Bobo's Revenge

PAGE ONE (five panels)

 

Panel 1. A crow, in the middle of a dirt and gravel tract, pecks at a piece of roadkill, dark and glistening. Reflected in its eyes: Sunset over a bucolic, vine-covered countryside. In the distance a skeletal chateau dominates a hill.

 

SFX.

Peck. Peck-peck-peck.

 

Panel 2. A burly man on a moped, dust and exhaust trailing behind, speeds from the shadows along the tract.

 

SFX.

Putt. Putt. Putt. Putt.

 

Panel 3. The crow, startled, flies off, wheeling above the bucolic countryside, the vines, and the skeletal chateau. The moped runs over the dark, glistening thing.

 

SFX.

Splat.

 

Panel 4. The moped putters toward the chateau’s cast-iron archway and the inner courtyard. The crow follows.

 

Panel 5. The crow lands in front of a bright, barred, ground-level window, and peers inside. Reflected in the bird’s eyes is what seems to be, incongruously, an operating room. Hounds, from the courtyard, wail.

 

HOUNDS (op):

Ha-ha-hooowww! Ha-ha-hooowww! Ha-ha-hooowww!

 

 

PAGE TWO (six panels)

 

Panel 1. A mad scientist’s mad laboratory. One wall is lined with gleaming operating tools. Another is packed with vials of elixirs, jars of dubious salves and unguents, drying herbs and ingredients. Along another are cages with cats and kittens, sad eyed and afraid. Madame Musette, a gaunt, elderly woman, a blend of Frankenstein’s bride and Cruella de Vil, in a tight, bloodstained, greenish surgical outfit, black gloves, and welding goggles, is hunched over a glistening, though dented and abused, metal operating table. In the background a crow peers in a window.

 

SFX:

Va-zzzzz! Va-zzzzz! Zzzzzz. Zzzzzz. Zzzzzz.

 

Panel 2. Bone dust and burnt fur smokes around Madame Musette’s gaunt face. Reflected in her goggles is what she’s operating on—a small, unconscious, black kitten—Bobo. He’s splayed across the operating table. Red shackles hold him down. Hovering over him, a hand-held, blood stained, circular saw. It slows to a stop. Blood drips from its teeth.

 

Panel 3. Madame Musette tosses the saw onto a nearby table cluttered with stained instruments.

 

Madame Musette:

When will we meet again? When the hurly burly be done? In the lighting, wind, and rain? Yes, I say. Yes! Yes! Yes!

 

Panel 4. She sweeps up a staple gun and a large syringe filled with a glowing-red liquid.

 

Panel 5. [from overhead] In maniacal jubilation, she thrusts the instruments toward the ceiling. In the background: Bobo splayed; kittens frightened; the amused crow.

 

Madame Musette:

Now let us staple today and tomorrow together!

 

Panel 6. Madame Musette hunches into her work. Sparks, fur, and staples flash and float over her quivering shoulders.

 

Panel 7: The poor cats and kittens in their cages cringe deeper into the shadows.

 

SFX:

Phit. Phit. Phit.

 

SFX:

Thack. Thack. Thack.

 

 

PAGE THREE (four panels)

 

Panel 1. Behind Madame Musette the lab’s door is flung open. Lucien (the man on the moped), a burly, hunched brawler wearing a rugged hunting outfit, looms. Madame Musette doesn’t react. She concentrates on her task, operating on Bobo.

 

SFX:

Phit. Phit. Phit.

 

SFX:

Thack. Thack. Thack.

 

MADAME MUSETTE:

What?

 

Panel 2. Over Lucien’s shoulder, the laboratory and its shelves, the hunched figure of Madame Musette wielding the staple gun and syringe. In the background—outside the window—an explosion of feathers as two hounds pounce on the crow.

 

LUCIEN:

The boys want to hunt.

 

MADAME MUSETTE:

Of course they do. They’re bred, raised, and conditioned to love it.

 

SFX:

Phit. Phit. Phit.

 

SFX:

Thack. Thack. Thack.

 

Panel 3. Lucien grimaces, rubs his arms as Madame Musette exchanges the empty syringe for another. This syringe contains something milky, flecked with gold and crimson.

 

Panel 4. Madame Musette hunkers deeper into her work, growls as Lucien looks on.

 

MADAME MUSETTE:

What, Lucien, do you want?

 

LUCIEN (weak):

The boys want to hunt.

 

MADAME MUSETTE:

And I want--

 

SFX:

Phit. Phit.

 

SFX:

Thack. Thack.

 

SFX:

Phit. Phit.

 

MADAME MUSETTE:

This little shit to live.