"The Ruby" (Patreon)

first pass on the cutscenes for an experiment with a Tales Of style arcade game anthology.

This one's based on "The Ruby" from Weird Mysteries 10 (1954) about a poor but greedy jeweller who proclaims that he'd do anything for great wealth, and immediately is greeted by a mysterious figure (wait when did he come in?) who offers him a creepy ring. The figure explains some weird deal about how he'll bring the jeweller customers AND return the ring to sell again, all he has to do on his end is sell it and keep the money. Women come one after another, willing to give up seemingly their entire fortune for the ring, and then are never heard from again. It all comes to a head when the willfully ignorant jeweller is out and his once pious and faithful wife, now spoilt rotten, decides she needs to wear the ring, just for one night. Now all of a sudden he notices that he recognizes all those bloodless corpses he read about in the news...

The story is hammy, full of redunant dialogue and exposition, and with art that leaves much to be desired-- but I think it had some foundational-- i don't know-- intrigue, and for all the reasons the original kinda sucked it's stuck in my mind along with the urge to adapt it.

This experiment is to see if I can gut most of the panels, fill in the exposition with intertitle cards when needed, and replace most of the content with arcade games in the vein of Donkey Kong or Pacman, Space Invaders, etc. But with thematic and narrative elements tying it to the story and moving the plot forward.

wish me luck haha