Summer Was Boring Anyhow by Jess Cutberth - Transcript
Art style description: the medium used is graphite pencil. There is lots of hatching and thick lines are used to describe forms. Uneven, jittery lines create a hand-drawn feel. Throughout the comic, blue and sepia color will be used to denote the location of characters. Anytime we are in Phoebe’s world, everything is tinted with sepia, and anytime we are in Nate’s world the world is tinted in blue. Nate’s speech bubbles are blue, even when they appear in Phoebe’s world, and vice versa.
Page 1:
Panel one: A young kid with light skin wearing overalls sits on her bed in her room with an unzipped backpack over her head. The entire page is tinted sepia. She says out loud, “yup yup. Mmhm. No doubt‘ about it.”
Panel two: Black background with text: “I forgot how to turn it on“
Page 2:
Panel one: The kid lifts the backpack up their head to reveal their face - large round eyes and shaggy blonde hair with an abnormally long tuft of hair hovering above in an arc over her head. From off screen, someone calls out “Phoebe! Time to head out, hon!” Phoebe replies, “okey-dokey!” This panel and all others unless otherwise noted are tinted sepia.
Panel two: Phoebe zips up the backpack and whispers into it, “I’ll figure it out, Nate.”
Panel three: Phoebe walks out of her room through the door and whispers, “… Probably.”
Page 3:
Panel one: Phoebe has walked out the front door of her house, revealing grassy plains surrounding a quaint, semi circular home. Her moms stand in the doorway, waving goodbye to her. One of them shouts from a window, “Bye darling! Have fun at school!” The other mom asks quietly from the doorway, “Why is she wearing her backpack like that…?” Phoebe looking back while walking away replies, “bye moms.”
Panel 2: Phoebe unzips her backpack with a quizzical expression, saying, “aw… Heck.”
Panel 3: Phoebe peaks into the open backpack with confusion, saying, “Where is that dag-gum switch?”
Page 4:
Panel one: Phoebe’s arm reaches into the backpack, and a loud click is heard from inside, followed by a low rumbling VVRRRRRRRR. A blue glow begins to emanate from the backpack.
Panel 2: Phoebe lifts the bag above her head with an excited expression, shouting “ha ha!“
Panel for Phoebe thrust the bag down over her head with a large resounding “WHOMP.“
Panel 5: Phoebe‘s hands are back down at her side and she walks along a path with clouds in the background with the backpack over her head. She says confidently, “good morning.“ The blue glow is still coming from the backpack.
Page 5:
Panel one: Wide shot of Phoebe walking along a gravel path through grassy plains, with several small houses scattered throughout. The backpack is still over her head as she walks. She says, “ helloooo… Nate?”
Panel two: Top view shot of Phoebe pulling the backpack further over her head, saying, “Gosh. She really can’t hear me.”
Page 6:
Panel one: A wide establishing shot of a city. Buildings are rectangular with either tall rectangular windows or circular windows. It appears to be sunrise. Everything is now tinted blue instead of sepia. Music notes spill from this panel throughout the next two panels.
Panel two: A close-up of a window of one of the buildings with a tree and air vent, framing the window. The music notes from panel one spill over the panel borders and into the window.
Panel three: The music notes from the first two panels drift in through the window as we see the interior of the room. A kid with dark skin and shoulder length curly hair wearing a black button up shirt and a long light skirt sits at the foot of her bed in a room filled with boxes marked, “Nate’s room.” A magazine on top of one of the boxes is titled science mag, and another box is marked, “Nate’s gadgets.” Nate is listening to music on her headphones, which is the source of the music notes from earlier, and a sepia glow emanates from the cross-shoulder bag beside her. Nate‘s eyes are closed and she appears tense.
Page 7:
Panel one: A close-up of Nate‘s face, identical to the description from the last panel. Nate is still positioned at the foot of her bed with her bedframe behind her and light flowing in from the circular window in her room. A voice emanates from below, saying, “PSST! Nate :3”
Panel two: The camera pans down to Nate’s torso and the bag that sits beside it from which the voice is coming. It continues, “you’re gonna be late on your first day.” we see a tuff of hair emerging from the bag as it continues to glow.
Panel three: Phoebe‘s head pops out of the bag – we only see her eyes as she exclaimed, “Yeeesh.”
Page 8:
Panel one: Phoebe, whose head is now fully poking out of Nate‘s bag, looks up at Nate as she exclaims, “I’mma have to scare you ain’t I.“
Panel two: A close-up of Phoebe‘s face with closed eyes and raised eyebrows, appearing to be deep in thought as she exclaims, “Hmm.”
Panel 3: Phoebe‘s head in the bag on a white void as she mischievously exclaims, “Let’s aim for the lap.“
Page 9:
Panel one: Phoebe rocks the bag to the left with a resounding, “WHSSH.“
Panel to: Phoebe rocks the bag to the right with another sound effect: “WHOOSH”
Panel three: Phoebe rocks the bag to the left one more time with more energy – and instead of a sound effect, she simply says, “fwoosh” out loud. Theemanata near the bags base says “teeter!” In this panel, we also see Nate’s face, still deep in thought with her eyes closed.
Page 10:
Panel one: Phoebe’s forward momentum, as well as an increasingly large emanata labeled,“FWOO –” is abruptly halted by Nate’s hand. Nate looks over at Phoebe, who bears a dumbstruck expression, with a look of determined annoyance.
Panel two: close-up of Nate’s face as her expression shifts to a kind fondness.
Page 11:
Panel one: “Good morning, Phoebe,” Nate says as she powers off her headphones.
Panel two: Nate’s hand reaches in from off frame to pat Phoebe‘s head while Phoebe exclaims, “M-morning, ya goof.”
