Greetings Knights of Von Kingdom,
Last Friday the 13th I decided to dive headfirst a horror comic script. I’ve had an idea about a shock rocker who’s haunted by his evil stage persona after trying to off himself on stage since about 2017.
I wanted to approach this script differently. Instead of using a strict structure I would delve into the script, writing on the fly using only some visual ideas, and a strong sense of the characters to let the story carve itself out naturally. Think of it as having all the pieces to a model but no real solid plan for putting it together and jamming it out.
Let’s see how well this dark metal jam session went as we analyze the first draft together.
After controversial rocker Nick Haven attempts suicide on stage, he retires to raise a family, only to be haunted by his violent stage persona - The Hunter, who’ll kill get Nick back… This is ROCKICIDE.
When Chris Cornell of Soundgarden killed himself, that hit home for me. Multiple musicians at the time had dropped dead suddenly. Why are so many amazing talented rockers killing themselves? From the cold dark reality of that question a disturbing horror idea seed was planted: What if rockers were being tricked into killing themselves by some vengeful spirit?
It had to have all the right ingredients.
The dark ingredients that make it interesting - Suicide - Rock n Roll - Violence - Sex - Drugs The light ingredients that give it a heart n' soul. (but also end up becoming great stakes) - Baby - Wife - Home
Then I had to make sure I had a good grip on my characters or else there’s no real driving force to help guide the story.
Our intrepid cast:
NICK HAVEN - Hair metal god, idol to the idols, front man of world famous band Slow Death. Gets lost in his unhinged stage persona, The Hunter. THE HUNTER - Nick’s ID - his chaotic, violent alter ego unleashed. But is he something more than Nick's performance art? TREV STANDER - Friend to Nick and the wild child member of the band. DIM MARCH - Friend to Nick and the more level headed band member. CASSIE CAIN - Nick’s true love, the groupie who stayed. Warm and patient. SHENA NOXX - The Ultimate star fucker.
Then as my final guide, I’ll want some cool visuals to play off of.
Key visuals:
- Backstage destroyed - Mirrors - Guitars - Bath tub - Dark Forest - Shotguns and Nooses - Makeup - Neon dive bar - Straight razor - Pills
And this image came back to me as well. Captures something we need here.
That should be it. Now I’m like a chef improvising with some killer ingredients and I’m loving it. Let’s dive into the SCRIPT portion. Let’s ROCKICIDE!
Page 1 intro’s our characters inside one of our key visuals - a trashed dressing room backstage. Relationship dynamics and conflict is all set up right away between our bandmates. A lot to do but fun to set things up out of the gate.
Pages 2 and 3 First we intro the show stopper - THE HUNTER. We literally set the stage. An adoring audience many painted up to look like the Hunter. We see the fandom without having to talk about it. Nick starting down the fan painted faces of the Hunter from the audience is such a good visual that I can use as he’s haunted by the Hunter. He’s always staring himself down in this story.
PAGES 4, 5, & 6 - The onstage suicide. What kicks off the story and we do it big here. I wanted to deal with rock n roll suicide and got to it as quickly as possible. It’s horrific and it changes our lead forever. CUT TO BLACK. I wanted to use some good images here and they all came together well without being PANEL HEAVY which is great.
PAGE 7 - New life for our character and introducing the love of his life announcing their baby on the way. I wished I had more room to develop Cassie so every line had to count to show her warmth and hope. She holds his hand. Nick has support and a new life ahead.
PAGE 8 - Needed a dark moment to reiterate the themes and ideas of the story - that you can’t escape your darkness fully. That his evil stage persona was more than just a character, he’s a driving force of evil. I kept it mysterious and revealed more about Nick’s bizarre relationship to his Hunter persona. Seems like he isn’t himself or can remember much when he’s The Hunter.
PAGES 9, 10, & 11 - 3 pages to move them into their new world and immediately have it taken over by an uninvited guest. The Hunter? I like the glass keeping his house open so trees and dark are always looming visually. Then we have the Hunter show up and stare away as he does. I used more panels on Page 11 to promote the action of the scene so it could build up to the next reveal.
PAGE 12 & 13 - Huge horror reveal. Went classic with Saturn eating children for visuals here. Look to popular paintings throughout history for good visuals that have stood the time and continue to resonate with us to this day. Use them and their power in your stories. On Page 13 I got to show Nick starting to pull away from Cassie ever so slightly but it could use some more room to breathe. I would have them have some marital conflict that worsens throughout out the story if I was adding pages.
That’s all the creator advice I have for now. We’ll continue in PART 2 of this as Nick takes a relaxing bath — !! Just kidding. Find out what happens when you THINK you can take a relaxing bath while being haunted by your horrifying alter ego.
Thanks for reading and I hope you learned something. I learned a lot from this jam session. Having the right ingredients really helps keep a story focused and on the right path even if you’re winging it. See you for the next one!
Your fiend in comics,
- Vonster