Sneak Preview: Cured – Script

As part of having this new site, I’m going to be using the blog to give you sneak previews of upcoming Split Lip stories. These will be script excerpts, sketches, and finished panels.

Check the site every Thursday for a glimpse into the future of our stories.

This week, I’ve got a script excerpt from an upcoming story called “Cured.” It’s being drawn by Erik Rose, whose work you may know from Image’s serial killer mini The Roberts from a year or two back.

Excerpt from Page 1

1/ A large slab of meat hangs from a hook. Though it’s skinned and sectioned as we’d expect, we’re not in a refrigerated room or slaughterhouse. Rather, we’re in a dimly lit barn. A few overhead lights provide sparse illumination for the room. There are a couple of empty hooks on the wall next to the slab.

A few police officers wearing long sleeves and warm jackets are milling around the barn (it’s fall, not yet winter, but cold enough). Some pull crime scene tape across doorways, others mark off areas with cones for later inspection, two or three cops closely inspect the slab of meat. A YOUNG COP, maybe 23, with sandy hair and a thin frame, is behind the meat, gingerly touching it, as KARLSON, an older cop (beefier, mustachioed), orders him around.

KARLSON: ??????????? ??????????? ??????????? ??????????? ??????????? SPIN THAT AROUND, HEY?

2/ As the YOUNG COP turns the slab around, a shocked, horrified look comes over KARLSON’s face.

KARLSON:??????????? ??????????? ??????????? ??????????? ??????????? SWEET JESUS CHIRST!

3/ Close in on the slab of meat. We can see what spooked Karlson: the slab is a human torso. We’re looking at a man’s arm ? there’s no skin on it (but its shape is obvious), the hand is still on it, and it’s got fingernails.