CAPTION: DELAWARE, 1937: TEENAGERS DAVE KESSLER AND SI SCHUMAN CRAFTED FANZINE TALES OF ALIEN TYRANT THUNDERMAN, INSPIRED BY PULP SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINES.

  Panel 2.

  In this second panel, we cut to a different American night; a different American year. We are now outdoors, in a dark and secluded unloading area somewhere in New York, and it is maybe 1926, at the height of Prohibition. The scene is possibly lit by an isolated street light somewhere in the panel’s right background, if that gives us the noir atmospherics and shadows that I think this shot would benefit from. Down in the bottom foreground, we can see at least part of two or three stacked bundles of pulp magazines, cross-tied with string, which have been piled on the ground, up close to us. If we can make out the covers, they are all for the same issue of something called SPICY TORTURE Stories, and they have covers showing a near-naked 1920s blonde, manacled to a dungeon wall and being menaced by a leering hunchback with a branding iron. These magazines stand forgotten in the bottom foreground, while the panel’s real business is transacted in the near background beyond that: over to the far left of the near midground we can just see the rear of a 1920s delivery truck protruding into the panel from off, its rear doors open. Unloading crates of what is clearly illicit booze from the back of the truck, we see two fairly stereotypical hired goons of that 1920s vintage, thuggish and brutal faces, maybe one of them smoking, one of them in a peaked cap. Both are full-figure. As they unload the booze, we see a well-dressed racketeer standing watching them, full-figure in the right far midground, his hands perhaps sunk in the pockets of his expensive mohair coat and a thick cigar jutting from his self-satisfied smile, a wisp of grey smoke escaping up into the starless night above. This is bootlegger and publisher Albert Kaufman, overseeing his latest shipment of alcohol, with his pulp magazines stacked at the rear of the trucks to conceal the real contents from Feds or border officials. Kaufman is maybe in his forties here, a well-fed man who wears his short black hair slicked back, his dark eyes twinkling and gloating. He probably wears a broad-brimmed hat, a pricey suit and well-polished shoes. Again, perhaps the caption is down in the panel’s lower right.

  CAPTION: PRINTED IN CANADA FOR PUBLISHERS LIKE MOB ASSOCIATE ALBERT KAUFMAN, PULPS EXISTED AS COVER FOR TRUCKING CANADIAN BOOZE INTO PROHIBITION AMERICA.

  Panel 3.

  Now, in this final panel on the top tier, we jump to the relatively small main office of American Comics in New York, on an optimistic spring afternoon in 1938. Up in the right foreground, leaning back in his creaking thirties office chair and looking into the panel away from us, we see Albert Kaufman, now in his fifties and probably still with a smouldering cigar wedged into his faintly predatory smile. Here, he is wearing an ordinary 1930s business suit and looks slightly less obviously gangster-like, although he maybe still wears a diamond pinkie ring. Looking across Kaufman’s desk – which has a couple of finished pages of David Kessler’s Thunderman art resting on it, this time in panels, and showing a character that looks much more like a simplified early version of the present Thunderman than the bald megalomaniac we saw being sketched in panel one – we are looking at David Kessler, left, and Si Schuman, right, as they sit facing us and the smiling Kaufman across the art-littered desk. Both of the eighteen-year-old boys are slightly better dressed here than in panel one, since they’re in the big city and are hoping to make a good impression, and both of them look happy and excited to be received so warmly by these nice New York publishers. Kessler, over on our left of the midground, perhaps has a scuffed portfolio in his lap, from which he is enthusiastically extracting yet another page of comic-strip artwork. Schuman, on the right, is holding one of his typed scripts and is perhaps pointing to it as he jabbers away enthusiastically. Standing behind the two seated boys, with one of his hands resting on each of their chair backs, leaning in with a smile to match Kaufman’s, we see American Comics’ lawyer, Sidney Rosenfeld. Rosenfeld is taller and leaner than Kaufman, balding but still with dark hair at the back and sides, clean-shaven and with a decent-looking face for a man in his fifties. He sports spectacles with heavy black rims and probably wears a black suit, white shirt and a black tie. If there’s any room in the background, there could be framed copies of SPICY TORTURE or the poorly drawn front cover of the first issue of MANHUNT Comics hanging up on the wall. The caption here should perhaps be down towards the panel’s lower left.