Panel three: A chibi-fied Phoebe asks a chibi-fied Nate as Nate takes off her headphones, “Why are you still in your room?”
Panel four: Nate puts her headphones away inside her school bag, slipping them past Phoebe‘s head, as Phoebe says, “Doesn’t your class start soon?”
Page 12:
Panel one: B roll of the boxes in Nate‘s rooms, labeled “Nate tools,” “Nate gadgets
(Old)” and “Nate’s room.” Dialogue from Nate reads “yeah but my brain was going too fast. I had to make it stop first.”
Panel 2: B roll of the grass Phoebe is walking by, which is tall and deep. Dialogue from Phoebe reads “It’s been doing that an awful lot… you OK?“
Panel three: Back in Nate’s room, Nate looks out the window at the city outside, lit by a rising sun out of frame, and says “Probably. Music helps.” Phoebe looks up at Nate from the lower left, with concerned eyes.
Page 13:
Panel one: A close-up shot of Nate’s face as she says, “Are you walking to school too?“
Panel two: A wide shot of Phoebe walking through the plains with her backpack over her head, replying “yes ma’am. Still a ways to town, though.“
Panel three: Nate replies with a concerned expression, “you’ll trip.”
Panel four: A long shot of Phoebe, tiny, walking through the plains with several houses on either side of her, as she replies “Ain’t nothing to trip on out here.“ An aside floating above her head reads, “I done got it memorized anyhow.”
Page 14:
Panel one: Nate looks to her left in shock as a voice from out of frame exclaims, “Nate!“
Panel two: We see the back of Nate‘s head and a tuff of Phoebe‘s hair from behind as we look over Nate‘s bed and at the door of Nate‘s room, which is cracked open as a voice calls out from the other side, “time to head out, kiddo!” Nate‘s room is filled with more boxes with the typical labels, and her bedsheets are quilted with various mathematical symbols adorning each square.
Panel 3: Nate sternly tells Phoebe, “OK you gotta go. My dads don’t know the transfer frames actually work.” Nate is pushing Phoebe’s head back into the bag.
Panel four: Phoebe‘s head, now nearly back through the opening as Nate continues to push with her hands, exclaims “aw come on!“
Page 15:
Panel one: Nate, still shoving Phoebe into the bag says “nope. The world isn’t ready for my genius.“
Panel two: back in Phoebe‘s world, Phoebe pulls the backpack from over her head with a “FWSSH!“ From the inside of Phoebe‘s backpack, Nate says “so be quiet, OK?”
Panel 3: Phoebe frustratedly throws her backpack over her shoulders with an exasperated, “HMPH.”
Panel 4: Phoebe dejectedly thinks to herself as she is along the path once more, “don’t invent cool stuff if you don’t want people to see it.“
Page 16:
Panel one: Shot of behind Phoebe looking up at the backpack in the back of her head, with billowing clouds behind her, as Nate says from inside Phoebe‘s backpack, “morning dads.”
Panel two: Phoebe walks past a neighbor tending to their garden and they wave at each other, as Nate continues: “… Sure. Toast please.“ The old woman tending her garden has a question mark thought bubble above her head, as she can hear what Nate is saying and is confused because Phoebe isn’t talking.
Page 17:
Page one: a long, sweeping shot of the path behind Phoebe as she continues to walk. The path is dotted with houses, and we can see the old woman tending to her garden in the background behind Phoebe. Nate’s speech bubbles in the panel follow the path downward towards Phoebe, who is at the bottom of the panel. Nate’s text reads, “can I go by myself? Please? I promise I know how to get there. Yes I’ll be careful.” Sound effects throughout the plains reads, “WHSSSH and FWSSSH“
Panel two: a zoomed out profile shot of Phoebe as she walks to the right, with another of Nate‘s speech bubbles trailing behind her, which reads “love you too, OK bye–”
Page 18:
Page one: Close-up of a door handle as it produces a loud, “SLAM!”
Panel two: a close-up of Nate’s shoes, which are basically Converse without the label, descending a set of steps with a bush to the right. She says, “okey-doke.“
Panel 3: a wide shot of Nate in front of her house, with her dads visible in the second story window and several hearts floating above their heads as they look on at their daughter lovingly. Nate is looking away from the door with a determined expression on her face. She has a piece of toast in her mouth, which makes her pronounce “I have left the house” as “I have lepft the houff.”
Page 19:
Panel one: Nate takes a bite of the toast chews as she says, “and…”
Panel to: a long shot of Nate walking along the sidewalk on her way to school, with several pedestrians in front of her. On the street to the left a trolley runs, with sound effect “RRRRRRR.” To the right: a series of 2 to 3 story houses: some with circular windows, some with rectangular windows, some with flat roofs, and some with shingle roofs. More houses extend into the background, at a slant, implying that the city has been built on a hill. Nate, relatively small in the scene, states “I’m on my way to class.”
Pages 20 and 21:
A two page spread, which shows the city in its relative entirety. A steep hill on the left page is populated by a very large number of buildings, all similar to the ones from the previous panel. Most appear to be tall, rectangles, with many windows of various shapes and sizes, and arranged on the hill as tiers, with streets lining the edge of cliffs at each tier. As the buildings ascend the hill, they become further shrouded in the shadows from the buildings in front of them, due to the low position of the sun, which sits on the right page just above the horizon. The sun is reflected in the waters of the ocean which the city sits at the shoreline of. Gentle waves crash against its shore. Nate is barely visible in this scene towards the bottom left. This two page spread took a long-ass time to draw, and is very detailed. I think it looks pretty neat. It’s also the last page in this excerpt. I really hope you enjoyed it. :)