Transcript
Evil Inc by Brad Guigar
Jan. 21, 2025
Panel 1:
A building labeled "FNN" (Fairmount News Network) is shown with a banner displaying the network's logo. A yellow narration box reads:
Narration: "You’d never know it, but the Fairmount News Network is in chaos."
Panel 2:
Inside an office with multiple desks, workers look panicked and distressed. Some hold their heads, others gesture as if shouting, and a security guard seems trapped. Speech bubbles are empty.
Narration: "Inside: panic, pain, and pandemonium... without a peep!"
Narration: "Workers are trapped at their desks, unable to phone for help."
Narration: "Security guards are stuck inside invisible constraints."
Panel 3:
A dramatic reveal shows a mime in a black beret, striped shirt, and suspenders stepping forward with a menacing pose. A large caption introduces him:
Narration: "Presently, the menace behind the mayhem steps out of the shadows..."
Large Text: "The ANTI-VOXXER"
Footnote: "Note: 'Vox' is Latin for 'voice.'"
Panel 4:
The newsroom set is shown with anchors being blown away by a mysterious indoor wind, while the mime approaches.
Narration: "A mysterious indoor wind blows the anchors away from the news desk as he approaches!"
Narration: "He has the rapt attention of the city — and the nation!"
Panel 5:
The Anti-Voxxer gestures dramatically while holding a piece of paper. On-screen text identifies the situation.
Narration: "There have been better-thought-out schemes..."
Breaking News Caption: "BREAKING: EVIL MIME HIJACKS STUDIO - DELIVERS MANIFESTO ON AIR"
Time Stamp: "1:35 P.M."
Tales of the Black Freighter Redux
This belongs directly under the heading of “Why didn’t I think of that?”
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ComicBookResources]
“The kid reading the pirate comic at the newsstand” is one of Dave Gibbons’ most famous images from “Watchmen,” yet the “Tales of the Black Freighter” portions themselves are rarely discussed. Naturally, due to Moore’s scheme of juxtaposing only short passages against the larger story of “Watchmen,” the pirate tale is generally thought of as a powerful narrative device; a comic-within-a-comic, but not really a remarkable story in its own right.
Well, just when you thought there was nothing left to say about “Watchmen,” … Oakland, California’s Steven Johnson … excavated and reassembled all that exists of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ “Tales Of The Black Freighter: Marooned” into a complete and uninterrupted narrative on the Web. Read more.Johnson’s work can be read
here. He imagines how that story would have been told in its entirely. He uses only the relevent panels from “Watchmen” — with the non-relevant dialogue removed. Said Johnson, “”Dave Gibbons did spectacular work and I can’t even begin to guess what he’d put in the ‘missing’ panels.” Those panels are blank with text only.
I don’t know writer Alan Moore’s reaction, but Dave Gibbons wrote Johnson to say “nice work.”
Indeed.
