Strontium Dog - Baster

[The Legendary Shark]

Strontium Dog

Baster

20~~~^~~~23

PAGE ONE (5F)(TITLES).

PAGE ONE, FRAME ONE:

An alien agricultural countryside (the planet Ballagh), quite high up, atop a hill, quite flat below and beyond. We are on the edge of an antlerpod (a kind of pumpkin with two antlers growing out of the top) farm that has been looted and razed to the ground – but I want to reveal that slowly so, for now, we'll concentrate on P'Itt, an alien farmer, as he carries a spade to the site he has chosen. On clear days, this spot will afford an excellent view of the rolling countryside below. Today, however, is a dark, dreary, misty, rainy dead cat of a morning. The ground is all muddy. The antlerpod field is hard by. (Dotted about the countryside, as you see fit throughout the story but fairly unobtrusive, billboards proclaim vast swathes of farmland as belonging to Baster Inc., with maybe even his portrait on some of them.)


PAGE ONE, FRAME TWO:

P'Itt drives his shovel into the ground.

SFX (SHOVEL):              SCHLACK


PAGE ONE, FRAME THREE:

A human hand, covered in mud, grabs out from the antlerpods.

P'ITT(IN ALIEN LANGUAGE):  AAAH!


PAGE ONE, FRAME FOUR:

P'Itt swings the shovel at Johnny Alpha (for it is he – buck naked and covered in mud), who blocks the attack easily if weakly.

ALPHA:                      UFF!


PAGE ONE, FRAME FIVE:

Johnny throws the shovel away, he is exhausted, beaten and bloodied and covered in mud, doesn't want to fight.

ALPHA:                      HN.  ENOUGH.


###


PAGE TWO (6F).


PAGE TWO, FRAME ONE:

Alpha can hardly sit up.

ALPHA:                        YOU... HUHN... YOU GOT A SAW, BUDDY?


PAGE TWO, FRAME TWO:

P'Itt notices that each of Johnny's ankles has been shackled and padlocked to the end of a heavy chain, at the ends of which drag large iron balls...


PAGE TWO, FRAME THREE:

...which have left a double trail in the mud and antlerpods as far as the eye can see.


PAGE TWO, FRAME FOUR:

P'Itt takes a small device, about the size of a cigarette lighter, from his pocket.


PAGE TWO, FRAME FIVE:

The device is a pocket laser knife. The laser-blade (like a mini-lightsabre) is very small, about the size of a toothpick, but cuts through the padlocks with ease.


PAGE TWO, FRAME SIX:

P'Itt looks up as he cuts through the second padlock, hatred on his face.

P'ITT (IN ALIEN LANGUAGE):      BASTER!

ALPHA (OFF?):                  YEAH.


###


PAGE THREE (6F).

PAGE THREE, FRAME ONE:

Free of his shackles and beginning to regain some of his strength but still covered in mud, Alpha stands – unsteadily – and accepts a canteen of water from P'Itt.

ALPHA:                      MUCH OBLIGED, FRIEND.


PAGE THREE, FRAME TWO:

Having drunk, wiping his mouth and handing the canteen back to P'Itt (who wants Alpha to keep it), Johnny has a pressing concern. Johnny sees the full horror of what happened here but we, as yet, cannot.

ALPHA:                      I CAN SEE YOU'RE...          BUT...            YOU GOT ANYTHING I CAN WEAR?


PAGE THREE, FRAME THREE:

A little later. Johnny, with a plastic fertilizer sack taped to each foot and a hessian feed sack serving as a chest and modesty (just) covering jerkin (and maybe a hat made out of another bag), and the canteen P'Itt gave him, Johnny is ready to go and holds out a hand to the alien. P'Itt thinks Johnny wants to shake hands.

ALPHA:                      ONE LAST THING, BUDDY.          NO.  LASER.


PAGE THREE, FRAME FOUR:

Johnny tests the little laser blade, smiling.

ALPHA:                      DON'T WORRY.        I'LL BRING IT BACK.


PAGE THREE, FRAME FIVE:

Johnny walks back the way he came, following the trail he left in the mud. P'Itt watches him go, having picked up his shovel again.


PAGE THREE, FRAME SIX:

P'Itt resumes digging.

SFX (SPADE):                SKLETCH


###


PAGE FOUR (6F).

PAGE FOUR, FRAME ONE:

Night. P'Itt has finished digging six graves; one for his father-in-law, one for his mother-in-law, one for his wife and three smaller ones, for his children. Labour completed, he leans on his shovel for a moment, maybe smoking a cigarette or a pipe, gazing off into the clear, star-spangled distance.


PAGE FOUR, FRAME TWO:

P'Itt is dazzled by a sudden bright light.


PAGE FOUR, FRAME THREE:

Just over the horizon, in the direction Johnny went, something like a small nuclear bomb has gone off.


PAGE FOUR, FRAME FOUR:

P'Itt drags his father-in-law's bloody body to its grave as the horizon burns.

SFX (FROM THE DISTANT EXPLOSION, DEEP, LOW):        BHOOUMMM


PAGE FOUR, FRAME FIVE:

P'Itt cannot contain his tears as he drags his wife's body to her grave against a smouldering horizon.


PAGE FOUR, FRAME SIX:

P'Itt sits, inconsolable, by the smallest grave, unable to stop hugging the body of his youngest daughter – probably best wrapped in a clean, white sheet for modesty's sake. The horizon is dark now. Just shadows and stars.


###


PAGE FIVE (6F).

