COMIC SHOP GIRL

If I may toot my own horn a bit -- I've have had a number of short plays produced locally.  Four one-acts at Venture Theatre's Annual One-Act Play Festival and three 24 hour plays produced for Venture's WET INK shows.  However not everything I've submitted for the one-act festival has been chosen for the festival. 

My first attempt at submitting something to the show was an ambitious piece.  A musical! About what else? COMIC BOOKS. GEEKS. And of course GIRLS.

Poster concept.  How many pop culture objects can you find?

COMIC BOOK GEEKS! THE MUSICAL!? is the story of Max and his three friends (all named Jason) who hang out playing RPGs in the back of their local comic book shop.  Max mostly hangs out because he has a crush on Bridget, the geek goddess who is employed at the store. 

There are a couple of moments in the play where I must have been sipping the Nostradamus juice... because they reflect things that have come to be.   One of the jokes in the play had to do with one of the characters being repulsed by the idea of seeing Dustin "Screech" Diamond naked.  Who'da thunk that one day ol' Screech would release a porno movie of his own making?

Unfortunately I am what I like to call MUSICALLY DECLINED.  I know nothing about writing music, so basically I had a collection of lyrics without a score.  Thus making my project a little too ambitious to put together in the time alotted for the one-act festival.

The following is the final song (and reprise) from the script.  This is where Max finally expresses his feeling to Bridget.  The chorus is full of SHA LA LA LAs... which I'm NOT proud of, and if I ever rebooted this project I would definitely change that.  The song, with many of it's spoken moments is definitely very BNL-influenced.

I spruced it up a bit with some illustrative pictures.  Italics indicate spoken dialog.  ALL CAPS represent singing.

____________________________________

YOU’VE BROUGHT THIS MUTANT TURTLE OUT OF HIS SHELL
PIERCED THIS IRON MAN’S PROTECTIVE ARMOR AS WELL
YOU BROKE DOWN THE WALLS OF MY FOUR COLOR WORLD
I FELL IN LOVE WITH A COMIC SHOP GIRL

MY HEART GOES

WHEN YOU'RE IN THE ROOM

And the geeks in the back sing!


CHORUS
SHA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA
HE LOVES YOU COMIC SHOP GIRL
SHA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA
MAX IS IN LOVE WITH THE COMIC SHOP GIRL

UP TIL NOW MY LIFE'S BEEN GRIM...

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jason
Dude, did you just mention your thing in a love song?

Max
Not my thing, THE THING y’know from the Fantastic Four?

Jason 2
Four? Four is nothing to brag about.

Jason 3
Now nine… NINE would be FANTASTIC!

Collective groan and laugh, MAX resumes singing:

YOU’LL BE MY MARY JANE
I’LL BE YOUR PETER PARKER…

3 Jasons (snort laugh)
Peter?!

FORGET MARY JANE I DON’T WANT HER
MY SPIDEY SENSE IS TINGLING FOR YOU…
MY COMIC SHOP GIRL

(repeat chorus)

I’VE GOT MY MIND MADE UP
LET ME TELL YOU HOW I FEEL
I THINK YOU’RE MY WONDER WOMAN
MIGHT I BE YOUR MAN OF STEEL?

ARCHIE NEVER CHOSE BETWEEN VERONICA OR BETTY
ONE DAY I WILL GET DOWN ON BENDED KNEE

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I THINK WE’D MAKE A DYNAMIC DUO, YOU AND ME
MY COMIC SHOP GIRL….

***REPRISE***

BRIDGET
I CAN TELL THAT YOU’RE NOT A PLAYER

MAX
YOU’RE CUTER THAN A CERTAIN VAMPIRE SLAYER

BRIDGET
Wesley Snipes?

MAX
(laughing) No…

MAX
ON MY SLEEVE MY HEART I DO WIELD

BRIDGET
LIKE CAPTAIN AMERICA WITH HIS BIG OL’ SHIELD

MAX
IT’S NOT A LINE OR A JEDI MIND TRICK

BRIDGET
I’M STARTING TO THINK YOU’LL MAKE A HANDSOME SIDEKICK

MAX
Sidekick, huh?

BRIDGET
Uh, huh… you got a problem with that?

MAX
(happily) No…

I’M GLAD I FOUND YOU
MY COMIC SHOP GIRL

****

Oh... the weather outside is spiteful...

