#old ben

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By Andy Fairhurst of North Wales, United Kingdom
(via @GeeksNGamers) 

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(Do ya need any help?) No help wanted.
(Do ya need any help?) No help wanted.
(Do ya need any help? Do ya need any help?)
I can handle this job all by myself!
—“No Help Wanted,” The Carlisles (1952)

It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’
#19 - Freeside III

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Notes / Original Pencils / Transcript:

Notes

Hi! This issue went through some pretty significant revisions over time, so I figure it’ll be fun to go over them real quick so you can get a glimpse into the writing and scripting process behind the scenes.

When this issue was originally scripted, Agnes would have lost the caps needed to get to Vegas in a much “nicer” way. As she took the money from Garret, he would lament that Agnes wouldn’t be around to do more work for her because he was hoping she would help shake down a few debtors of his around Freeside (a reference to the in-game quest “Debt Collector”). Then he would mention that without her, he’ll have to use the Wrangler’s usual bounty hunter, who’s a lot more trigger-happy and tends to collect debts in blood instead of caps. From there, the final page of the issue would have been the same, with Agnes being cagey about why she doesn’t have the money for Cass and the implication being Agnes paid off those debts out of the goodness of her heart.

This was very wisely rewritten for several reasons. The first is that the gesture was uncharacteristically altruistic of Agnes: she’d probably be disturbed by Garret’s flippant ruthlessness, but it’s ultimately not her problem and she doesn’t even know these people. Furthermore, she slaughtered the Khans in Boulder City because one of them merely helped Benny shoot her. I can’t imagine her putting off her pursuit of Benny just so she could do something nice. The second reason is that the original angle was extraordinarily boring, as I’m sure your eyes almost glazed over reading that first paragraph. It’s mostly just Garret talking to himself, and Agnes suddenly deciding she cares for no good reason. And that, the no good reason, is the third reason I rewrote the issue. It’s important that Agnes and Cass don’t have enough to get to Vegas, so finding the right excuse was thematically crucial.

So I thought of the rewrite, where Agnes blows up at Garret for being a creep towards her instead. The emotional rise of her indignation boiling over and getting the better of her while she’s talked down to and objectified by Garret as he holds the purse strings was waymore suspenseful and interesting, and of course her deciding to punch him out and walk is a much more compelling sacrifice and character moment than the original script’s random act of kindness. This new script also manages to foreground her transness in a way I prefer to never pass up (and believe me, I’ve gotten more than a few James Garrets in my Twitter DMs in my time).

The tricky part about the new script was adequately conveying what happened without showing it, because the smash cut to the outside of the Wrangler is a lot more effective than showing the actual attack.  It’s a somber, frustrating, miserable moment for Agnes, by the end of the issue the momentary catharsis of cleaning Garret’s clock is already gone, so omitting the image of the punch itself is intentional. In the first rewrite, Agnes was even morecagey about what happened in the Wrangler, but too little detail and it sounded like she just murdered him. Having Agnes state that she doesn’t want to take money from him, and coloring a little blood on her knuckles, lets it read better without holding the hand too much.

So never let it be said that the first draft is always the best draft…I find myself rereading my master script document often and making changes and revisions where they’re needed, especially since so many scripts like this one are written a very long time in advance.

On a lighter note, it’s good to be back! It’s been so long since I’ve completely drawn and colored an issue myself that I worried about whether I could still handle it. Really happy with how this issue came out, so I think I certainly still can. And more are on the way!

Also, the old Mexican woman in the group shot on the second page is Emilia Vasquez, a character created by @socksual-innuendos​​ who would absolutely be chatting up Beatrix Russell in this or any given canon. It’s hard to work in cameo appearances like this because of how few group shots normally come up in IKROAH, but we’ll be in Freeside a while yet so maybe we’ll get more yet.

Original Pencils (click for full size)

This was a reallyfun issue to pencil. The layout was simple but really gave me a lot to work with in terms of pose and expression, and it gave me the opportunity for a rare crowd shot where I get to draw a bunch of different characters at once. There’s also a lot of close-ups, especially on the second page, where I got to flex more of my technical drawing ability (look at Agnes’ teeth! That whole sequence was just “fun with render distance”). You can see a few spots where I left myself blanks to Frankenstein complete panels together later, on the pages where repetition was artistically important. That’s the one thing really tricky about drawing in pencil on paper…there’s no copy-and-pasting and no layering. Everything’s gotta be as-is, so I plan ahead for what I can do digitally.

