REEFER MADNESS!

A narcotic nightmare Tharg’s Terror Tale by GORDON RENNIE & FRAZER IRVING

PAGE ONE

PANEL 1

Open on INT. A DARKENED OFFICE, possibly even a crypt-like version of the Nerve Centre. CRYPTKEEPER THARG – a cadaverous zombie-like version of everyone’s favourite Betelgeusian comic editor – sits stiffly at a desk, addressing us in an old-fashioned public information film kind of way.

PANEL 2

In close on Tharg as he holds something up to us, holding it carefully between his fingers in a clinical, kind of way. The Mighty One, with a doobie? It would never happen back in the good old days of IPC…

PANEL 3

In closer on The Mighty One’s rot-ravaged features as he looks out the page at us in dire warning. [Maybe do this panel inset to the next one, with Tharg’s speech balloons here bleeding over into there.]

PANEL 4

Big busy panel, with big loud garish title. We see LOTS OF FLESH-CRAZED HOPHEAD MANIACS on the loose, chasing and munching on college jocks, cops and screaming (and, of course, half-naked) college co-ed girls, cheerleaders etc. Whole scene looks like the poster image of an old Roger Corman teen-horror beach-party movie. ‘Co-Ed Kooks Go Drug-Fiend Schitzo’, or something…

TITLE CAP ….REEFER MADNESS!

PAGE TWO

PANEL 1

Cut to establishing shot –EXT. COLLEGE FRAT HOUSE – NIGHT. A party in full swing, with light from every window. Like everything else in this story, there’s a real 1950s Americana look to everything to match the 50s moral panic/EC Comics vibe to this story, but it’s not supposed to be specifically set then.

PANEL 2

Cut to INT. A DORM BEDROOM. Bunch of kids sitting around drinking beer, making out, listening to music etc. Captions in this panel all point at various things round the room. These are: Cap 1 – a Hendrix/Zappa/Marley/whoever poster on the wall. Cap 2 – the stereo blasting out music. [Fraze – put a few suitable lyrics in here, if you want]. Cap 3 – A CND/yin-yang poster on the wall.

PANEL 3

On one of the college kids – an older hippie type [self-portrait, Fraze?] – peaceably offering a joint to a trio of young, impressionable freshers who are all wide-eyed and innocent-looking in a real ‘gee gooly whizz’ kind of way.

PANEL 4

On one of the kids, taking a big hit on the joint. His friends watch with nervous excitement.

PANEL 5

On the kid, looking distinctly queasy and green around the gills after his first hit on a joint.

CONTINUED/

PANEL 6

In closer. Kid is turning away, hunched up, or with his hands to his face. Either way, we can’t see his face. He’s shaking uncontrollably as (unknown to the readers) he goes into the first stages of Reefer Madness transformation. One of his friends, concerned, lays a comforting hand on him.

PANEL 7

The kid suddenly rears up, TRANSFORMED INTO A DROOLING, FRESH-CRAZED REEFER MADNESS MANIAC, and sinks his teeth into the friend’s throat, ripping it out.

PAGE THREE

PANEL 1

The Reefer Maniac goes in the rampage, tearing into the next nearest victim. We can see other people in the room going through a similar near-instantaneous transformation. The stoner hippie watches all this, joint in hand, too stoned to do much about it.

PANEL 2

On the hippie, as the drooling still-hungry Reefer Maniacs close in on him. It finally occurs to the guy that he might be in trouble here. He holds a bong up to them a sort of peace offering.

PANEL 3

The hippie’s POV – the circle of blood-crazed Reefer Maniacs closing in on him.

PANEL 4

They fall upon him as one, ripping him to shreds.

PANEL 5

Ominous shot of the glowing-eyed Reefer Maniacs, hunched over the remains of their kill and gnawing hungrily on it.

PANEL 6

Cut to CORRIDOR OUTSIDE, short time later. The Reefer Maniacs (and, magically, there seem to be more of them ever time we see them) on the loose and attacking the other party-goers. Again with the college jocks and screaming half (or wholly) naked co-eds, Frazer.

PAGES FOUR & FIVE

PANEL 1

One of the Manaics chasing a nubile co-ed girl down the stairs towards the front door. For reasons strictly necessary to the plot, she’s either in bra and panties or has just come out of the shower and is clutching a miniscule towel around herself.

PANEL 2

Cut to EXT. THE HOUSE. BUNCH OF COPS running towards the building just as the girl and the Maniac come running out the front door towards them. The cops are led by a Chief Wiggum-like POLICE CHIEF. The Police Chief points urgently at the scene.

PANEL 3

The cops open fire on command, messily blowing away both the Maniac and the girl in an indiscriminate hail of bullets and shotgun blasts.

PANEL 4

On one of the Maniacs, running in panic as he is pursued by a bunch of gun-toting cops, and we can’t help notice that he SEEMS TO BE DISINTEGRATING, turning to dust as he runs.

PANEL 5

Actually a SEQUENCE OF PANELS. Break it up as you see fit, Frazer. Bullets punch into the Maniac, even as he seems to disintegrate away into dust. In a matter of seconds, he’s gone, his empty bullet-riddled clothes falling to the ground as what’s left of him drifts away in a cloud of dust. We GO IN CLOSE on the drifting, dispersing cloud and see it for what it really is. Not dust. SEED SPORES.

CONTINUED/

PANEL 6

On the cops, watching the cloud of spores dispersing into the air.

PANEL 7

Again, SEQUENCE OF PANELS. Again, break it up as you see fit, Frazer. The spores drifting on the wind, some of them falling to the ground in a forest somewhere. Time passes. (Maybe vary the weather/seasons here.) Then we see SMALL SHOOTS pushing through the ground. Next panel – they’re developing into a familiar-looking plant type. Next panel – a thriving crop of marijuana plants growing wild in the woods. LETTERING - and then, from off-panel…

PANEL 8

On a group of innocent-looking college kids who have discovered the crop. One of them – older, very similar to the hippie type from the earlier party scene – has plucked one of the leaves and is giving it an expert dopehead analysis, either smelling it or running it expertly between his fingers.

PANEL 9

Cut back to Cryptkeeper Tharg, cackling madly out the panel at us. Except now he’s also Deadhead Tharg, wearing tye-dye T-shirt and bandanna (or whatever) and giving us a two-fingered peace sign. (Tempted to give him a big smoking joint in his other hand, or at least tucked into his headband, or whatever, but I figure there’s probably limits.)

THE END