The Standard

And here we go, bold reader!

Page 1, issue 1.  Let’s start off by taking a look at the script for this page:

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PAGE ONE (4 panels)

Panel 1. We open on a black-and-white medium shot of The Standard, grinning proudly. This is from his younger years, presented in classic Silver Age style. He stands in front of a plain white background, but make this a tight shot of his upper body, his head and chest filling the frame. This is in fact an old photograph of The Standard, sitting on a bedside cabinet in a bedroom, with this scene unfolding in the middle of the night. But that is not made clear to the reader at this point.

CAP: THIS IS THE STORY OF A HERO…

 
Panel 2. We draw back to a long shot of the same photograph. Now we see The Standard, full body, hands on hips in classic superhero fashion, and now see his young sidekick, Fabu-Lad, standing by his side. Fabu-Lad emulates The Standard’s pose, adopting a similar grin.

CAP: AND THE BOY WHO WOULD BECOME ONE.

 
Panel 3. We draw further back, and now reveal this is a black-and-white photo, in a frame, sitting on a cabinet littered with pills and empty beer cans.

CAP: ORDINARY PEOPLE, JUST LIKE US.

CAP: ORDINARY PEOPLE WHO LIVE EXTRAORDINARY LIVES.

 
Panel 4. Going back further still, we have an over-the-shoulder shot of an unknown figure, staring up at the picture. It would be good to create a steep upward angle here, to suggest the perspective is coming from someone sitting on the floor, and to create the sense of the picture towering oppressively over his head. On the wall behind the picture, we see various awards and accolades, framed newspaper clippings and the like. Depending on what you can fit into the panel, a glimpse of bedpost might give us a sense this is a bedroom.

CAP: FOR LET IT BE KNOWN, BOLD READER, THAT THE GREAT DO NOT ALWAYS CHOOSE GREATNESS.

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This page is significant, because it’s the first page of comics script I ever wrote.  This is the final, polished version, probably finalised at some point in 2009, though the first, rough version was first written back in late 2008.  I think this is as good a point as any to talk about how THE STANDARD first came to be.

Back in 2008, I’d recently graduated from University, and was wondering what I wanted to do with my life.  I knew I wanted to do something that involved writing, but the short film I’d written a screenplay for and was planning to film had fallen through, and I was at a bit of a loose end.  Enter James Fairlie, one of my best friends, and my first ever comics collaborator.  He approached me saying that he wanted to draw a comic, and asked if I would write one for him.  Now, I loved writing, and I loved comics, but I never thought of putting two and two together.  But as soon as Jamie suggested it, I fell in love with the idea.  Jamie’s idea was to do a very dark, largely interior-driven, psychologically charged crime thriller, the kind of project that fit neatly into Jamie’s moody, abstract style.  So I went off to develop that, and ended up coming back to him with a superhero story.

Much of what readers will now know as THE STANDARD first came to life in enthusiastic coffee shop discussions with Jamie.  That’s where I first devised Gilbert Graham, and his superhero alter ego The Standard.  It’s where I came up with Alex Thomas, who would begin as sidekick Fabu-Lad before growing up to be the new Standard.  It’s where life was first given to Zachary Zarthos and his daughter Zena, Bill Finney, The Corpse, and other key characters and locations, not to mention the central mystery that would come to drive the narrative.  But though I owe a whole lot to Jamie for being my sounding board in this earliest point of the comic’s life, he himself admitted that a superhero tale wasn’t a natural fit for his art style.  Furthermore, neither of us knew a thing about making comics, or how to go about getting your comic published.  And so once I completed my first draft of the first issue script, it went in a drawer.  It might have stayed there if it hadn’t been for The Proving Grounds.  More on that next time…