The Faust Family Chapter 1

[nolan]

Here are the first two pages of the first chapter of The Faust Family.

The first page is going to be a title page that goes before every chapter. I really think its a great thing, especially for a project like this where the family relations are both important and too complicated to deal with in exposition.

The first chapter is 9 pages, the rest will be coming soon.

One more thing, i have a LEGAL copyright on this. If you rip me off, not only will you get kicked off the board as per our "no ripping people off" policy, ill take you to court.




THE FAUST FAMILY
By
Nolan J. Werner



PAGE ONE
I am going to be giving some detailed information about the layout of this page. I expect to rarely have to do this for any other pages and certainly not to this level of detail. This page is going to be at the start of each chapter of the story. If the series goes in to individual issues, it will be before each issue.

Seven Panels on this page.

Panel one is at the top.
Panels two and four are below panel one in two columns.
Panels three and five are below panels two and four.

There is a line going from panel one to panel two to panel three.
There is also another line going from panel one to panel four to panel five.

This is the Faust Family tree so we need to get the relations right. Andreas Faust is married to Hisa-me and Urania. His son with Hisa-me is James. His daughter with Urania is Katherine.

The other two panels are on the left side of the page.

PANEL ONE
A picture of Andreas Faust at his desk. The sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled up to the elbows and he is drawing something.

Andreas is in his mid-forties. Once roguishly handsome, he has acquired a distinguished look with age. His hair is mostly dark but there is some gray coming in. His frame is fairly thin and he is of average height. Look at Aidan Gillen as the model for Andreas Faust, maybe with a bit of Peter Sellers in there too.

CAPTION: This is Andreas Faust. Former Race Car Driver and sports car designer.


PANEL TWO
A picture of Hisa-me Faust. She is sitting in a chair, behind her is the face of a person talking.

Hisa-me is an Asian-American woman in her early forties. Her hair is about shoulder length and loose. She is wearing a conservative business suit. She is a fairly plain looking woman. She also has a tail like a monkey that is lying across her waist. For a model, look at Michelle Yeoh.

CAPTION: His wife Hisa-me Faust, metahuman therapist.


PANEL THREE
A picture of James Faust. He is standing next to a surfboard and posing.

James is fifteen years old, he’s half-Asian, the son of Andreas and Hisa-me. Tall, athletic and extremely handsome, he is the guy every guy wants to be and every girl wants to be with.

CAPTION: His son James Faust, extreme sports athlete and model.


PANEL FOUR
A picture of Urania Faust. She is pointing to a board filled with text and lecturing before a college classroom.

Urania is in her early forties. She is fairly attractive for her age. She is Greek-American with olive skin and dark wavy hair. Her hair goes a few inches past her shoulders. She also has stylish glasses. She is wearing a dark sweatshirt and a long skirt. For a look for Urania look at Bex Schwartz or Nia Vardalos (though her hair should be darker).

CAPTION: His other wife, Urania Faust, herpetologist.


PANEL FIVE
A picture of Katharine Faust. A really dramatic mid-angle camera shot of her crying. Put a little network logo with my initials (NJW) in the corner.

Katherine is fifteen years old. She is of average height and build. She has glasses but she isn’t wearing them in this panel (but for the ones where she isn’t on television, she will be wearing them). She has really big frizzy dark hair but, in this panel, her hair is immaculately coifed to be messy. Look at Alia Shawkat in Arrested Development for a model of what I want Katherine to look like, particularly in the early episodes when she had really big hair. Also look at Fleur Saville in Being Eve for the kind of nerdy hotness I want.

CAPTION: His daughter Katherine Faust, former television star.


PANEL SIX
A picture of Faust Manor. It is a large mansion built in the later part of the nineteenth century. The only modern things around it are a car in the parking lot and a satellite dish on the roof. Make this as creepy looking as possible, give it a few ghosts too (because there will be ghosts).

CAPTION: They all live together in a haunted mansion.


PANEL SEVEN
A picture of the Faust Sigils.
They are five metal medallions that can be placed on the skin of any member of the family and they give them special powers. When placed on the skin, they attach and form something that looks like a tattoo. A caption will go next to each sigil so give them some room.

