Screen 1
ONE:
Horizontal, narrow. Establishing of MAINETOILLE. It’s late afternoon, nearing evening.
NO COPY.
TWO:
OTS DRAKE, from a position across the street from Governor House.
PAYNE is emerging from the building, settling a HAT atop his head.
TRAFFIC on the street, men and women, some horses. Not the height of the business day, but the day’s not yet ended, either.
NO COPY.
THREE:
Angle, from atop one of the buildings along the street. Looking past DRUM, who is making his way, crouched, from building to building, down to the street, where PAYNE is walking along, perhaps tipping his hat to some LADIES he’s passing.
DRAKE is following PAYNE from a discreet distance, here.
NO COPY.
Screen 2
ONE:
Angle, ground level, wide. PAYNE stepping lightly up onto a raised sidewalk, about to turn a corner. He’s heading towards the port facilities that border the lake – skyboats and watercraft both moor here. PAYNE is reaching for his POCKET WATCH.
DRAKE in the BG, still tailing him.
Fewer folks about, now. The sun is continuing to dip.
NO COPY.
TWO:
Angle, PAYNE in immediate FG, waist to neck, perhaps, and we see he’s pulled his POCKET WATCH and what’s on the end of the chain isn’t, in fact, a watch at all, but a miniscule TELEGRAPH.
DRAKE just visible past him in BG.
NO COPY.
THREE:
PAYNE’S HAND, holding the TELEGRAPH against his body, THUMB tapping out a message.
1. SFX/small/faint: tik-tak-tik tik tik-tak tak-tik-tik tak-tik-tak-tak
2. SFX/small/faint: tak-tik-tik tak-tak-tak tak-tik-tak-tik tak-tik-tak tik-tik-tik
Okay, who’s going to transcribe Payne’s message from the SFX?
Hmm…I get “Ready docks”
Edit – Obviously a shout-out to http://www.readydocks.com/ “Nobody Builds More Docks!”(TM)
Nice. Someone is going to be confused when they look at their site metrics, now.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if somebody from readydocks was lead here, became a fan of Lady Sabre, decided to seek out more Greg Rucka/Rick Burchett product, and were eventually sucked into the wide world of comics? Just from some innocuous Morse code message in one panel of a little webcomic?
Alright, Mr Rucka, that just made me think of a question regarding the comic. I know you’ve put a huge amount of thought in to background details of how this world works. Details of which we, the fans, may never know. I’m wondering, have you thought of where Morse code comes from in this world? Was there coincidentally some guy in this world named Morse who also invented a similar code? Or is it called something else, like Parker Code (named after A. M. Parker, its inventor) or “dot-dash” or “tik-tak”? We need to know!!
You know, I’ve been wrestling this way (the same way I was wrestling with Rick’s insertion of the statue of Justice in the Judge’s office). Is there a Samuel Morse? No, but there’s an analogous inventor, and thus an analogous system… which I have not yet named. I considered creating a code system all my own for this sequence, but doing so would’ve been 1) way too much work given my time constraints at the moment, and 2) made it that much harder for you folks to decipher (and I wanted you all to have some fun trying to decipher the message).
I agree with the possible translation
His version of texting?
Ah, sweet. Pocket telegraph.
I have to say my brain just misparsed Drum’s motion in the third panel. I thought that munchkin is about to splat himself on the side of the roof. Or “And that was the last we saw of Drum.” I think its the constraints of the frame that does Drum in.
On the other hand I love the detail of Payne’s hand working the telegraph–it conveys a real ease and comfort with the device (which I also love) that makes Payne look like a natural with it.
Move Drum lower so he would be jumping from the lower edge of the green roof to the lower edge of the red, almost behind the towered bit or the house with the red roof and I think it would look better.
The art today is just beautiful.
All I ask from my entertainment is an idea, a sound, an image or the like that I’ve never encountered elsewhere. This comic delivers. Pocket telegraph? Brilliant.
I think it says a lot about Payne’s confidence (cockiness?) that he still has that smirk plastered across his face when no one else is around.
Payne may know he is being followed and be setting up an ambush on those following him. That would enable him to search them.
So the smirk is “pattsy in place”.
agreed. I got the feeling Payne knew he was being shadowed all along. Maybe not that Drum had high cover, but that Drake was tailing. All goose-bumpy now.