I also neglected a lot of detailed backgrounds in this issue intentionally. Inspired by Shrimp’s lovely guest art on the previous issue, I wanted to experiment with much more pop-art backgrounds that are more of an “abstract compositional artistic gestalt” on the page as opposed to every panel being a realistic camera-shot. In short, that meant I was fooling around with the juxtaposition of different colors to convey mood, and was more concerned with looking interesting as opposed to looking realistic and deep. Whether to draw the entire background as-is is something I always deliberate on with each panel because there’s a nagging part of me that thinks gradient or simple backgrounds is a lazy cop-out (and sometimes it can be) but I really like how I utilized the colored backgrounds here, especially with how they complement the tone shift on the third page, which doesn’t have the pop-color backgrounds at all.

Transcript

INT. THE ATOMIC WRANGLERCASINO,a dimly-lit dive where one half of its sibling proprietorship JAMES GARRETis behind the bar, grinning wide.

JAMES:Hey!There’smy favorite headhunter! You get the talent I asked for?

In front of the bar is AGNES SANDS, hands in her pockets, head turned back towards three people—well, two people and one robot—behind her. They are OLD BEN, the ghoul BEATRIX RUSSELL, and FISTO.

OLD BEN: Hello.

BEATRIX:Hiya.

FISTO:NEW USER WARRANTY AGREEMENTS ARE AVAILABLE.

FISTO looms over AGNES as GARRET continues.

JAMES: Thank God. If we didn’t get that sexbotbefore long, management would have been terriblyupset.

AGNES:Aren’tyoumanagement?

JAMES:Well, yes, but what I meanis that it’s bad for business to not be meeting my needs.Speakingas management, I mean. My need to meet the needs of our clientele.

AGNES:…right. Just pay me.

JAMES:Of course, of course.

Beat. JAMES keeps grinning, eyeing AGNES while she awkwardly waits.

AGNES:Well?

JAMES:You know, I’ve been thinking—you’ve alreadygone through the trouble of recruiting some veryspecial talent for the Wrangler…and in the process, I just couldn’t help but notice yourparticular…talents.

As JAMES continues his pitch, AGNES realizes where he’s going with this. He’d better not be going where she thinks he’s going with this.

JAMES:I mean—a leather domme, an old smooth talker, and, uh, Fisto…as you can see, we get a lot of nicherequests—

He’s going there. AGNES interrupts, seething.

AGNES:Give. Me. My money. James.

JAMES:Listen, what I’m trying to say is that if you need money, there’s a lot more I'd—that is, you could be making here.

JAMES continues, oblivious to AGNES’ mounting offense.

JAMES:I’m telling you Agnes, there’s a lucrativelocal market here for just the kind of experience that youcan provide! Believe me, I’d know. You’re a little dinged up, and older, to be fair, so we’re not talking premiumrates or anything…but you stillwouldn’t believe what people would pay here for just fifteen minuteswith a—

EXT. ATOMIC WRANGLER, nighttime. Neon signs and streetlights bask the streets of FREESIDE in a warm gold glow. ROSE OF SHARON CASSIDY leans against a streetlight pole just outside the casino.

After a moment, AGNES exits the Wrangler.

CASS:Took you long enough. I wanna get out of here and see the strip already.

AGNES continues trudging past CASS, into the empty street.

AGNES:Come on. I don’t have the money.

CASS:What!?What do you mean you don’t, did that asshole not payus?

AGNES rubs her knuckles, a chunky bloodstain already fading from her right leather glove.

AGNES: No. And he’s not goingto. And I don’t want him to. We’ll have to get the money somewhere else, that’s all.

AGNES continues her march away from the Wrangler while CASS remains against the streetlight pole, aghast.

CASS:Somewhere else…? Agnes!…but then how are we—Agnes! Agnes, god damn it, what did you do?Goddamnit!