CAPTION: These are the five Faust Sigils.
CAPTION: Strength.
CAPTION: Speed.
CAPTION: Flight.
CAPTION: Invulnerability.
CAPTION: Water Breathing.









PAGE TWO

Five Panels. Panel Five is the main focus and should take up the majority of the page.

PANEL ONE
Katherine Faust reacts with astonishment to winning an award. Her hair is up in a big bun with some of it going all over. She has glasses in this panel. She is wearing some ridiculous looking celebrity designed dress, like you couldn’t go too over the top with this.

ANNOUNCER: And the winner is Katherine Faust for Ellie Graham.


PANEL TWO
Katherine walks up to the stage as the audience is clapping.


PANEL THREE
Katherine takes the award from the presenter.

KATHERINE: Thank you.


PANEL FOUR
Close up on Katherine’s face. She looks very serious.

KATHERINE: And now I have something very serious to say.
KATHERINE: Don’t try to change your cut me off, the system has been hacked and you will not be able to.


PANEL FIVE
Katherine continues her political speech. She stays calm throughout the speech.

KATHERINE: We stand at the crossroad of metahuman/human relations. And it is up to you to decide what the future will be. Will we be your friends or your enemies? Whatever you decide, we will not be used as your weapons of war. If you want to continue down this path be warned that you can not win without becoming as terrible as those you claim as the enemies you would sacrifice us to fight. We want to simply live in peace and varying degrees of autonomy and assimilation. If you do force us to use violence please remember that we have a good idea of who you are and you have no idea who we are. If your leaders back us in to a corner where we are forced to use violence, we will go down the chain of command until we find someone who will allow us to live in peace. Please don’t make us do this because we want this to be a stepping stone forward and without bloodshed. Thank you.

[davidaccampo]

Nolan,

It's hard to comment too much with just two pages -- most of this will all depend on where you go with the actual story.

The family set-up seems cool...similar to stuff we've seen before. I like the "other wife" but it worries me that that will become a soapbox issue about polygamy. If the subject is treated like a show like Big Love, where it's just about the characters, then that's fine. But here...I'll be curious to see how it serves the story.

We get most of the concept from the speech at the end of page two. I get shades of the Authority from the speech. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I'll be curious to see how you play it out.

it also reminds me a bit of the current TV show, The 4400, where altered humans are brought back to society. It's all about whether you integrate them, put them in concentration camps, isolate them, etc. And when they start to organize and flex their power...this is what could happen.

Small thing, but...I remember when DC first started usign the term "metahuman." Seemed like they were trying to coin a phrase to be different from marvel, who was using terms like mutant and possible super-human. Ellis distinguished from this by calling them post-humans in Stormwatch and Authority.

So while I doubt anyone has "metahuman" trademarked, you may want to consider giving the methumans their own special name or nickname in your world.

Dave

[nolan]

davidaccampo said:

Nolan,

It's hard to comment too much with just two pages -- most of this will all depend on where you go with the actual story.

The family set-up seems cool...similar to stuff we've seen before. I like the "other wife" but it worries me that that will become a soapbox issue about polygamy. If the subject is treated like a show like Big Love, where it's just about the characters, then that's fine. But here...I'll be curious to see how it serves the story.

We get most of the concept from the speech at the end of page two. I get shades of the Authority from the speech. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I'll be curious to see how you play it out.

it also reminds me a bit of the current TV show, The 4400, where altered humans are brought back to society. It's all about whether you integrate them, put them in concentration camps, isolate them, etc. And when they start to organize and flex their power...this is what could happen.

Small thing, but...I remember when DC first started usign the term "metahuman." Seemed like they were trying to coin a phrase to be different from marvel, who was using terms like mutant and possible super-human. Ellis distinguished from this by calling them post-humans in Stormwatch and Authority.

So while I doubt anyone has "metahuman" trademarked, you may want to consider giving the methumans their own special name or nickname in your world.

Dave

I cant find metahuman trademarked but you bring up a good point. I will try to find another term.


See, I had this idea thought up before I even knew HBO had Big Love in development.

Besides the genre, there is a substantial difference in how things are handled. Andreas Faust does nothing to hide the fact that he has two wives while Bill Henrikson goes to all kinds of lengths to do so.