  CAPTION: REDESIGNING THUNDERMAN AS A HERO, IN NEW YORK THE WORKING-CLASS BOYS ATTRACTED THE ATTENTION OF KAUFMAN, AND COMPANY LAWYER SIDNEY ROSENFELD.

  Panel 4.

  In this first panel on the second tier, we have an abrupt shift of visual register as we switch from a documentary style to an early forties comic-cover style. We are apparently in the offices of the German high command sometime between 1942 and 1945, at least to judge from the swastika flag hanging on a wall in the near background. A 1940s-style Thunderman, his eyes slits of righteousness, is springing into the panel’s midground from the left, in a suitably dynamic pose, and delivering a thunder-powered punch to the jaw of a cartoonish and flailing Adolf Hitler. From the right bottom foreground, a stereotypically square-headed Nazi storm trooper – no, I don’t know what he’s doing in Hitler’s office either – is perspiring and looking comically frightened, in roughly a head-and-shoulders close-up, as he discharges his machine gun at Thunderman, only to have his bullets bounce off the character’s chest. The caption would probably fit best down to the bottom left of the panel.

  CAPTION: WHEN KESSLER AND SCHUMAN ENLISTED IN 1942, FORMER UNION LAWYER ROSENFELD HAD THEM SIGN THUNDERMAN’S OWNERSHIP TO AMERICAN FOR THE WAR’S DURATION.

  Panel 5.

  In this panel, we intermingle the documentary and the comic book aspects for symbolic effect: it is a sunny day in New York, and we are up on the roof of the American Comics building, although it doesn’t have to be identified as such; it’s just a flat roof. Up to either side of the foreground, we see partial rear views of both Albert Kaufman, left, and Sidney Rosenfeld, right, as they both stand facing away from us into the background, both around half-figure and both with their hands knitted complacently behind their backs. Perhaps in Rosenfeld’s hand we can see a rolled-up contract, presumably Kessler and Schuman’s. Looking between and beyond them into the panel’s midground, we can see a full-figure image of Thunderman – maybe a tidier, 1960s version here, avuncular and smiling – about to touch down on the rooftop as he descends from the clear New York sky with one leg already extended beneath him. He faces directly towards us and the two men as he lands, smiling, and slung over each of his muscular shoulders is a gigantic sack with a large $ symbol printed on the side of each bag. If we can see Kaufman and Rosenfeld’s faces, they are smiling quietly and confidently. Of the two captions in this panel, how about we put the first one at the top, while the second caption we place in the bottom centre of the frame?

  CAPTION: THEY NEVER GOT IT BACK.

  CAPTION: IN ANIMATED CARTOONS, MOVIE SERIALS, SYNDICATED STRIPS AND TV SHOWS, THUNDERMAN MADE AMERICAN A VERY WEALTHY COMPANY.

  Panel 6.

  In this final panel on the second tier, we cut to a morgue in New York, sometime in the later 1960s. The morgue, by its nature, is cold, austere and white. Naked on a marble slab in the bottom foreground we see the supine head and shoulders of the dead and now much older David Kessler, although we can only see a little of the back of Kessler’s balding head, because the white-sleeved arms and hands of a mortuary assistant are reaching into view from off-panel left and pulling up a cloth to cover the dead artist’s face. Rather than being a white mortuary sheet, the cloth in question is actually Thunderman’s cloak, with the thundercloud-and-lightning-bolt letter T in the centre of it, being raised to cover the dead face of Thunderman’s co-creator. For compositional reasons as well as light-source reasons, I think we should have a single small window set high on the wall in the centre near background. The two captions here should perhaps both go in whatever space is available up towards the top of the panel.

