(There is more coming about whisky, by the way. Bear with me.)

Page 1:

Panel 1: Split this page in two, horizontally. The top half of the page is moorland, ending in a clifftop, a single tree sitting to left of the shot. Knock the whole panel out to bleed. It’s a bright, sunny day, birds wheeling in the sky overhead, and the whole scene, if this were in colour, would be lush and green. The tree is verdant, spreading and very, very alive, if somewhat bent by years of the prevailing wind off the sea.

Panel 2: Exactly the same shot, except that this time, the sky is slate grey, and the whole scene is *dead* Not so much as a blade of grass is growing, and our tree is very dead, and very very scary, and monstrous, skeletal thing, like the hand of some maleficent god reaching out of the earth.

In the border between the two panels (make if thicker for the purpose) we’ve got our title: EARTH DIED SCREAMING.

Page 2:

Panel 1: A study in disarray, viewed from the door. Papers are strewn everywhere over the desk, over the floor between us and the desk, books are disarrayed on the shelves, a burea in one corner has all its drawers open, more papers poking out. The desk is a huge old mahogany affair, with a backboard that completely prevents us us from seeing one corner of the room behind it – the chair is off at an angle from it’s proper position where it would be facing us across the desk. Behind the desk, half visible behind the blackboard is a large window, looking out that the skyline we saw in panel 1.

VOICE (off): JOHN DIALS, I SWEAR YOU ARE THE MOST DAMNABLE CREATURE.

Panel 2: Same POV but a head sticks up from behind the desk. Mid-thirties, hair about two inches too long, and looking the owner has just stuck his fingers in a lightsocket. Slightly overdone Edwardian fashion, the tie/cravat disordered and the top button unfastened. Goatee beard, surprisingly neatly kept. This is someone that could look very presentable indeed if they bothered, but they don’t, generally.

DIALS: WHAT WAS THAT, EMILY DEAR?

Panel 3: A shot from a corner of the room – a three-quarters shot past Dials, allowing us to see Emily for the first time. Emily’s dressed in a fairly fetishistic version of Edwardian garb. Don’t overdo it – this is her everyday wear, but at the same time, she’d not someone who would blend in on the street, even in this era.

EMILY: I HAD THE SERVANTS TIDY THIS ROOM JUST YESTERDAY, AND LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE.

DIALS: IS THAT WHY I CAN’T FIND ANYTHING? HAVE YOU SEEN THAT PAPER THAT AUSTIN SENT UP THE OTHER DAY?

Panel 4: Emily points to a piece of paper midway between them, on the floor, as Dials strides round from behind the desk.

EMILY: IS THAT IT?

Panel 5: Dials stoops to pick it up.

DIALS: WHY, YES, IT IS. I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’D DO WITHOUT YOU, MY LOVE.

EMILY: FLOUNDER HOPELESSLY, I’M SURE. HAVE YOU MADE ANY PROGRESS?

Page 3:

With the exception of the first ballon, all the dialogue on this page is voice-over ballons, no tails.

Panel 1: A shot past Dials, looking more clearly out of the window we can just see a bit of Dials face. The scene out of the window has changed slightly, though – instead of the afternoon view, we’re looking at night time now, the tree visible against the moon. There are some leaves on it, because this is before the horror – but it’s autumn so they’re sparse, and we can some get “scary tree” value out of it. There are three figures running up the hill toward it, just ahead of a mob, the frontrunners of which are visible at the the very bottom/front of the panel.

DIALS: YES, I BELIEVE SO. WITH AUSTIN’S HELP, I’VE TRACKED DOWN SOME LOCAL HISTORY ABOUT THE BONE TREE.

Panel 2: Move past Dials, for a high shot, over the heads of the mob (pitchforks and torches, please – I want a proper lynch mob…) so we can see the three of them, huddled together backs to the tree. One of the women looks terrified, the other furious, and the bloke looks curiously calm. I think it might be worth keeping just a small part of the window in shot – a corner of frame, of some of the lead in the panes, or something.

DIALS: IT SEEMS THAT ABOUT A CENTURY AGO, THREE PEOPLE WERE KILLED THERE. TWO WOMEN AND A MAN.

EMILY: MURDERED?

Panel 3: Three bodies hang from the tree, and we’ve zoomed in a bit more, lost all trace of the window.

DIALS: NOT EXACTLY. THEY WERE LYNCHED FOR WHAT’S CHARMINGLY REFERED TO HERE AS “UNNATURAL CONDUCT”. IT SEEMS THE TWO WOMEN WERE SISTERS, WHO WERE BOTH SHARING A BED WITH THE SAME MAN.

