Screen 1
ONE:
Wide shot, the stand-off in the shipping yard.
DRAKE and DRUM at one side, PAYNE and his FIVE GUNMEN facing them. CRATES, STEAM ENGINE, as described.
Sunset.
1. PAYNE: Marshal.
2. PAYNE: My preference is to resolve this without spilling blood, neither
mine, nor that of you or your tracker.
TWO:
On PAYNE. He’s much as before, calm, entirely in control of the situation, verging on arrogance in his self-assuredness.
3. PAYNE: If you’d surrender the key, please.
THREE:
On DRAKE and DRUM.
DRUM’S expression has hardened; he’s already picking out targets and the order in which he’ll be dropping them.
DRAKE is as muted and calm as ever.
4. DRAKE: No.
Screen 2
ONE:
Angle, PAYNE, being quite reasonable.
On either side of him, his men are beginning to spread out a little bit. The GUNMEN seem perhaps a little too eager to get past the talk and to the killin’.
1. PAYNE: Elmer Johns acquired the key from an… associate of mine in a
game of cards. A game that associate had no business playing.
2. PAYNE: It’s useless to you, Marshal. It’s meaningless.
TWO:
On PAYNE, and he’s hardened a bit. This is not an idle threat, and he is a man who abhors avoidable bloodshed.
3. PAYNE: Do you really want to die for it?
THREE:
Reverse, to DRAKE. He’s considering this.
4. DRAKE: Naw.
5. DRAKE: But I will.
Drake is *such* a bad-ass.
I know right. “Naw, but I will.” gave me goosebumps.
Love the way Rick interpreted “[DRUM]’s already picking out targets and the order in which he’ll be dropping them.”
I guess Drake gets “the Walrus” and Payne.
Drum is like Chuck Conners in “The Rifleman”. Faster than a man with a pistol.
1) Quick time event! (Ok I play too many video games!)
2) I so have to remember “Naw. But I will.” for face to face gaming. Too awesome.
3) I love the details of Mr. Pink hand moving toward the cross draw pistol. Great little bit of captured motion.
Greg,
Having written Batman do you feel there is any sort of connection between the record price paid for DC#27 (over 1/2 a million) and the work you did?
Hey, Yuri – I think my work on Batman has as much to do with that price as Rick’s work on Batman does. Which is to say, none at all. In the most charitable, I could argue that our contributions in some way increased the “worth” of the character, but so many have done so much, it’s impossible – and would be arrogant – to claim more than that.
Mr. Pink? You mean Muzzle?
Watch out, Drake! He’s called _Payne_! What if he too has “bullet time”??? 😉
One of the things I really love about Rick’s work is that characters have their own faces. So many artists (most artists) slap their standard male or female face on characters and let the other features define them. Heck, some artists even have the same stock face regardless of gender. The fact you could take away hair, colours, clothing, etc and still tell Drake, Drum and Payne apart shows amazing talent and great attention to detail.
I also really like the wacky steam engine/train/water wheel contraption in the first panel.
Having seen the bad-ass Drum-vision targeting circles here, I had to go back to the last gunfight and imagine them there. In my head there’s a tiny little sound effect as each of the circles pops up over hearts and arteries and brains. Seriously awesome visual storytelling.
Now if Payne was a fan of westerns from our time and dimension, he would immediately reply with, “Well, we tried. Let’s go home boys.”
BAD. ASS.
No pretty much means HELL NO in this context.
I have to say that Drake’s line at the end is easily one of the most badass things I’ve seen a character say. He sums up the entirety of his mindset with those four words. “I do not want to die, but I am not afraid to die if it means defying you.”