Two days late posting this one due to all kinds of things including but not restricted to sleep deprivation, ancient PCs, shite bandwidth, and willful children. Massive apologies.
Black Shuck part five is out today in Prog 1895. Written by us, with pencils and inks by Steve Yeowell, colours by Chris Blythe, and letters by Simon Bowland.
BLACK SHUCK // PART FIVE
Scandinavia, 813 AD. A Viking raid on the settlement of Dunwich in East Anglia led to the warrior
known as BLACK SHUCK being captured. But he has washed up at the court of King Ivar the lone
survivor – what terrible calamity befell the others during the sea crossing? Now Shuck has been
dragged into the war between Ivar’s people and the monstrous Jötnar, thanks to a curse…
Order or download 2000 AD 1895 right now. If you have already read it, join us for some extras (including some hastily thrown together spoliers) below.
- Track 5 on the Black Shuck soundtrack: Hymn to Pan by Blood Ceremony
Not nearly so action-packed an installment of Black Shuck this week but at last we’re closer to understanding what has gone on on the island with the arrival of Grendel’s Mother (think yourselves lucky you didn’t get a bit of Marillion for the soundtrack!).
Here are Leah’s roughs for Part Five:
Here are the roughs for Page Four on their own:
Here’s the script:
Page Four
This is a five panel page with three tiers: two on the top, one in the middle, two on the bottom.
This is a black and white, flashback page. EXTERIOR, DAYLIGHT throughout.
Panel One
This is a view from the tree line at the edge of the beach where Shuck and Hak are hiding. We can see some branches and maybe even a hand at the edge of the shot to show we’re looking out from their POV. The ship is scudding up onto the beach and an ominous hunched figure wearing a long, tattered black hooded cloak is standing at its prow. The figure has a large knobbly staff/stick. Next issue it will be revealed that there are three recently disinterred corpses in the boat, all still wrapped in their winding sheets. So, although we can’t see them clearly here, there might be some evidence of something bundled up in the ship. The figure has two balloons.
Balloon 1: Grendel! Are you there?
Balloon 2: Grendel! I am here, my son!
Panel Two
Here we have closed in on the head of the figure as it looks about it. It is a scary old, old woman: a witch. She is blind in one eye which is pure white and without a pupil, and peers about with the other intently. She is almost completely toothless with long, lank, matted white hair. She is calling out to someone loudly and has two balloons.
Witch: The fog kept me away, I am sorry. So sorry.
Witch: I came as soon as I was able, I swear it!
Panel Three
Here we have a shot showing the witch hobbling away from the boat, her neck extended and hood thrown back as she calls loudly. She has two balloons.
Witch: Grendel?
Witch: Now, don’t be like that. Don’t sulk.
Panel Four
This is a shot showing the hunched witch in the foreground and the two men hiding at the edge of the tree-line in the background watching her as she hobbles along shouting. The Witch has two balloons.
Witch: You must be hungry, yes?
Witch: I brought food. Nice and fresh!
Panel Five
Here we have a shot of the witch’s face from below, as if we’re looking up at her from (almost) ground level. Her good eye is looking down at us. Two balloons.
Witch: Ungrateful child, is this how you treat your poor old—
Witch: Eh?
You’ll notice that the page description says “This is a black and white, flashback page”. We thought that having all the flashbacks in black and white would help to distinguish the island story line from the one taking place in Ivar’s Kingdom. Steve’s inks are wonderful, of course, but I think it must have been decided it would be too jarring to keep jumping back and forth between black and white and full colour.
Steve Yeowell’s inks (which, if you’d like to see more, are being posted on his Facebook page):
And with Chris Blythe’s colours:
So, Grendel and his mother then – an obvious and massive nod to Beowulf, clearly. Maybe, if you look closely, you might notice some other less obvious Beowulf influences on the series as a whole. Maybe.
Before Black Shuck we pitched an idea much more heavily based on Beowulf. It was called Demonstar and, putting it bluntly, it amounted to Vikings Vs. Aliens rather than Trolls. Tharg liked elements of the idea (which we kept, reworked and turned into Black Shuck) but pointed out that Demonstar shared too much common ground with a straight to DVD film from a few years back called Outlander. Neither Leah nor myself had ever heard of the film and we still haven’t seen it. It does look pretty fun from the trailer though.
See you next week (on time, hopefully) for more Black Shuck.