Conversation on a train,
By A. Hagen
Authors note: I will eventually convert this drawing into a webcomic and after that a web serial, with an expanded script and emphasis on the inner turmoil that you don’t see when you read a webcomic except in those clever subtle ways that they taught me about in school that I’ve never really understood all the way.
If the web serial takes off, who knows? Because I can definitely see the potential for a video game even if those jerks at EA don’t or won’t (even after I removed a whole portion of the game comprising seven or eight levels that completely stumped even the hardcore gamers in my extended family, and I did it just to make one junior flunky art director happy, a low level stooge who probably went to some fancy east coast art school who’s probably green lighted all kinds of satanic gore fest first person shooters with fancy 3D effects but who all of the sudden can’t handle a few poo jokes spoken by lovingly crafted but highly pixilated characters with incredibly deep emotional layers that he will never be able to fathom), and if the game makes a splash, why not think big? I’ll just say it; serial podcast, PBS masters edition, Ken Burns visuals, Ira Glass narrates.
I’m getting carried away, the script actually needs some work.
Dramatis personae
Kid 1, younger
Kid 2, older
Scene 1
Kid 1: what are you looking at?
(No response)
Kid 1: hey kid 2, what are you looking at?
Kid 1: KID 2!
Kid 2: WHAT?
Kid 1: you shouted at me...KID 2!
Kid 2: What do you want?
Kid 1: you shouted at me, that wasn’t nice...
Kid 2: I shouted because I’m reading and you keep talking when I’m trying to read.
Kid 1: You weren’t reading, you were looking out the window.
Kid 2: then why did you ask me?
Kid 1: ask you what?
Kid 2: aaaarregghh
Author edit: And right there I’ve already identified a problem, ie the names Kid 1 and Kid 2. They just don’t ring true, in a conversational flow kind of way. We’ll try it again with names:
Conversation on a train,
By A. Hagen
Dramatis personae
Psycho-Babel (Kid 1, younger)
Babel (Kid 2, older)
Scene 1
Psycho-Babel : what are you looking at?
(No response)
Psycho-Babel: hey Babel, what are you looking at?
Psycho-Babel: Babel!
Babel: WHAT?
Psycho-Babel: you shouted at me...Babel!
Babel: What do you want?
Psycho-Babel: you shouted at me, that wasn’t nice...
Babel: I shouted because I’m reading and you keep talking when I’m trying to read.
Psycho-Babel: You weren’t reading, you were looking out the window.
Babel: then why did you ask me?
Psycho-Babel: ask you what?
Babel: aaaarregghh
Und so. I don’t want to give away too much of the comic except to admit that there’s really not much more to it, just more of the same for a few frames, and it ends with Psycho Babel hitting Babel. It’s about something something American politics, mumble capitalism mumble free press.
Addendum to above:
I wrote this material for the drawing that I included in my last post, which probably had nothing to do with that drawing and it’s a sign of how low the quality of content that I’ve grown content to publish for this blog that I couldn’t be bothered to go in and change the picture to whatever I had in mind when I wrote the last post which was so meandering that I could not fathom what drawing I had in mind, and it’s a sign of how disconnected my written content has become from the visual content that I myself can’t figure out which picture the written content belongs to. And that I’m so content with this level of content and that I’ll even describe my contentedness for the content within the content itself, well, that’s really really a sign that I really do not have the willpower or the wherewithal to make some kind of webcomic out of something
Conservation on a Train in Merry Oulde Anglande, part 2:
Kid 1 plays Clarence
Kid 2 plays Jimmy Stewart
Clarence: ask you what?
Clarence: ASK You What?!
Jimmy Stewart: Why did you ask me what I was doing if you already knew what I was doing?
Clarence: I didn’t ask you that!
Clarence: Jimmy Stewart, I didn’t ask you that!
Jimmy Stewart: Okay, fine!
Clarence: Jimmy Stewart!
Clarence: you have to answer my question because it’s not nice to ignore a person’s question.
Clarence: you have to answer my question!
Jimmy Stewart: What is the question?
Clarence: I don’t remember now! (Weeps)
Jimmy Stewart: aaaaarrrrrggghh
Clarence: I remember now.
Jimmy Stewart: What? What is it?
Clarence: I remember now! What are you doing?
Jimmy Stewart: trying to read!
Clarence: No, you were looking out the window at something!
Jimmy Stewart: if you already know what I was doing then why did you ask me?
Clarence: because I was asking what you were looking at!
Jimmy Stewart: I wasn’t looking at anything!
Clarence: No! No no no, you were looking at something! (Weeps and hits Jimmy Stewart
