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FAILED-PROJECT FRIDAY: The KILL BILL comic pitch!
🕑 Added 2019-07-05 14:08:38 +0000 UTCIn my recent poll (feel free to weigh in!) asking you fine folks what you'd like to see on this here Patreon, the single most voted-for category was "Failed or defunct projects (like the Failed Project Friday posts I used to do on deviantART)." Wellp, I'm kicking things off with this exciting new (old) feature by going back 12 years(!) on my deviantART account and digging up the very first "FFF" journal. Wheeeeee!
Inaugurating this freewheeling festival of failure are four sample pages of layouts from an unsuccessful pitch for a Kill Bill-related comic!
Just after Quentin Tarantino's fine film Kill Bill vol.1 hit the theaters, I was approached by a Comics Company Who Shall Remain Nameless (in fact, IDW, if anyone cares) about working on a proposal for a Kill Bill comics project. More specifically, this would've been a Deadly Vipers book, dealing with the pre-KB v.1 adventures of Tarantino's colorfully sociopathic characters.
As part of a "pitch package" consisting of sample work from various artists and writers, I wrote up a brief "spec script" of a possible short story featuring The (Eventual) Bride. Then, just for the hell of it, I sleazed up four pages of fairly tight layouts from the end of the story... which I've posted here.
Here’s the introductory set-up for these pages:
“The following layouts depict a fight scene set well before the events of KILL BILL, back when the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad was still one big, happy, murderous family.
“Previous to these layouts (as described in the earlier script pages), the future BRIDE once attempted to assassinate a target via a “freak job,” slang for engineering a freak, fatal accident. The “fatal” part didn’t quite work as planned, though, as the target, though multiply impaled by sections of rebar dropped from a construction site’s crane, failed to expire. Instead, he survived, despite massive brain damage that left him with a particularly cruel disability: his vocabulary now consists of only two lines of lyrics from a song that was playing in the background during his horrific 'accident.'
"Even crueler, the song lyrics in question are from the DiFranco Family’s immortal 'Heartbeat, It’s A Love Beat.' Now, this revenge-minded fella has tracked down the BRIDE, and the requisite “scissor fight in a hair salon” is underway…”
Note: Wasn't really killing myself trying to get Uma Thurman's resemblance down, in case you couldn't tell. (TBH, this Bride interpretation was directly based on my reference and characters designs for the heroine of another Failed Project, which we'll get to in a few weeks.)
Anyhoo, The Unnamed Comics Company *koff IDW koff* had a direct line to "QT", and sent the pitch package along to him. Alas, Tarantino sensibly decided that, if there ever were to be a Kill Bill or Deadly Vipers comic, he'd want to write it himself. Certainly can't fault him on that; the project is his baby, after all.
Ah, but in a never-before-seen bonus, I was so taken with the idea for this pitch that I commissioned my buddy Rick Mays, who'd worked with me on Gen13 and Marvel's Livewires, to draw a sample page. (I had no intention of ever drawing the book myself, you see.) Behold!
And lo, I did toss another Failed Project onto my vast, looming pile of defunct pitches... Sigh. Little did I know that I was midway through an "0 for 20+" stretch of rejected proposals! (More on that next Friday, folks.)
Comments
Richard Franklin
Would have loved to have read a full Kill Bill/Deadly Vipers book by you, damn.
KranberriJam
I'm not a "Kill Bill" fan (sorry!) but I like the crazy fight that you laid out. The final panel definitely gives off a "oh shi-" vibe.