PAGE FIVE, FRAME ONE:

Morning. A beautiful, clear, sunny, idyllic morning. P'Itt is trying to carve inscriptions into the flat sides of split logs. (The alien hasn't marked the graves with wooden crosses but with wooden rectangles to symbolise the doorway to the Next Room.) The inscribed logs go at the feet of the now filled-in graves. P'Itt is having trouble with the carving – the wood is hard, his only tool is a broken and jagged old chisel and his hands are cut and bruised. He has just cut himself again due to the distraction described in the inset.


PAGE FIVE, FRAME ONE INSET

In the distance, an oddly-shaped explosion – like a rugby ball stood on its point girded by two concentric rings of hot gas.

SFX (ODD EXPLOSION):                    PAFFT

P'ITT(IN ALIEN LANGUAGE):              OW! (AND THEN A SPIKY ALIEN SWEAR-WORD)


PAGE FIVE, FRAME TWO:

Sucking on this new cut to his hand, P'Itt spots a hover bike approaching, still some distance away, kicking up a dust.


PAGE FIVE, FRAME THREE:

It's Johnny Alpha, legendary Search/Destroy agent. He's back on top. Back in his own clothes, tooled-up, the sneckin' winner, Baby. He's riding a heavy-duty hover bike laden down with captured weapons and boxes of interesting 'confiscated' stuff. There are also many bags strapped to the bike (each one containing a human head).


PAGE FIVE, FRAME FOUR:

Alpha has stopped the bike but not dismounted, not too far from P'Itt. He throws P'Itt a neatly tied bundle.

ALPHA:                                  SORRY, BUDDY.    AN' THANKS.


PAGE FIVE, FRAME FIVE:

The bundle has spilled open at P'Itt's feet and contains; the sacking 'clothes' Johnny left the farm in, all neatly bundled up and tied with string, the water canteen and laser P'Itt gave him and the head of Baster, looking startled, along with a digital warrant reading OFFICIAL S/D PHOTO-WARRANT. BASTER, REET. DEAD OR ALIVE. REWARD: Cr 1,500,000. Johnny is already riding away.


PAGE FIVE, FRAME SIX:

P'Itt throws the head after Johnny and shouts a very rude alien word.

P'ITT (IN AN ALIEN LANGUAGE):          (A VERY RUDE AND PRICKLY WORD.)


###


PAGE SIX (4F).

PAGE SIX, FRAME ONE:

In tears, P'Itt takes up the small pocket laser knife (maybe a gift from his wife, though I don't know how you'd convey that), cradling it in his sore and bleeding hands.


PAGE SIX, FRAME TWO:

P'Itt is happy to see the laser still works. We've pulled back a little, following behind Johnny but still looking back, and are starting to see the ruined, still smouldering farm buildings.


PAGE SIX, FRAME THREE:

Baster's head, still looking startled, lies in the road, gazing at nothing. Maybe a crow or some alien equivalent is taking an interest. Behind the head we see more of the farm and the first inklings of the crosses.


PAGE SIX, FRAME FOUR:

Johnny riding at us, Baster's head and the farm dropping away behind. We can now see the hideous, bloodstained crucifixes in the front of the ruined farm – three adult-sized and three... much smaller. Alpha looks grim.



STRAP: THE END.

[Trooper McFad]

I liked it a lot Shark but you need to get one of our talented kind Squaxx to draw this out.

[The Legendary Shark]

Cheers, Trooper

Artists are busy folk, always being pestered by writists with a Great Idea. I write these things because I enjoy it, and with the future of DogBreath seeming uncertain this is really the only place my hobby might bring a little enjoyment to others.

Of course, if any drawist wants to tackle this then please, by all means have at it - interpret or change any way you like. It's all for fun, after all.

[JohnW]

Apologies. I've only just read this.
Good tight storytelling, with pictures rather than words doing the work, just as it should be.
Johnny sounds like Johnny. My only reservation is that the image of him dressed in sacking is more comical than dramatic, and is at odds with the grim tone.
Also - and this is hardly a criticism - it is all grim as fuck. Massacred families do not put me in my happy place.
The offstage action works very well but again, that could just be my squeamishness speaking.
All in all, I was reminded of the harsher spaghetti westerns where the director was trying to out-Leone Sergio Leone. The pitiless violence also put me in mind of The Gronk Affair, with all the pelts hung out to dry in a ruined land. That, by the way, is no small compliment.

[The Legendary Shark]

Thank you, Sir - you are too kind

(I love to get good constructive criticism like this, but I so rarely receive it that when it does come I feel like I don't deserve it. Being an writist is very odd, emotionally speaking.)

[JohnW]

Being an writist is very odd, emotionally speaking.

Fucking tell me about it, brother.

I delayed reading your script because I'm one of those simple types who likes his stories with lots of pictures. That said, there was enough precision and clarity in your writing for me to visualize things.
But that's enough praise for you, sir. We don't want you getting notions.

[The Legendary Shark]

Too late.

Way, way, way too late...

[JayzusB.Christ]

Great stuff, Sharky.  I'd really love to see it illustrated. Really captures the essence of Johnny Alpha and his violent but moral outlook.

If I have one criticism, and it's only a tiny one, it's Johnny's repeated use of 'buddy' - I may be wrong but I don't remember Alpha ever saying it; feels a wee bit cutesie for such a dark story.  'Pal' maybe? He also started sounding a bit more British in later stories, but 'mate' might be pushing it a bit.

[The Legendary Shark]

Thanks, JBC, you're very kind.

I think you have a point with the "buddy" thing, it does seem a little cutesie now you mention it.

[JayzusB.Christ]

'Reet baster' - the penny finally drops 

I was mentally pronouncing it like a turkey baster.

A character whose name everyone pronounces differently: if that doesn't qualify you as a 2000ad script droid, I don't know what does

[The Legendary Shark]

Bloody Hell - "turkey baster" never even occurred to me! D'oh!