Thursday, September 9, 2010

AND NOW...MONSTERPLEX PAGE 18...AND 19 AND 20 (sort of)!



Annnnnd...that's all, folks! I know that's a horrible, horrible place to stop. No cliffhanger, no nothing. So, let me give you a little more. Here's the pages I had scripted that David never got a chance to draw:

Page 19-

1- Lina out from behind the podium and walking in front of the staff. She’s on the left side of the panel. In the foreground of the panel, in the right side, we see Bitsy and Ken. Ken is stretching (as if he’s yawning—he’s trying to do the cheesy move of putting his arm around Bitsy)

LINA
You shouldn’t see
me or the Ishiro Corp.
as your enemy.

We’re here to help.

KEN
Yawn!

2- Ken now has his arm wrapped around Bitsy’s shoulders.

LINA (from off-panel)
It has been many
years since Corman
Cinemas turned
a profit.

3- Bitsy pushes Ken’s hand off of her.

LINA (from off-panel)
I believe that by
thinking outside of
the box that can
change.

4- Bitsy punches Ken in the stomach and he doubles over in pain. A worm flies out of his mouth.

LINA (from off-panel)
Together, we
can turn things around.

5- On Lina. An angled-up shot on her face. Think Hitler and Citizen Kane. A real dictator-like shot.

LINA
There’s an obvious
revenue stream that Corman
has never tapped into.

Here this now:
Size. Matters.

I think it’s time for
Corman Cinemas to
start showing high profit
Giant Monster
Movies.

6- Ryan is up out of his chair. He can’t believe what he’s hearing. The glasses on his head are about to fly off. Priscilla next to him is surprised and recoiling.

RYAN
WHAT!?!?


Page 20-

1- Medium on Ryan still out of his chair and shouting. He tosses aside his sunglasses angrily.

RYAN
Lady, are you off
your nut?

You can’t show Giant Monster
Movies in here!

2- Medium shot on Lina. She’s smallish in the panel.

LINA
And why not?

3- Ryan making his way down the aisle towards Lina. He’s clearly upset. The other employees watch with fear and shock as he walks by.

RYAN
Do you have any idea
what would happen if a giant
lizard or ape came through
the portal?

They’d tear this place
apart in minutes!

4- Lina and Ryan now face-to-face. It’s a stare down. (Not a profile shot though. Let’s find another approach.)

LINA
That won’t be a problem.

RYAN
How do you figure?

LINA
We’ll simply show
the movies without
the monsters present.

5- Ryan looks like he’s going to pop a vessel on his forhead.

RYAN
“Show the movies
without the…”

6- Lower on Ryan now, and looking past him to Ken with Sludge right behind him.

KEN
Go to your happy
place, boss.

Imagine
Sludge going
down the toilet.

SLUDGE
Hey!

And that's truly all that was scripted. In then next several pages you would have seen Lina trying to enforce her rules even while all the Corman employees appealed to Ryan to "do something about this." Then, the worst possible thing was going to happen. Aunt Ant was going to make a run for it and escape Corman Cinemas. Lina then would have split everyone up into teams. She and Cooper would go east and Ryan, Priscilla and Wolf would have gone west. Bitsy and Ken would have stayed behind to "mind the store" and make sure Sludge stays out of trouble. The stakes were gonna get high--we were going to learn from Cooper that a monster escaping had only happened one other time before, during 1970's. That monster's name? Well, we knew him as the Zodiac Killer. 

Needless to say...Season One of Monsterplex was not going to end well for one of the staff. 

But the hunt and its consequences were all in the second half of the Season...which you, for the time being, will not be seeing. Will there be more MONSTERPLEX? I still don't know. There wasn't a huge response to these pages and traffic was low, which tells me that if we were to start MP back up then there would be a lot of work to be done not only in production, but also, just like any other webcomic, in getting the word out and promoting it. Without the Zuda Machine behind us, it would be tough going. 

I said after we won that it felt like I was suddenly living in my own alternate reality. I was a surreal--and good--feeling. Maybe there's another reality where the contract wasn't pulled away from us and all of our plans got to come to pass.

A big shout out to my co-conspirators, artist David Schlotterback and colorist Michael DeVito. They did  the kind of work I was so proud of and so excited to share with all of you.

A hearty thanks to all of you for your support and enthusiasm. That's the thing I take away from this in the end--all the goodwill that rose up in our favor and the time and effort you all put into it for no other reason than you liked what we were doing. It was tremendous. 

-Brock

P.S. I can always be found doing my thing over at superfogeys.com. Hope to see you there. 




6 comments :

Scott said...

Man, that's really too bad. Although I get the feeling that Aunt Ant had a good reason for the break-out. Still, it's definitely salvageable. Just needs a different machine.

Also... damn, Lina has really big boobs. I know it's immature to point it out, but they're huge.

Javier said...

Hey wait a minute, don't go getting all mopey on us. I think what happened was that a lot of the people that voted for MP on Zuda weren't regular fans for Superfogeys. In other words, most of them probably didn't know where to turn to find where the series would be continued. Lord knows I had to track down some of the comics through Wiki then google them. Point is, you can try to contact the Zuda people and ask to post something on their blog that links to the dropped comics' sites. That would be really helpful to everyone I think.

barb j said...

Dang, Brock this is a shame. What a great concept this was- fully realized in script, characters and art right out of the shoot.

Well, Superfogeys continues to rock, and you never know, Monsterplex may find its home yet. Oh and Scott, those ribbed sweaters do enhance a gal's...uh..breasticles? Yeah. Just sayin.

Todd McElmurry said...

Brock as before, thank ya'll for sharing this and giving us an opportunity to see what might have been. It sucks the way things turned out, but I know others would love to see where Monsterplex can go. If ya'll decide to give it another run definitely share with all of us and let us help to get the word out. I hope to see more in the future, but if not I'm thankful to have been able to experience it up to now. Good luck with all ya'lls future endeavors.

AndyW said...

Thanks for Monsterplex! It'd be really great to see the continued adventures, but even if nothing comes of it, what we did see was fun.

Great art, great characters, great writing :-)

Good luck with Superfogeys, and maybe, one day...

Dorth said...

Heh, I'm a regular of SuperFogey and I knew you intended on showing at least the Monsterplex that you already did and yet I wasn't aware an update happened on this blog since my last comment until I read on SuperFogey it was over.

You got a gem here. The blog format, lack of public awareness and uncertainty about its future don't help it, but I'm sure you can turn this around.

Please, do me this huge favor. Start hosting it on a website built for a comic. Post pages one at a time from the beginning. Have as much relaunch noise as you can, doing crossovers and so on. Don't mention Zuda except maybe in an about and especially not the possible bleak future. Then, by the time you reach the last drawn page, please re-evaluate.

This way it will have stood a chance.
Best of luck to the whole team no matter what!

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