In addition, Big Love is set in Salt Lake City where polygamy has a huge stigma. The Fausts live somewhere else (though i never really say where) so there's less of the huge 'its a black mark on all of us' stigma.


Regarding the integration thing, I'm trying to point out that not everyone even wants to be a superhero. Katherine Faust was a TV star (star of a show like Lizzie McGuire) until she got in trouble for uh...saying people would get assassinated. And just wait until you see her response to it.

And its in the backdrop of this action that the story really takes place. And it deals a lot with the class conflicts too.

[nolan]

Pages Three and Four (of Nine)



The Faust Family

PAGE THREE

Splash page.

Mock up of a magazine page.

The bottom right hand corner reads "Graham's Periodical."
The page number in the middle has a dash on each side of the number. The page number is 62.
The right side of the page has a thin banner that reads "Hanoi Kate."

Katherine appears underneath a shapeless burqaa with a mesh veil over her face. She has the word "Whore" painted across the front of it. Not silkscreened either, painted roughly, kind of Riot Grrl style.

There is also a little cartoon image of Jesus, make him look as stereotypically Jewish as you can. And he is saying a caption that says, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." And it cites "John 8:7."

This is like the biggest middle finger she could give people for criticizing her so make it as outrageous as you can.






PAGE FOUR

PANEL ONE

Katherine sits in class staring off in to space. She is wearing a board school uniform with a skirt, blazer and tie.

CAPTION: Buggerton Academy.

CAPTION: Six Months Later.


PANEL TWO
Small inset panel.

A cell phone buzzes. The phone is inside a purse next to Katherine's leg.

SFX: BUZZZ!!!


PANEL THREE
Katherine reaches down to look at her pager.


PANEL FOUR
Small inset panel.

Text message on the phone screen. "COME HOME. MOM."


PANEL FIVE
Katherine raises her hand.

KATHERINE: Mister Paulsen, I need to leave.

MR. PAULSEN (OFF PANEL): Our little celebrity feels too important to learn about Oscar Wilde?

KATHERINE: Well your interpretation of the work glossed over much of the homoerotic subtext and you know that I'll get the best grade in lass on the examination. At this point, why do you ever bother?


PANEL SIX
Katherine is getting up from her seat. She is brushing down her skirt.

KATHERINE: So...


PANEL SEVEN
Katherine is heading out the door of the classroom.

KATHERINE: Ciao.

[davidaccampo]

nolan said:

I cant find metahuman trademarked but you bring up a good point. I will try to find another term.


See, I had this idea thought up before I even knew HBO had Big Love in development.

Besides the genre, there is a substantial difference in how things are handled. Andreas Faust does nothing to hide the fact that he has two wives while Bill Henrikson goes to all kinds of lengths to do so.

In addition, Big Love is set in Salt Lake City where polygamy has a huge stigma. The Fausts live somewhere else (though i never really say where) so there's less of the huge 'its a black mark on all of us' stigma.


Regarding the integration thing, I'm trying to point out that not everyone even wants to be a superhero. Katherine Faust was a TV star (star of a show like Lizzie McGuire) until she got in trouble for uh...saying people would get assassinated. And just wait until you see her response to it.

And its in the backdrop of this action that the story really takes place. And it deals a lot with the class conflicts too.

I doubt "metahuman" is trademarked, but I thoguht I'd mention it to give you a chance to come up with your own unique nickname, the way Ellis coined "post-humans."

I do see the difference between your story and Big Love from story and genre, but the idea I'm trying to get at is that both Big Love and your story will hopefully deal with the polygamy as a function of hte characters, and not just a soapbox -- trying to be controversial for the sake of it, for example.

That said, I like the idea that you may be springing off of here. Once you accept that you're a metahuman, maybe normal human rules don't apply the same way. Maybe this is their springboard to examine culture and create their own rules. This has been touched on in books like X-men or shows like The 4400, but to center it around a Fantastic Four-like "Royal Family" could be a unique use.

I'll read through the next couple of pages this weekend...

Dave

[nolan]

I think I'm going to actually delete this thread and repost all 9 of the pages when I have them finished.

I'll put your comments in the second post.

I'm not sure a few pages at a time is working.