Panel 4: Zoom in closer, so that we can see the three dead faces, twisting on their ropes. This close, we can see that the man’s eyes are two different colours – one light, one dark.

EMILY: SOUNDS POSITIVELY DELIGHTFUL, BUT WHERE DO WE COME INTO IT?

Panel 5: A shot of the blasted heath as it is today.

DIALS: WELL, THE MAN’S NAME WAS RECORDED AS SIMEON MORROW. AND A YEAR TO THE DAY AFTER THEY DIED, EVERYTHING WITHIN HALF A MILE OF THE TREE DIED. NOTHING’S GROWN THERE SINCE.

Page 4

Panel 1: Back in the study, focused on Emily, who has moved closer to the desk while we were in flashback, and who looks a little shocked. If we can see Dials, then he’s setting the chair r

EMILY: BUT WHY WOULD MORROW LET HIMSELF GET HUNG?

Panel 2: Dials is sitting down at the desk now, pushing some some papers to one side. There’s a book open underneath them.

DIALS: WELL, I’VE GOT A FEW THEORIES ABOUT THAT. HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF A GYTRASH OR MAYBE SHAGFOAL?

Panel 2: Emily shrugs, while Dials picks up the book and hands it to Emily.

DIALS: LOCAL BELIEF-FORM. BIG BLACK DOG OR HORSE, HARBINGER OF DEATH. HELL HOUND, BASICALLY.

Panel 3: The main panel on this page. A shot of the pages of the book. One of them, the focus of the shot is, illustrated – up to up if it’s a woodcut, or something a bit more detailed, but it’s a big (unnaturally huge – put a frightened looking man in the illustration in for scale – on all fours, this thing is three quarters man height) black dog, with fire burning in its eye sockets, maybe around it’s jaws. This is a book printed in the 19th century, so don’t go overboard on the illustration quality, anyway. On the other, we can just make out the title GYTRASH.

EMILY: I DON’T UNDERSTAND. WHAT’S THAT GOT TO DO WITH GETTING HIMSELF HUNG?

Prometheus Rising

He was bad luck. He slept away from the rest of them. Invisible things spoke to him. Hidden people. Secret whispers. No-one wanted to hear them. It would make them bad luck. They would twitch and mutter to themselves, and clutch their heads. They would cry out in the night, when hidden things attacked them.

Except.

Sometimes, when the voices spoke to him, they told him things. Sometimes, he would tell them to hunt in one place, and they would catch a big beast. Sometimes, he would tell them where to find the best fruit. They listened to him when he told them what he heard. They listened to him, and they left him food at short way from the group.

They did not want him to die. If he died, the hidden voices would find someone else to talk to. They would make someone else like him. Everyone felt them pass by, but they only spoke to him.

If he came too close they would throw rocks at him. Close enough to talk, if he shouted. Not closer.

When it was cold, they left him a burning branch, and some wood, and let him build his own fire. They would not let him share theirs. He had told them where the storm beasts would touch the ground, where they could find a burning tree to make their fire from.

He talked to the fire. They heard him muttering to it. Whispering. Sometimes, he would shout, and dance and scream at it. Sometimes it was “Leave!”. Sometimes, it was “Come back!”. Sometimes, it was just noise, and made no sense at all.

On some nights, as their own fire burned low, and they heard him dancing and shouting, half a mile away, so of them felt something move past them, almost like a wind, but not moving, and they shuddered. The secret things were going to talk to him.

It was like this as long as the oldest person knew.

It was the hot season. Even in the hot season, it was cold at night, so they still kept a fire. They were by the river, where the beasts came to drink. They had not seen him for many days. His fire had gone out. Some of them said he had died. Some of them said that the invisible things had made him go. Sometimes they did. Some of them were glad. Some of them wondered if it would be harder to find food if he did not tell them where to move to when it got cold again.

It was like this for two full moons. Even the oldest person could not remember him ever being gone as long.

He came back. He was not the same. He walked straighter. He did not twitch. He did not mutter. They asked him if the invisible things spoke to him, and he said yes, and that they did not have to be afraid that the invisible things would talk to them. Still, they would not let him close to them.

He went apart a way, and sat down a while. Then he got up again, and walked around, stopping now and then to pick up small sticks and bits of grass. The he came back, and sat as near to the them as they would allow, just a little further than the rocks they threw at him.

It got dark, and some of them said they should give him a piece of their fire, but others were scared of him now, and they said they they should not, that he was not the same, and that he was more bad luck than before, and nobody moved.

Then there was a light. There was a fire by where he was sitting, and there was no light and sound of storm beasts. He had made it.

He had made it.

Fire.

He had made it.

They were afraid.