  CAPTION: WHEN BROTHERS BROTHERS PURCHASED AMERICAN, SIDNEY ROSENFELD BECAME THE CORPORATION’S CHIEF LAWYER.

  CAPTION: MEANWHILE, ARTIST DAVID KESSLER DIED, BLIND, IN AN UPSTATE INSTITUTION.

  Panel 7.

  This first panel on the bottom tier shows a scene in a twenty-first-century city by night, probably New York circa 2012. We are positioned directly across the street from a modern movie theatre that has big and enthusiastic lines of people filing into it, past its box office. According to the cinema’s illuminated hoarding, it is showing that year’s Thunderman reboot, MAN of STORMS. Up in the foreground, over on our side of the street, we have an anonymous Brothers Bros executive standing just off-panel left and reaching into view as we see him holding out, in one well-tailored hand, a rather small bag of cash with a rather small $ sign printed on its side. Reaching into view over on the right, from where she stands just off-panel right, we see the arms and hands of a young-to-middle-aged woman: in her left hand, nearest us, she holds a contract, and in her right, she holds a pen with which she is signing it. Looking between the arms of these off-panel people, we are gazing across the street to where the latest Thunderman seems to be doing big business, judging from the queuing crowds. Perhaps both captions could go at the bottom here, beneath the arms extending in from off-panel either side.

  CAPTION: BROTHERS BROTHERS PROSPERED WITH SUCCESSFUL THUNDERMAN MOVIES. THUNDERMAN’S CREATORS DIDN’T.

  CAPTION: YEARS LATER, THEIR FAMILIES SETTLED, FOR A FRACTION OF THE CHARACTER’S VALUE.

  Panel 8.

  The penultimate panel is a sort of documentary shot that reuses compositional elements from a couple of our preceding panels. In it we are in the nice New Jersey home of mob boss John Gotti’s aunt. Up in the foreground, standing mostly off-panel to either side and facing away from us, as with Kaufman and Rosenfeld in panel five, we have two mobster goons in bad-fitting suits, with their hands behind their backs. The one on the right is maybe holding a cosh. Looking between them into the chintzy domestic midground, we see a floral-print sofa arranged facing us with a coffee table set in front of it. Sitting on the sofa facing us, looking nervous and out of their depths, we have an executive from Brothers Bros on the left, looking up worriedly at the foreground mobsters, while seated to our right of him, we have an executive from DISTANCE magazine, bent over the table as he hurriedly and tremulously signs his part of the contract. Standing behind the sofa and leaning forward with both hands on the sofa’s back to either side, reprising his pose in panel three, is a now older Sidney Rosenfeld. Rosenfeld is in his seventies here, the hair around the back and sides of his head white instead of black, but he still possesses the same malefic coiled-spring energy as when he was younger, and as he leans in over the men signing the contract, he still has the same vulpine smile. Perhaps in the background, as a homely touch, there might be a framed photograph of a smiling John Gotti hanging on the room’s rear wall. The two captions here should perhaps go bottom centre.

  CAPTION: BROTHERS’ MERGER WITH DISTANCE PUBLISHING, ARRANGED BY SID ROSENFELD, ANNOUNCED THE CORPORATE ERA.

  CAPTION: THE DEAL WAS SIGNED AT JOHN GOTTI’S AUNT’S PLACE.

  Panel 9.

  In this final panel, we are looking at a traditional shot across the waters at Manhattan Island and its business district, with the twin towers of the World Trade Center rising up over to the left, towards the clear skies of a sunny day. The island should be positioned relatively low in the panel here, to leave plenty of room for the sky. In the heavens over Manhattan we can see a gigantic, spectral half-figure shot of Thunderman; an outline without colour amongst the drifting clouds, as if this were Thunderman’s benign ghost or his immortal spirit or something like that. He has his left fist resting on his ghostly hip, in his traditional power stance, while his right hand is raised to his brow in a kind of informal salute, waving goodbye to the reader and smiling good-naturedly and paternally as he does so – the big, friendly Thunderman in the sky who watches over us all. Of the two captions here, the first floats somewhere in the panel’s middle reaches, while the second goes down at the bottom, towards the left. Over in the bottom right corner of this last panel, where it might traditionally have a small box that reads ‘The End’, I propose we have a miniature Thunderman ‘T’ emblem instead, with the cumulonimbus crossbar and the thunderbolt upright.

