PJ Holden's Blog

My youngest son has introduced me to Junji Ito how does a magnificent line in existential dread and horror, so I’ve been playing with that with a view to seeing what I can do in short one page form. I’ve written ideas for two other things done, but here’s the only one I’ve fully written, drawn and lettered. Hope you like!

Was asked by Gav Thorpe to do some illos for some rpg characters he was playing with on a Dredd game. Here’s one!

We’ve decided to stop (well, this is more on me than John). Monster Macs has been fun, but much more work than the folklore stories and a bought of illness (I’ve IBS which will flare up occasionally but has recently stolen over a week from me) means we’re (ok, I am) getting much more behind that I would have wanted.

By way of apology, I’ve uploaded a pdf the folklore thursday stories.

We’ll still be looking for a home for monster macs, and, hopefully a publisher interested in investing for us to work on it. 

For now, I just want to say thank you. 

If you download the file, and cancel your patreon you should save yourself a little bit of cash. 

Hopefully you’ll continue to enjoy whatever work John and I put out, you can see me on twitter.

“At last we reveal ourselves to the jedi…”

Here we go, finally we see our bigfoot! Hope it’s been worth the wait!

Hope your xmas was safe & peaceful to, and my gosh I think we deserve a calm and peaceful 2021 (it’s not starting out like it, but fingers crossed, right?)

PAGE NINE

Okay, I think this is a six panel page, but I’m going to leave the exact beats up to you, PJ. I know what the first and last panels should be, but between them, I think I may as well let you see what you think works best.

Panel One

Here we’re outside in the garden, directly behind the hairy creature we’ve just glimpsed through the window. We can see the back of the creature’s head and shoulders and can see Biko’s window ahead and above us / it. The creature is turning its head to one side, so that we can see (a bit of) its profile. It is sniffing the air as if it’s smelled something interesting. You could even do a “Bisto” smell trail, if you think that would work (or not).

One FX.

FX: snff-snff

Panels Two to Five(?)

So, what’s going on here is that our hairy friend has smelled some open snacks which have been left in Biko’s tree-house, which doubles as MACS HQ. Without ever showing the creature fully (definitely not its full face), but showing shots of its hands, feet, etc, I want us to follow its short journey up into the tree-house, sniffing all the way. Shots of the sniffing nose, maybe? Hands and/or feet on the ladder up to the tree-house. The top of the hairy head pushing up through the trapdoor in the floor of the tree-house. I think that what the creature is smelling is a big open bag of Tayto crisps, which we can maybe see in the foreground as the head appears inside the tree-house. Thinking of the ET eating M&Ms riff, but using crisps, basically.  We might even risk a “Yum” from our creature?

Final Panel

We the hairy creature’s foot / ankle is tripping a laser tripwire as they grab the big bag of crisps. I think all we need to do is show the two terminals (or whatever you’d call them) which face each other, rather than an actual laser beam (unless you think a beam being broken would work better visually). Google kids Spy tripwire alarm, and you’ll see what there are loads of them. A little LED on one of the terminals is glowing red, and making a tiny “bip” type noise.

PAGE TEN

Again, I think this is six(ish) panels, but the exact beats are up to you. Dialogue isn’t set in stone if you don’t think there’s room for all of it in the composition you go for.

First Panel

This panel shows the a small light bulb lighting up in the darkness of Biko’s bedroom. I think its probably part of an electronics kits that he’s built himself, so it might be like a breadboard type thing. There’s a handwritten label taped to the contraption which reads INTRUDER ALERT.

Now whether, you want to just show this detail as a panel of its own and then “pull back” to show Biko wakened by the light and the noise, and looking towards the light, is up to you. But that’s what happens; the light and the sound wake Biko and he looks towards the light in shock.

There is one FX from the alarm (not too big / loud) and Biko has two balloons.

FX: bzzz bzzz bzzz

Biko: What the heck…?

Biko: Someone’s in the tree-house!

Panels Three(?) to Five(?)

Okay, we want to get Biko and Fort outside so that Biko can climb up and investigate who is in the tree-house. I don’t know if a straight cut to Biko pushing open the back door of the house works? He has a torch in one hand, the beam cutting through the darkness, but is barefoot in his pyjamas.

Maybe we show him climbing the ladder so that we’re looking down at him, and we can see Fort on the ground below looking up at him/us?

He could have a couple of whispered balloons here.

Biko: Li? Evie?

Biko: Is that you?

Then maybe a panel of the interior of the tree-house, with a bit of our hairy visitor in the foreground all in silhouette, busily munching crisps. Biko is pushing the door of the tree-house open and entering towards us, the beam of his torch not yet on the hairy fella.