HOLY CRAP! It's Captain America... ON THE ROCKS! Heh. This is a screencap from a deleted scene on the upcoming DVD release of The Incredible Hulk.

There's a point when Bruce Banner gives up on his quest for the cure and decide to kill himself. So he travels to the Arctic Circle. The result was a very dark scene, which Marvel considered to be too hard for young audiences to take.

For those of you unfamiliar with Cap's origin: sometime after WWII he winds up frozen in the arctic, decades later he is thawed out so that he can join the AVENGERS!

Speaking of the HULK dvd... wouldn't it be cool if there was a Hulk Head case like the recent IRON MAN collector's edition!? Ah... a geek can dream. Can't he? The Incredible Hulk hits DVD on October 21st.



I had the weekend from HELL at the tv station. A 12 hour shift that felt more like THIRTY-SIX.

I lost a good chunk out of one of my fingers on the fence outside the station while I was attempting to sweep snow off of the satellite dishes at work. I swear there's a nice slab of Travis meat still hanging outside the station.

Not to mention I fell... TWICE! If I had twisted my leg or cracked my head open I would been stuck laying in the snow until about 9 in the morning when the new guy showed up.

Let's see... the phone rang every 5-10 minutes between the Miles City transmitter, the douche from Dish TV calling and bitching about the audio, our engineer having to go up and work on the iced over KSVI transmitter.... Argh!

To top it off the new guy comes in bitching about how he's "so sick". FUCK YOU! I've never even been able to use a sick day without getting a major fucking guilt trip & this includes the time I spent 5 days in the hospital. And newbie sure as hell wasn't letting his illness prevent him from going out for a cigarette every 5 minutes.

Then the new guy proceeds to bitch about his wife and how I should "avoid getting married at all costs". DOUBLE FUCK YOU!

*sigh*

After the e-mails I sent out to my supervisors about how I thought my talents might be put to better use... who knows if I'll even have a job at the station much longer.

Kind of scary. But it would also kind of be a relief.

When I got home from work the POWER WAS OUT! Hallelujah! I was actually kind of relieved to NOT have to deal with technology for a while.



Dad got an update from the doctors. It seems they were rather puzzled by what they found and had to send their findings out of state for further studies! Apparently he has some extra PROTEIN deposits growing inside his lungs. WTF!?

Apparently this is rare enough that they can't just look it up in some medical book.

The Apocalypse? Sweet!

The Umbrella Academy is difficult to summarize without sounding outlandish. I suppose this is part of its appeal. Part X-Men, part Wes Anderson flick.

The Umbrella Academy starts with the birth of "forty-three extraordinary children", born on the same day at exactly 9:38 pm, mostly to unwed mothers who showed no sign of pregnancy in seemingly random locations around the world . The children who survived were all either abandoned or put up for adoption.

Enter, Sir Reginald Hargreeves a.ka. The Monocle. He adopts as many of the children as he can find (seven) and shows them so much love that he doesn't even bother to name them!

The Umbrella Academy has all the absurdity, vibrancy, and energy of 1950s or 60s-era comic book. In the first issue when the Eiffel Tower, commandeered by Zombie-Robot Gustave Eiffel, attacks Paris before blasting off into space, it's baffling and hilarious at the same time. And when an appreciative Parisian mayor gives the kids the key to the city and declares "ice cream for everyone" immediately afterward, the tone and pace are set for the series.

Issue 1 ends with this note, which made me incredibly giggly upon reading it:

This is the end of the first part of the Umbrella Academy adventure: Apocalypse Suite. There are five more chapters to the series, with twenty-two pages per chapter, totaling one hundred and thirty-two pages, there are seven members of the Umbrella Academy, and Seventy-Two names on the Eiffel Tower. There is no connection between these numbers.

The Umbrella Academy was created and is written by Gerard Way (lead singer of My Chemical Romance). Instead of doing a tradional "on going" series, Umbrella Academy is being presented as an infinite series of mini-series.

The first six issues, dubbed "The Apocalypse Suite", are avaiable in a handy trade paperback. The next ssix-parter titled "Dallas" begins next month.

I highly recommend this book for hardcore OR casual comic book readers. Especially those who have recently boarded the ol' Watchmen bandwagon.

Yeah, cuz believe it or not... Rumor has it.... (Ha! You'll get that when you've read the book!) that Umbrella Academy has been optioned by a "major Hollywood studio".