As you can see from the script below, we didn’t (well, I didn’t) originally intend to give John an actual dead eye. Had that been the intention from the beginning, I probably would have named the comic something else.
The comic, incidentally, was supposed to be “Deadies,” just like the online series would have been, and had that name stuck I’m sure I would have played a lot more with the epithet than I wound up doing. But while this series was in development, some goth musician/cartoonist announced plans to do a comic about his teddy bear called “Deady,” a kind of Johnen Vasquez rip, and Dan thought it would be best if we didn’t use essentially the same name. So thanks to “Voltaire,” we had to rename the book. This was on a shortlist along with “The Sleepless” and — something else, memory fails.
Five years later, I’m married and my wife was a big Voltaire fan back in her fishnets and eye makeup days. She might have even read “Deady.” Life’s a funny thing.
At any rate: the dead eye was our initial workaround for John Requin’s “I’m dead!” shorthand. As the series wore on, we began to notice that most of the recently deceased in this world sported some sort of facial deformity or scar. If you do a rough poll of all the people you’ve ever known that died, most — a healthy majority, I hope — have died without any sort of visible scars. Not so in Dead Eyes Open! Our dead seem to have succumbed to an endless array of knife and shishkabab skewer accidents. You’ll see more of them soon.
Tomorrow: more tricks for drawing the dead!
Ambiance: We're down the rabbit hole. We're off the rails. John's an undead family therapist and the world is totally goddamn nuts.
PANEL ONE
JOHN is standing by his desk, alone in the room. There is a shaft of light falling across the desk – from slightly parted curtains – that he will step into momentarily.
JOHN
(sigh)
PANEL TWO
JOHN is pushing an intercom button on his phone. His body language is weary, resigned. It's been a bad day. We can focus on his arm and hand if you want to save the face for panel three.
JOHN
Mrs. Haliburton, please cancel everyone this afternoon.
INTERCOM
Are you all right, doctor?
PANEL THREE
SPLASHY panel of JOHN. He's dead. He's been dead for four or five days, and while he's been doing his best to keep himself together – cold rooms, icing himself, etcetera – there's still some greenish tinges and rot setting in around the edges. We need to keep him fairly intact (he's going to “live” for 5-6 years, don't forget), so don't make him too oogy boogy rotty undeady, but he needs to be obviously and creepily pretty damn dead.
JOHN
Just feeling a little run down.
CAPTION
DEADIES: CHAPTER ONE
“Dead And Hating It”
Writer: Matthew Shepherd Artist: Roy Boney, Jr.
