BLACK SHUCK // SINS OF THE FATHER (part three)
Scandinavia, 815 AD. When the Anglo-Saxon warrior known as BLACK SHUCK washed up at the court of King Ivar, it was discovered he was the monarch’s bastard son, sired during a Viking raid on the town of Dunwich. Shuck successfully aided Ivar in his fight against the monstrous Jötunn, and became king himself. But his bestial curse has been passed on to his unborn sons, and his family will perish unless he seeks help…
Written by us, with pencils and inks by Steve Yeowell, colours by Chris Blythe, and letters by letters by Ellie De Ville.
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Track Three on the Black Shuck 2 soundtrack: Dunwich by Electric Wizard
So, we’re three episodes in to this ten parter now. Shuck is back in his native East Anglia, and everything seems like it’s going well… sort of. A nice cosy bit of theological discussion with the bishop, and a dead boy with a black paw print on his body. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure.
I’ll spare you my roughs this week as Leah’s away teaching at Arvon so, naturally, I cant find some stuff (because I’m a man and I need to ask a woman if she’s seen it before it magically appears right in front of me and makes me look stupid).
Script for pages one and two:
#3 “Of Curses and Cures”
Page One
This is a four panel page with three tiers; one on the top, one in the middle and two on the bottom.
INTERIOR, CANDLELIGHT for panel one, panel two is a map, EXTERIOR DAYLIGHT for three and four.
Panel One
This is a shot of a lot of artefacts gathered together in a kind of museum-esque display in a dark, wooden room that might be part of the monastery. Front and centre we have a helmet similar to the Sutton Hoo helmet (in new condition) with a shallow golden crown on top of its head. Two other crowns are to the left and right of the crowned helmet (one on each side) so that they form an upside-down triangle (as the three crowns on the EA coat of arms do). There are heavy leather bound books in stacks, at least one propped open showing an astronomical chart or something similarly ornate and complex. There are swords and daggers in ornate golden scabbards, there is a planetary model much more advanced than it should be for the century. We need some overtly magical stuff in here too. A hand of glory wouldn’t go amiss, I suppose, and maybe some rune inscribed wands with bone or antler handles. Maybe a skull of something that doesn’t exist like a tusked rabbit or similar. Also, some pre Anglo-saxon stuff would be good. Perhaps a statuette of Glycon wouldn’t go amiss. It’s essentially a museum display that never was – some of the marvels that were lost with East Anglia when it was absorbed into Mercia and/or when it fell into the sea. There are four captions.
Cap: More than two millennia ago the Celtic Eceni tribe and their Druidic priests ruled over the south eastern fenlands.
Cap: Next came the Romans, after them the Angles from the Baltic shore.
Cap: East Anglia became the richest, most powerful of all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
Cap: Dunwich its capital.
Panel Two
This panel shows a map of East Anglia and specifically Dunwich. We can see the coastline as it is today but there is also a dotted line showing where the coast used to extend to. I like the idea of this being a really old fashioned looking map without roads or loads of place names (so it’s not too complicated). Something as simple as this one (though zoomed in on Dunwich more) but with more period detail like little waves on the sea, etc. There’s quite a bit online about how much land has been lost between the sea and what remains of Dunwich, but this is the clearest erosion map I’ve found so far. All we need to do really is show the village today right on the very edge of the coast and show that the land has been eaten away without getting too specific. Maybe add in some arrows to show the direction of erosion from dotted line to present day coast? There are three captions.
Cap: A wealth of treasures and secrets already ancient when the Viking Age began once resided there.
Cap: These are long lost however.
Cap For Dunwich was all but devoured by the sea centuries ago.
Panel Three
This is the larger panel on this tier. Black Shuck lies shirtless amid ivy in a forest, the bodies of half a dozen deer lay strewn around him, some in pieces, some their necks broken, their carcasses bloody. The sun shines brightly between leaves and it is a strangely idyllic scene despite the gore and death. There is one caption.
Cap: Some say the place was cursed.
Panel Four
This panel shows Shuck sitting up and stretching contentedly as if he’s had a lovely night’s sleep and is just getting up on a normal morning. One caption.
Cap: Doomed for some terrible and forgotten black bargain.
Page Two
This is a five panel page with three tiers; two on top, one in the middle, two on the bottom.
DAYLIGHT, EXTERIOR for all panels except for panel three which is a FLASHBACK.
Panel One
This is a shot of a village woman looking utterly shocked and horrified. She’s standing outside on the muddy streets of a village near to Dunwich. Others around her are also looking on in shock and horror but she’s the main emphasis – her pose mirroring that of Shuck in the final panel on the previous page. There is one time/place caption, and one balloon from the woman.
Cap: The village of Westleton, east of Dunwich.
Woman: God in heaven! Is he…?
Panel Two
This larger panel shows a man standing on the muddy track holding the limp body of the boy we saw ride out of Dunwich last issue in his arms. The man has a bundle of long straight willow stalks strapped to his back showing that he’s been out collecting wood. He is looking at the crowd of villagers which has gathered around him with sorrow in his eyes. The road beyond leads out of the village (which we are on the outskirts of) into the wilder country where we saw the boy at the end of the last issue. The man has two balloons.
Man: He’s dead.
Man: I found him lying on the old track-way.
Panel Three
This is a flashback panel (and it’s the biggest, most impressive one on the page) showing what the basket-weaving man (why else would he be collecting willow?) found in the dawn’s early light. The boy lies dead on the road, all but curled into a ball, his clothes crumpled and in disarray as if he was rolling and squirming to hide. The horse lies dead and partially eaten on the road next to him, its ribcage exposed and a pool of gore around it. It’s head is severed from the rest of its body and resting nearby, tongue lolling. It seems very much like some of the worse off deer we saw around Shuck. There are three captions from the weaver-man.
Man: “There was a horse too.”
Man: “Its head ripped clean off.”
Man: “I’ve never seen a thing like it, though I heard plenty from my father about how it used to be hereabouts.”
Panel Four
This is a shot back in the present. We’re looking down at the boy from his POV. The child’s shirt/top is loose, open (perhaps a little bit torn) at his neck. We can see just a tiny bit of his chest over his heart and it looks like there’s a mark there being covered by the shirt.
Man: I thought the boy must’ve died of fright.
Man: Until I saw the mark.
Panel Five
Here we’ve closed in on the boy’s chest. One of the weaver-man’s hands is in shot opening the shirt and exposing what looks like a wolf’s paw-mark burned into the boy’s flesh over his heart. One balloon from the man.
Man: The mark of the beast!
Steve’s inks:
And the coloured, lettered pages:
