POWERLESS

POWERLESS
A Composite Graphic Novel exclusive to Absinthe Hour

PAGE ONE

“Smoke and Mirrors”

1 – Small panel.  Very close on the bulb of a street light, which is barely lit, dull, hazy, and uninspiring.

NARRATOR (JAMES TULLEY): It's just A DREAM.

2 – Wide panel.  Long shot.

It's a dark night.  Ominously unsettling.  Treacherously chilling.  The external glow of greens and oranges of a Seven-Eleven, which is either closed or out of business, patters the night sky delicately. 

A street

light next to the convenient store knows only how to flicker on and off, dimming and shinning in radically contradicting ways.  Caught under the bright shine of the street light's exasperating fervor is a set of SMALL, SHADOWED FIGURES; THREE MEN with cocky, demanding postures chase a WOMAN, frazzled and frightened.

In the parking lot, which is close the reader's point-of-view.  A puddle's ripples catches quaint glimpses of the lamp's light.

NARRATOR (JT): A bunch of SUPERLATIVES main staging an INSECURE sense of a tangible IDEALISM.

NARRATOR (JT): SMOKE and MIRRORS set up for you to see only the smoke,

 3 – Small panel.  A boot stomps on the puddle.  The light from the street lamp has dimmed.

NARRATOR (JT): And MISS the reflection of YOURSELF in the mirrors behind it.

4 – Long panel.  The light of the street lamp angles narrowly in an alley.  Just ahead of the light, the woman has a short lead on her predators as she looks back to see them fast approaching.  She's terrified.

NARRATOR (JT): Some wander these streets not knowing what's down a dark alley.

NARRATOR (JT): Not WANTING to know.

5 – Small panel.  The high heel of the woman's shoe snaps and she falls, tumbling ahead.

NARRATOR (JT): Yet there us few who WANT to know

6 – Long panel, similar to panel four.  The woman tries to prop herself off the ground.  She's surrounded at this point.  A trash can has been knocked down, garbage has littered the alley.  OUR PROTAGONIST, JAMES TULLEY, is set off to the side of the panel (the silhouette of his leg) and has made his way to the alley.

NARRATOR (JT): Who PRETEND we can see our reflection through the haze.

7 – This should be the largest panel on the page.  Tulley is fantastically powerful in this panel and terrifically employed in action.  He's kicking one thug in the abdomen, knocking him back into a brick wall, and he's punching another in the face with his fist.  Further in the alley, the woman sits on the ground propped up by her arm, watching.  She's partially amazed and partially frightened.  The other thug is maybe charging up on him from behind, or possibly just there.

NARRATOR (JT): But maybe the ignorant AREN'T so ignorant,

NARRATOR (JT): Maybe somehow we're the IGNORANT ONES.

NARRATOR (JT): Still believing, still HOPING -- THAT SOMEHOW -- In some

SMALL WAY

NARRATOR (JT): During some seemingly SMALL INTERACTION

NARRATOR (JT): In an equally seemingly INISIGNIFICANT MOMENT

NARRATOR (JT): There's always something -- SOMEHOW -- we can do

8 – Small panel.  Tulley's hand holding a gun firmly.

NARRATOR (JT): TO HELP.