They heard him laughing in the dark. They could see him, beside his fire, that he had made, laughing. There was the rushing of the invisible things. They were scared, and they fell on the ground, hoping that the invisible things would pass them by. His fire got big, and theirs went out. They could feel the invisible things all around.

He reached into his fire, and pulled out a burning stick, and walked over to them. They were so scared. The could see the light of the fire in his eyes, and his white smile. He put the stick in their fire, and it grew up again.

“The invisible things showed me” he said. “They are called ‘gods’, and they teach me many secret things. I am master of fire now. I will make the ‘gods’ be good to you, and you will bring me food. That is how it shall be.”

He did not twitch and he did not mutter. He smiled at them, and they were scared.

But when I saw the title “The Atom Waltz”, it reminded me of him. So here’s John’s recounting of his own origin story. John Dials, my own personal Doctor Who, back before all this revival bollocks.

The Atom Waltz

The hippies will tell you we’re made from stars. That all the matter of our planet, and our own bodies was all born in that white hot furnace in the heart of the sun. And they’re not actually wrong. They’ll get all excited about protein chains in some primordial soup, and a lightning strike. They’ll tell you’re we’re born in fire and lightning, that we’re somehow holy or remarkable for it.

Fuck ‘em. I am John Dials, and I am a scientist, and I tell you straight: fuck ‘em. In the eyesocket.

We’re mud that sat up, and about as fucking bright. We’re bastards who spend our lives looking from things to hump, kill or eat. Just like every other animal on the planet. That fact that we’ve got a language means nothing what so fucking ever. Whales have a fucking language. And no, it’s not fucking deep and moving and beautiful. It’s just vast fucking cow noises. Get over it.

We’re nothing but an accident of chemistry and physics. Bear that in mind. Sure, people will waffle on about the astronomical odds of our universe happened. Of us happening. There’s a fucking massive number of zeroes on the odds of anything. Great. But it still doesn’t make us special. There might be a massive number of zeroes on the odds, but there’s an even more massive number of zeroes on the amount of time that everything had to happen in. You can pick your own metaphor, if you have to, but I’m not helping you dress it all up in something like it means anything. It’s all just fucking maths. Physics. Whatever.

The point is, the expanse of nothing we came from is so fucking vast, that however massive the number you need to stake against one is, still, there’s enough of it to make sure that we happened in it. In fact, the odds are pretty good that we’ve happened an infinite number of times. That actually, despite the vastness of the odds, actually, we’re tediously inevitable. That everything is.

But the really sad thing is that stupid fucking inevitable accident of cosmic-scale science that we oozed our way out of, somehow equipped us with brains that like to find patterns and meaning. Impose order on things. Whatever. So we scrabble around a meaningless universe, and we find patterns, and we make shit up that gives it all meaning.

That’s all your fucking gods and magic and hippy star children rubbish are. The heavy grey bit in the top of your strangely shaped bag of dirty water making shit up, so that… so that…

I don’t fucking know why.

I’m the smartest fucking man on the planet. You think anyone else could have invented all this shit? I’ve looked inside quarks, I have. You know what’s there? Vibrating string. Vibrating fucking string. You get down small enough, it’s always vibrating fucking string. You look inside one vibrating string, you know what you find? A smaller vibrating string.

That’s the face of your god, cunts. Vibrating fucking string.

So I started drinking. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? I mean, every last one of us is all alone in a pointless universe that contains not one iota of detectable meaning, but at least all that fucking starstuff has come together in a few forms that will get our brains good and fucked up.

Anyway, some time around the third week, I had an idea. It’s all vibrating string, all the way down. And there’s this thing where time works differently when you get down to the really small scale. Look, there’s maths, OK? Give me a blackboard, and about three weeks, and quite a lot of really expensive scotch, and I’ll write it down for you. You won’t understand it.

But to cut a long story short, I invented a fucking time machine. Yeah, I really am that fucking smart.

Of course I’ve used the fucking thing. You know what I did with it? I came back in time of course. So I’m standing here in a my sealed suit, in the middle of the most unpleasant fucking storm I’ve ever seen, and in about two minutes, lightning is going to strike this pool of horrible smelling sludge at my feet. Probably. Well, certainly, but I’m standing here with a big copper pole. I’m just trying to decide if there’s any meaning in killing all life on earth before it starts or not.

Yeah, it’ll work. Don’t give me that killing your own grandfather rubbish – I’m the one that did the maths, not bloody you. It the lightning his the pole, rather than this slime, I’ll have wiped out all life on earth for ever.

But I can’t decide if it means anything that I’m in a position to do this.

I’m the smartest man on earth, and I have no idea if it means anything.