Biko: We didn’t say anything about a midnight…

FX: munch crunch munch

Final Panel

This is a reaction shot of Biko’s face (head/shoulders) as his torch finally illuminates the visitor properly. He looks shocked and stunned.

He has one balloon (and maybe the munching continues?)

Biko: …feast…?

GASP! What has Biko found!

You’ll have to wait until after Christmas, I’m afraid – what a cliff hanger…

Thanks for sticking with us through this, the most terrible of years, been enormous fun doing both the folklore comics and moving over to do Monster Macs – every page feels like we’re doing our own saturday morning kids adventure movie and we’re running for an entire year!

Happy xmas all!

Yay! Finally, our hairy friend shows up…  the strong scent of Southern Tayto Crisps (no doubt a special import by Biko’s dad) has enticed him out … 

All the pages in this chapter are in spreads (Eight & Nine, Ten & Eleven, etc)

PAGE EIGHT

This is a seven-panel page, with three tiers; two panels on the top, three across the middle, and two on the bottom. This page is all about under-lighting and side-lighting, I think; the glow of computer screens in darkened bedrooms.

Panel One

This is a shot (fairly close) shot of a zombie in a Fortnite style computer game getting blasted with a weapon. I think it’s a First Person game, like Doom though. Pixelated green blood is splattering out at us.

There is one FX from the blast, and one balloon from off.

FX: BLAMM

Balloon: Die, monster! Die!

Panel Two

We’ve pulled out so that we can see that we’re in Li’s bedroom and he’s playing on his Switch type console. He has a controller in his hands and the Switch is either in its dock so he’s playing on a TV screen, or else he has the little screen propped up somewhere. It’s night now. We can see the starry sky out of a window in the room. Li is wearing pyjamas and is wrapped in his duvet, sitting on or next to his bed. He’s wearing headphones with a mic and is talking as he plays.

Li has two balloons and there are two tailless broadcast balloons showing what he’s hearing in his headphones.

Li: Did you guys seethat?

Balloon 1: Huh? Oh sorry, Li…

Li: Are you even watching?

Balloon 2: I was looking at this thing Fort dropped.

Panel Three

Here we can see Biko in his own darkened bedroom (probably head and shoulders). He’s also wearing a pair of gaming headphones with a mic. He’s holding the whistle in one hand, examining it closely. He’s looking a bit shocked and insulted by what he’s hearing over his headphones.

Biko has two balloons, and there is one tailless broadcast balloon.

Biko:  I reallythink it might be a proper archaeological artefact.  Maybe a–

Balloon (interrupting): *SNORE*

Biko: Hey, there’s no need to be like that!

Panel Four

This is a shot of Evie (head and shoulders again) fast asleep. The headphones she’s been wearing knocked askew. She’s in (or on) her bed. Maybe side-lit by the computer / Switch screen somewhere off panel (or maybe we can see a bit of the Switch on the bed next to her.

There are two tailless broadcast balloons, and one FX from Evie.

Balloon 1: That wasn’t me! I think Evie’s fallen asleep on us again.

Evie: *SNORE*

Balloon 2: Hang on, I’ll mute her.

Panel Five

This is a shot looking past Biko towards his bedroom door. His mum is leaning into the room, holding the door open a crack, and talking to him.

Biko’s mum has one balloon, Biko one, one tailless broadcast.

Mum: Time for bed now, Biko. Say goodnight.

Biko: Oh, I’m going to have to go, Li.

Balloon: Okay, see you tomorrow!

Panel Six

Here we have a wider shot of Biko’s bedroom (more or less from his mum’s POV, I think – she might even be in shot slightly?). Fort needs to be in there snuggled up either on the bottom bed, taking up most of the room, or else maybe in a dog basket under a desk. It either case, in the centre of the panel we have Biko’s bedroom window, which we know faces out on to the garden which borders on to the woods. His curtains are not quite shut, and we can see a bit of of the woods and garden through the gap on them. Standing, looking up at the window, is the same creature with shining eyes we saw on Page Seven. It’s really small here (maybe not even possible to see), but we’re zooming in on the next panel. Biko is putting his headphones on the desk, and heading towards his bed. He’s smiling towards us / his mum.

I think the chapter title goes across the bottom of this (and maybe the next?) panel. But it’s up to you where you think it fits best.

He has one balloon, and she has one in reply.

Biko: Night, mum.

Mum: Night night, son.

Panel Seven

Here we’ve zoomed in on the gap in the curtains so that we can see the mysterious hairy creature looking up at us (thinking of this as very Moomins with the Groke).

There is one balloon from Biko’s mum, off panel.

Mum (off): Don’t let the bedbugs bite.