My Thoughts Are Free (graphic novel scriptlet)

August 8, 2007 by Deightine.

Scriptlet (In this case a comic format, not lasting more than 8-10 pages, barely skimming the barrel of intention. It is in a plotted art style with dialogue and rough description of what should occur on each page. Paneling, art style, literal interpretation, etc would be left up to the artist. NOTE: This piece is never meant to be published and is a work unfinished for all intents and purposes. Should someone want to do the art, the lines would need to be rewritten or allowance for use would be required for the copywritten German translations.)

Cast

Jacob Schmitt - Burned out beat detective, early fourties, square jaw, black hair, five o’clock shadow, tan trenchcoat and ruffled business suit underneath (minus the jacket). Kind of guy you imagine faintly smelling of Glenfiddich. All close up views of his face should show a haunted, but determined demeanor.
Andy Schmitt - Teenage boy, age indeterminately between 13 and 17, mostly in the background. Corduroy pants and t-shirts type. Slight similarities in appearance to Jacob.
Series of police officers - Clean cut military look to each one, aged between 20 and 35 (except for the rare 40), all in standard North American civil officer uniforms but in gunmetal gray instead of black. Each should have a nearly brainwashed look to them, eyes dilated and staring through people.

Scene Progression

The scenes should pass back and forth from a dingey but not disgusting apartment, to the police department and back, as indicated. The first two pages will be in the apartment, Jacob talking to Andy and then Jacob will start to sing. The singing will continue on the next page, as the action sequences at the police station begin.

Beginning, “My Thoughts Are Free” potentially Issue #1 of a comic book entitled “Hindsight”.

PAGE 1: One large panel, Jacob having a glass of scotch in the new and barely furnished apartment while Andy goes about unpacking in the kitchen beyond. “Dad, why did we have to move all of a sudden?” Andy asks, with his head turned to look toward his father whom is staring into space. “Dad?.. Dad, are you listening?” There should be a brown paper wrapped box on the table next to the bottle of scotch, but don’t make it terribly obvious. It’s scenery.

PAGE 2: Several panels, just need to fit the dialog. Scene remains in the apartment, conversation between Jacob and Andy.

Andy: Dad, are you ok? You haven’t said a thing since we got here. And where’s your gun? I haven’t seen you without it since mom…

Jacob: Andy… Andy. [shakes his head, downs the last of his scotch] I’m just tired is all. Don’t mind me, and don’t worry about the gun. I had to put it somewhere safe. This building’s clean, nobody is going to kick in our front door here. It’s an entirely different kind of neighborhood, ok?

Andy: Alright. So what are we going to do? There isn’t a computer. There is no radio, tv, or good views from the windows. We’re going to go nuts in here. Why couldn’t we bring all of our stuff? Why did we have to pack so quickly?

Jacob: I told you when we were packing, I got cited for a violation. You know what happens when you get cited for a violation. We have to move, is what happens.

Jacob: But don’t worry about all of that. Do you remember when you were little? Your mom and I used to teach you songs when you wouldn’t settle down. We taught you The Itsy Bitsy Spider, and all that good stuff. Well, when I was a kid, I would sit at my grandfather’s knee and he would tell me about the wars he had seen back in the old days, being in the desert and fighting in the middle east. He once also taught me a song that he said his grandfather — your great-great-great-grandfather — had taught him.

Jacob: Now humor me Andy, and listen close. Don’t know when I’ll be in a mood like this again… It was called ‘Die Gedanken Sind Frei’.

Andy moves closer to listen, looking conflicted by a sense of childishness.

PAGE 3: Series of panels, first opening with a widespread view of a police station with small tank-like vehicles parked around it. All of it is near-future technology, nothing terribly high-tech, but still very shiny. The kind of vehicles that make you recoil in fear if you’ve even -thought- about doing something wrong. Sort of thing you don’t want coming in through your living-room wall. The following dialog is a German song from the 1800s, and should be worked in as punctuation to the actions presented by Jacob. The dashed bullet points note what action should be happening in line with which words.

“Die Gedanken sind frei
My thoughts freely flower.,”

- Jacob standing before the police station, a piece of paper clutched in his left hand and a gun clutched in his right along with a black gymbag. Probably best viewed from behind.

“Die Gedanken sind frei
My thoughts give me power.”

- Jacob using the hand with the paper in it to throw open one of the front double doors of the police precinct.

“No scholar can map them,
No hunter can trap them,”

- Jacob passes by some startled (but passive-aggressive) young officers that do not actually react to his presence. They obviously don’t think him a threat, and fail to notice the gun at first.

“No man can deny:
Die Gedanken sind frei!”

- Jacob does a police leap (one hand down, full weight across) the front desk and past another startled officer.

PAGE 4: Jacob heads across the middle of the precinct, and many of the officers now begin clearing some space away from him. Some pull their guns but keep them low, reacting to training without even thinking.

“I think as I please,
And this gives me pleasure.,”

- Jacob drops the bag he was carrying and punches a young officer in the gut with his gun barrel. The ‘kid’ was trying to get in his way, and Jacob drops him without slowing down for a second. The man balls up as he falls over, not used to physical violence being directed at him.