  CAPTION: THAT’S WHO THUNDERMAN IS. THAT’S HOW HE AND CORPORATE AMERICA CAME TO BE …

  CAPTION: … AND THE WORLD WOULD NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN!

  10. (March, 1987)

  Eighteen months dry, so the light still jangled and the overwhelming detail of each moment was like ground glass, sometimes, in his eyes. Porlock walked down Fifth Avenue towards his introductory meeting with the people at American, towards his lifelong goal of being a professional of some kind in the comics industry, his gait robotic and his feet leaded with destiny.

  He’d started drinking in his teens, and in his early twenties with determination. At the time he’d sold and traded comic artwork as a demi-living, pages picked up off acquaintances from Worsley’s fanzine days. The fledgling business had involved a lot of time spent at convention bars, and sometime in amongst all that, Worsley was married to Ramona, only something must have happened because then he wasn’t. It was devastating, probably. He couldn’t actually recall enough of their relationship to say for sure. Renata! Renata, not Ramona. Why did he keep doing that?

  It hadn’t been long after Ra … after Renata left that Worsley’s low points slid into debasement’s infrared extremities. At ChiCon ’84, he’d woken in a dumpster with shit in his hair. Then, at ChiCon ’85, when the exact same thing had happened, it had come to him that this could be some sort of warning sign. He wasn’t superstitious, but the dumpster had been up in the same corner, the same parking lot, behind the same hotel on both occasions. How could that …? Anyway, it was around then Milton Finefinger had pointed out that Worsley – with his contacts in the industry, with his address book – would be the front runner for an editorial post at American, if not for all the dumpster/shit-in-hair type incidents.

  Worsley had protested, being drunk, at this characterisation. He’d pointed out to Milton and Milton’s transparent conjoined brother that the industry’s finest creators – many of them – had been alcoholics, like SP’s Slim Whittaker, King Bee writer Ron Blackwell, Sam Earl who’d created the immortal Silly-Putty Pete, Bert McIntyre of Fishman fame, and on and on, until Finefinger noted that approximately half the names on Porlock’s list had perished of cirrhosis and the rest had shot themselves. Besides, American’s head honcho David Moskowitz, as a teetotaller, would be unlikely to find Worsley’s argument convincing. Whereas if he were to dry out, they were always looking for assistant editors and suchlike at American, particularly on the slumping Thunderman books. That, right there, had given Worsley Porlock the incentive to turn things around. Why not trade his reliance on booze for his original addiction to the surely harmless comic book? He’d joined a twelve-step program, and the part requiring him to have faith in a higher power, he’d thought of Thunderman.

  In many ways, he mused as he proceeded down Fifth Avenue, his childhood hero was the one who’d saved him. Worsley had been falling into someplace black and bottomless where excrement was hair gel, and then, in mid-air, somebody had caught him and had borne him up into the light and breeze, like he was an out-of-condition Peggy Parks on one of her bimonthly plunges from an office window. Glancing up at the belittling towers to either side, it struck him that there were a lot of office windows around here for a vivacious and inquisitive young girl to fall from.

  Looming now before him was the Brothers building where American had offices at 777, with a dazzling white neon sign to that effect up on the roof, so that the numerals were visible from right across the city. He remembered Denny Wellworth, maybe joking, telling him that this was a deliberate reference to a book about kabbalah by notorious English black-magic guy, Aleister Crowley. Denny had a marijuana-generated theory that the ancient Hebrew magic system had been employed by the Brothers Brothers corporation to cement their power, or summon Elder Gods, or some business like that. It had been pretty funny, the way Denny told it.