Bits & Pieces (Benny Imura 5)

The Complete Comic Book Script

PAGE 1:

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1.

Full page panel. BENNY IMURA, fifteen, sits on a grassy slope as the sun rises. He leans on a sheathed katana.

CAPTION: I’M BENNY IMURA.

CAPTION: MY PARENTS ARE DEAD.

CAPTION: MOST OF THE WORLD’S DEAD.

CAPTION: MY BROTHER TOM’S DEAD TOO.

CAPTION: HE WAS TRAINING ME TO BE LIKE HIM. TO BE A ZOMBIE HUNTER AND A SAMURAI.

CAPTION: HE DIED SAVING A LOT OF PEOPLE. SAVING ME AND MY FRIENDS.

CAPTION: WE COULDN’T GO HOME. BACK TO MOUNTAINSIDE.

CAPTION: WE SAW SOMETHING THAT COULDN’T BE.

CAPTION: A PLANE. WAY HIGH IN THE AIR. A JUMBO JET.

CAPTION: NOW THE FOUR OF US ARE LOOKING FOR IT. ME. MY GIRLFRIEND, NIX. MY BEST FRIEND, CHONG. AND LILAH, A GIRL WE FOUND LIVING WILD IN THE FOREST. FOUR KIDS. FOUR SAMURAI.

CAPTION: KIND OF.

CAPTION: IT’S A BIG WORLD. THAT PLANE COULD BE ANYWHERE. BUT WE HAVE TO FIND IT.

CAPTION: AFTER ALL . . . WHAT ELSE IS THERE?

PAGE 2:

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NOTE: On pages 2–5 there is a slim vertical panel that shows the exact same view of a sword blade held downward so that the tip is nearly touching the ground. In each panel the sword will be increasingly bloody; and in each it will reflect a different image.

Each of the other panels are wide and horizontal, running from the edge of the vertical sword panel across the rest of the page.

1.

Flashback begins. Sword panel. This panel hugs the left side of the page and runs the whole length. The sword blade is clean. In the bright, polished steel we see a reflection of a baby crying.

2.

Flashback continues. We see four members of a family. TOM, twenty, a handsome Japanese-American in a police academy uniform; BENNY, eighteen months, a half-Japanese toddler; MOM, Irish-American and very pretty, wearing a white long-sleeved casual dress; DAD, Japanese, dressed in a police patrol sergeant’s uniform, tie askew. Dad sits on a dining-room chair as Mom bends to examine a bloody bite.

CAPTION: NOBODY KNOWS HOW IT STARTED.

CAPTION: DAD GOT BIT AT WORK. SOME CRAZY HE ARRESTED.

3.

Flashback continues. Dad, semiconscious on the couch, sweating and gray as Mom frets over him.