“My conscience decrees,
This right I must treasure;”

- Jacob knocks aside another young man that tries to step into his way, an office door now visible beyond the falling young man. The window is marked ‘Police Commissioner Charleston’.

“My thoughts will not cater
To duke or dictator,
No man can deny:–
Die Gedanken sind frei! ”

- Jacob kicks in the man’s door, busting it nearly from the hinges in the process and revealing a very surprised Police Commissioner on the other side of his desk. The man is old, overweight, pockmarked, etc. ‘An ugly sun-of-a-gun.’ … Reminiscent of Baron Harkonen, only squeezed into an outfit 4 sizes too small.

PAGE 5: Page opens with first panel kind of big, from the commissioner’s perspective with the gun barrel pressed against his forehead and Jacob looming over the desk at him. Jacob’s face should look determined edging on raging, but still collected. Controlled insanity after years of practice, playing the bad cop. Subsequent panels will be him leaving the police station and making his exit.

“And if tyrants take me
And throw me in prison,”

- Jacob backs slowly through the gathered crowd, a gun at the Commissioner’s head, whispering in his ear but his mouth obscured by the gun while the fat bastard tries to keep from stepping on his captor’s foot.

“My thoughts will burst free,
Like blossoms in season.”

- Jacob spins the Commissioner around as he backs through the front door, and stuffs the paper in the man’s mouth, gun pressed against his forehead.

- Jacob kicks the man backwards (the man’s eyes widening) into the room full of officers who all drop their guns in an effort to grab him. This -should- look unnatural, like they’re programmed to go for the grab, like the commissioner is more important than his captor.

- Jacob slams the doors closed, tipping his gun between the handles in such a way as to at least delay anyone following. It isn’t supposed to look like it will hold them long, but at most they’ll be able to bring the doors open to a sort of a peek before the gun stops it… and one or two shoves and the gun would fall. They don’t get the chance, however.

“Foundations will crumble,
The structure will tumble
And free men will cry:
Die Gedanken sind frei!”

- Jacob is walking away from the station (maybe 100 yards away) and the doors thrusting open behind him in the background to unload fire rather than officers. The back half of the precinct produces fire from the roof and particles of building materials. If able to be done artistically, bits of people too. In the foreground, Jacob has dropped a hand-detonator shaped like a roll of breath mints with a glowing button pushed in on the end. The detonator is falling to the ground as the image finishes up.

PAGE 6: First two panels are in a restaurant/bar type place. Third is in the apartment again.

“Neither trouble or pain
Will ever touch me again.”

- Jacob is having a drink, sitting at the bar of a restaurant. A man walks in, clothed in a fashion to suggest some sort of street life to him and sits down next to Jacob. He then pulls out a small package and lays it on the bar in front of him. Jacob slides the man an envelope in return. A bottle of scotch is visible in the background (on the bar) as this happens.

“No good comes of fretting.,
My hope’s in forgetting.”

- Jacob is walking out the door of the restaurant, seen from behind. The package is gone from the bar, the glass of scotch is empty and the bottle there previously is missing now.

“Within myself still
I can think as I will,
But I laugh, do not cry:
Die Gedanken sind frei!”

- Panel is of Jacob sitting at the table again, a tear rolling down one cheek but his expression unchanged. Andy is turning away into the kitchen, uncomfortable by it according to his expression. His father now appears quiet.

- Final panel is the door of the apartment closing as Andy turns, Jacob now missing and the package looming more on the table than it had before. Drawn more distinctly, more richly, than it had been.

PAGE 7: These panels have no dialog. Only the following situations…

- Andy moves toward the table, grabs for the package and begins untying the string wrapped around it. The box has sort of a butcher’s package look to it and this although not necessary, is part of the feel and eludes to a coming scene.

- Jacob sits in his car, in a busy parkinglot across from a train station or other busy public place. Police are patrolling somewhere in the background, and he has another gun in his hand. He’s staring straight forward, and there is no warning for what is about to come.

- Andy holds a wallet in his hands, the opened box on the table below him in the background. Inside the wallet is his picture on an ID card with the name ‘Eric Wallace’ and the age listed as ‘18′ with his approximate description next to it. The ID should be somewhat futuristic and feature an RFID-looking chip imbedded on it and a future-ish USA logo at the top. Below it is the slogon ‘Keeping track of YOUR interests.’. Money pokes out of the wallet, largish bills but more colorful than the traditional greenbacks. More in the style of European currency.

- Jacob puts the gun to the side of his head, below his right ear.

- Panel shows the car in the parking lot. The windows are sprayed red, and the cops are running toward the vehicle while pigeons are startled from their roosts on buildings around it.

- Andy collapses into the chair next to the table, staring into the wallet and although he doesn’t yet know what has happened… He looks worried beyond anything seen so far.

End

– Necessary attribution goes to Arthur Kevess, the song’s English translation (Die Gedanken Sind Frei / “My Thoughts Are Free”) was copyrighted in 1950 and is used without any commercial gain at this point. I’m trying to find a means to contact him and see if he would allow it’s use. Sadly, it’s not that easy tracking a person down 57 years later.

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