Some of them are more resourceful than others; some of them seem as if they could be heroes, in the right circumstances... or they think they could be... but those circumstances are the sort that only occur in the movies.

The other objective is to tell a scary fucking story without using any of the standard slasher movie toolkit. No hiding in the shadows, no startle effects, none of that shit where the bad guy moves really fast when he's off camera so he can crop up somewhere unlikely. When Deuce bends the laws of physics it's brazen: we see it happen right in front of us.

Next up: character sheets and a couple of Nic's production sketches.

I have a project called DEUCE in the works. Written by me, art by the omnipotent Nic Hunter (my collaborator for the WORK! anthology and a couple of other short stories).

Ok, I admit it--DEUCE isn't really a new project. It started out a screenplay that I wrote when I was studying script writing in college. But it's been a pet project ever since, in various different incarnations.  It's one of those projects that I just need to see through.

I was talking to Nic about pitching a GN or a miniseries and this was the concept he liked best out of the dozen or so I hit him with, so I reformatted the first part of the script into comics form. He liked it, so I turned out a complete first issue.

It's a difficult piece. Nic did layouts for the first issue/chapter and there were problems. It's a challenging story to draw as well as to write and I have to admit, Nic kicked my arse when it came to doing his part. I rewrote it, he redid the thumbs and offered some new ideas. I rewrote it again, he went and adjusted everything yet again...

We spent two months planning out the first issue, but we've now settled on the layouts and Nic is off drawing it. I think it's looking shit hot; couldn't be happier with it. In the meantime, I've a first draft of the second issue down.

It helps that I have the screenplay version, but it's really just as much work to reformat that into comics as it is to write new script--there are traps to fall into when making the transformation and I think I hit every single one of them in the first issue. Hopefully I've avoided most of them this time around; I will continue to blog about that effort as I go, and I'll also show off some pages as they come in.

Peace out,

-- JF