0140b — Sometimes a Strip is Just Writing (Patreon)

Normally in this place you'll see a screengrab or two of the "cutting room floor" – all the stuff that was drawn for the week's strip, but didn't make it in. These B-roll pieces have become a cultish thing of their own, like a 'zine page or stream of consciousness art project for those who enjoy seeing the "comic sausage" get made. There are some exceedingly rare occasions, though, where a new comic is all sorted out in the script phase, and I just pull and adjust art from an existing strip. (In this case, 0064, when Cornelius asks Téodor to set him up with a "Tinder app.") So, I present to you the original writing file below, and supplement it above with a few Achewood (and other sketchbook) images I hope you will find amusing.

Incidentally, I saw a reel yesterday of Alan Moore (Watchmen, etc) stating a panel should have no more than thirty-five words. That's too many. The wordiest panel of today's strip has twenty-six. I don't want my comics to feel like homework.

___________________________________Anatomy of a strip: 1,168 raw words, whittled down to 189 — The original file:

Teodor, looking for a piece of paper in Cornelius’s room, finds on his desktop: 

My Last Will and Testament

Cornelius Bear

Cornelius’s Advance Directive

Cornelius thinks seeing a death is a tremendous gift; teodor thinks it’s creepy. C in chair, T next to him. Theme: preparedness for death.

[FINAL SCRIPT: Teodor walks in, sits down]__________

Okay, your advance directive reads pretty cleanly.

Thank you, Téodor. You will find your silver counted out on my desk. 

But what’s with the part where you want Philippe to watch you die? 

Ah, I thought that might put the red in your pencil. 

You see, the demystification of the passage through death is the greatest gift an elder can share. 

He’s five. He’ll have nightmares if he sees your gasping cadaver festooned with murky drainage bags.   

Pfah! Modernity has bowdlerized existence. 

How are children meant to navigate a reality they know only through dopaminergic commercial forgeries? 

The world’s changed! Kids’ homes aren’t strewn with tubercular wraiths and dead-eyed widows making matchboxes by the glow of radium paint, like when you were little! 

They play, they laugh, they don’t have classmates with glass eyes! 

Beneath the vinyl floorboards of your generation’s ticky-tacky proscenium still beats a heart designed by adversity… 

…and to deny it this nutrient leads to irremediable emotional malformation! 

Pushy old men making kids watch them die might do the trick in half the time! 

And keep your money! Buy some little chairs for the big day!   

—------------END FINAL SCRIPT-----------------------

Clipped lines: 

//I’d better get my money before you spend it lobbying for [something that punishes children]   

//[T goes to get money. The snow globe has a headstone inside, with the inscription “As I Am Now So You Must Be”]

//I’d better get my money before you spend it lobbying for glass bottom hospice beds.   

//Old men making little boys watch them die might do the trick in half the time! 

Keep your money! I want no part of 

//they don’t have classmates with glass eyes and night shifts! 

//Beneath the vinyl floorboards of your generation’s ticky-tacky proscenium still beats a heart outfitted for tragedy… 

//Old men demanding that little boys watch them panic and smash that morphine button might do the trick in way less time!  

//They play, they laugh, they don’t have classmates with glass eyes! 

//They play, they laugh, they don’t have classmates with black lung! 

//irremediable emotional miscalculation

[t deftly summarizing how cornelius must have drunk white phosphorus and lead as a child that he thinks watching an old man die is some kind of great gift for a child]

//a read-through with death 

//a preview confrontation with death 

  //Pulled screaming from their devices like the mandrake root!   

// They play, they laugh, they don’t have classmates with glass eyes! 

//Reality is skinned differently these days!

  //sees murky drainage bags hanging from your gasping cadaver.

//their world has changed! 

T: Who masters anything?! Can’t we just have a nice time during this pointless blip we call life?  

C: A telling quote from a feckless generation! 

T: Oh, I’m feckless! How many elders did you watch die? 

C: All of them! We brought popcorn and knitting!

T: Then you filled everything with asbestos and slathered it with lead paint!  

Okay, your advance directive reads pretty cleanly.

Thank you, Téodor. 

But what’s with the part where you want Philippe to watch you die? 

Ah, I thought that might put the red in your pencil. 

You see, the demystification of the passage through death is the greatest gift any of us has to share. 

He’s five. He’ll have nightmares if he sees your gasping cadaver festooned with murky drainage bags.   

My dear boy, modernity has bowdlerized existence.  

If a nightmare be the price of truth, I advise you that is a walloping bargain. 

Teodor thinks it’s sick that Cornelius wants Philippe to watch him die. Cornelius argues it’s a valuable life lesson. Teodor argues we deliberately designed the world to avoid seeing so much death.  

Tell you what. We can video you dying, and play it for him when he’s eighteen. 

How are they supposed to enjoy a world where 

I don’t know, perhaps pull one screaming from its device like a mandrake root and inquire! 

T: Hey, your generation slathered the world in lead, asbestos, and pesticide! Maybe we should protect them!   

C: And your generation kneecaps discussion with whataboutism. Civilization grinds to an ignorant halt.

We built the world the way we did specifically because death sucks! 

Beneath the boards of our ticky-tacky proscenium beats a heart evolved for tragedy, and to deny it its due creates irremediable confusion!  

I think what’s confused around here is an old man who wants children to watch him die! 

There’s a reason there aren’t [saturday morning ads featuring children watching their grandfathers die]      

[Beat] 

//Thank you, Téodor. You will find your silver beneath the snow globe.  

//[or joke about c being a cheapskate; this is his “bequeathment” to Philippe]

  //We built the world the way we did because we don’t like death and all the trimmings! And we did a damn 

//Beneath the floorboards of our ticky-tacky proscenium beats a heart custom-outfitted for tragedy, and to deny it this nutrient is to awaken in it a directionless hunger for worse!

//Maybe an expression of that weird hunger is wanting little kids to watch you die! 

//Did you grow up on an Alabama plague farm? Life’s different for today’s children! 

// to stunt its capacities!

  //an unspecified hunger for worse! 

//We built our world specifically to avoid the ugly stuff!  

//.If a nightmare be the price of admission to truth, I advise you that is a walloping swap. 

//And that is all they will ever be if 

//The dying demonstrate our capacity for graceful acceptance, vulnerability, and surrender.

//And what sturdy, wise creatures you are!  

//Did you grow up on an Alabama plague farm or something? Life’s different for today’s children! 

//And that is all they will ever be if we edit them into a reality in which they can never be strong! 

  //Pulled screaming from their devices like the mandrake root!   

  //And that is all they will ever be if your generation strews roses along their every path!  

//If a nightmare be the price of admission to truth, I advise you that is a walloping swap. 

  //I consider that a walloping trade.

//I advise you that is a walloping trade.

  //there’s a fiver beneath the lapel of the coat on the hook.

//priceless moment of intimacy with the great mystery. 

//bowdlerized 

//To demystify a passage 

//know reality only through pictures, flavorings, and 

  //filters, fragrances, and flavorings? 

T gets the $5 

P: I’m writing a will! 

T: Yeah? What are you leaving me? 

P: Oh, I don’t have money and stuff to leave people. It’s not that kind of will. 

T: I thought that’s all wills did? 

P: It’s a paragraph saying what I thought of you while I was alive! 

T: We have to wait until you’re dead to know? What if we die first? 

P: You can keep it in your pocket and open it real quick if you start to die. But no cheating! Don't cheat!