ASH/HCC: CSS #31 - Dichotomous Duo

[Dave Van Domelen]

     [No cover, this is a three-page excerpt of a piece that appeared in
several comics over the years.]

____________________________________________________________________________
 .|, COHERENT                                            An ASHistory Series
--+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 '|` SUPER STORIES                        #31 - The Dichotomous Duo
        Featuring Flower Power and Union Label  
                                        copyright 2013 by Dave Van Domelen
____________________________________________________________________________

     Editor's Note: Modern readers may find this hard to believe, but in the
Golden Age and Silver Age, comics would often launch right into telling
stories about a hero.  Rather than spend a six issue arc telling the hero's
background in detail, they might not even bring the matter up until well into
the run, and even then it would only be in the form of a one or two page
explanation of their origins showing up as a backup feature.  These "one
minute origin stories" would often get reprinted as filler on an irregular
basis, or get updated as bonus features in the Annuals.  

     It wasn't unheard of for editors to give the scripts for several of
these to an aspiring artist as a sort of job test, since it at least let them
prove they could draw the company's flagship characters.  And then if a
regular story ran short, or a backup piece was lost in the mail and they
needed to fill pagecount quickly, the editor could pull one of these try-out
pieces out of the bin and run it.

     The following script is an example of this, featuring the Odd Couple of
the Coherent Universe, Flower Power and Union Label.  It ran an exceptionally
long three pages, but one- and two-page versions also existed, with the
simplest condensation involving removal of the first page and shrinking the
second slightly to add a title bar, a task that could be performed by an
editor who only needed two pages but had a full three-pager on hand.  While
it is undated, reference to the 555 California building appearing in a movie
suggests it comes from 1971 at the earliest.  There is also no writer credit,
but it could have come from the typewriter of pretty much any of Coherent's
editors at the time.

               *              *              *              *

     GENERAL ART NOTES: Flower Power should be all about flowing lines, think
Ditko.  She's also one character where you don't need to worry as much about
getting all the details consistent, because the flowers and vines that wrap
around her hippie outfit are constantly in motion.  Try to keep the outfit
itself consistent from panel to panel, but it's okay if it's not the same as
in a previous scene, since the plants and long blonde hair are her
identifiers.
     Union Label is a very Kirby character, lantern-jawed and powerfully
built.  His wrench and denim coveralls are always the same, but everything
else changes about as often as Flower Power's plants.  His hard hat usually
gets knocked off at a dramatic moment.
     Unless story flow makes this awkward, Union Label is always to the right
of Flower Power in any panel where they both appear.


PAGE 1

     Splash page.  Full figures of Union Label and Flower Power facing each
other.  Union Label's pose should be very closed, if not actually hostile.
Flower Power is flirty but NOT "easy".  Think "free love" not "paid sex
worker".  Symbolic panel boundaries made of plants and machinery are okay,
but be sure to leave room for all the text elements, which will be stacked
vertically in the space between the two.  Keep in mind that the indicated
logos might take up a bit more space than the regular lettering they replace,
so don't cut it too tightly in laying out the page.  Up to you whether the
main title element should be above their heads or at their eye level.


TITLE 1: THE DICHOTOMOUS DUO!

UNBOUNDED TEXT COLUMN 2: Who are (logo: Union Label) and (logo: Flower 
     Power)?  How did they get their freaky and fantastic powers?  And
     more mysteriously --

UNBOUNDED TEXT COLUMN 3: How did this "odd couple" ever come to fight on 
     the same side?


PAGE 2

     Six panels, two across and three down.  The left side is Flower Power's
story (panels 1, 3, 5), the right side is Union Label's.  Try to make it
obvious in some visual way that the stories read vertically, not the usual
zigzag.  Don't leave it all to the letterer and colorist.


     Panel 1: A younger Flower Power (long hair and hippie outfit, but no
plants) is walking down the streets of San Francisco with two graying
hippies, who are her parents.

     CAPTION 1: San Francisco, 1967, just before the Summer of Love!  Groovy!

     Panel 2: A line of dockworkers holding pink slips and trudging away from
the pier with hang-dog expressions.  Union Label is among them, make sure his
flag tattoo is visible.

     CAPTION 2: San Francisco, 1967, the ports are closing and shipping
is moving to Oakland.  Dad-blast it!

     Panel 3: Flower Power and her parents are now inside a greenhouse,
wearing tie-dyed labcoats (if not providing full color artwork, try to
visually convey the mixture of scientist and hippie in their clothing).

     CAPTION 3: Summer Breeze (born Cindy Mueller) loved working in the
greenhouse and helping her parents try to unlock the secrets of the peaceful
plant kingdom.  Like, wow!

     Panel 4: Union Label is sitting at a barstool, nursing a beer.

     CAPTION 4: Joe Murphy had been a machinist, keeping everything working
down at the docks.  But the new container ships didn't need men like him or
his buddies.

     Panel 5: Nighttime, Flower Power is fleeing from a burning greenhouse, a
vine clinging to one leg but not slowing her down.

     CAPTION 5: But agents of MegaAgraCo (MAC) wanted those secrets, and
wouldn't take no for an answer!  Harsh!

     Panel 6: Nighttime, Joe is in the cone of light from a streetlamp,
looking upward with desperate pleading.

     CAPTION 6: What was there left for the working man?  Had machines and
cheap foreign labor taken away the AMERICAN DREAM?


PAGE THREE

     The top two panels are the same size and format as the panels on page
two.  The bottom two thirds of the page are divided into two horizontal
panels, but they don't need to be the same size.


     Panel 1: A board meeting being broken up as vines twist around the
literally faceless men in business suits, with Flower Power at the center of
the scene and clearly in charge of the plants.  Her eyes glow.

     CAPTION 1: While Summer's parents died, their super-pollen discovery
granted their daughter the (logo: FLOWER POWER) to bring MAC to justice!

     Panel 2: Worm's eye view of Union Label, wrench held proudly, with a
backdrop of a skyscraper under construction (555 California Avenue
photoreference should be findable, it's been in a movie or two already).

     CAPTION 2: The strength of America's workers filled Joe's muscles at
that moment, and their spirit filled his heart!  If you want the job done
right, look for the (logo: Union Label)!

     Panel 3: The middle is dominated by Darkshield, who has Brightsword on
the ropes atop the Golden Gate Bridge.  Flower Power and Union Label are
rushing in to help from their respective sides of the panel.  Caption 3 is on
the left and should be in the style of Flower Power's panels, while caption 4
is Union Label's.

     CAPTION 3: Brightsword might be a square, but Flower Power knows she has
to lend a helping frond!

     CAPTION 4: No dirty commies are gonna wreck the Golden Gate bridge while
Union Label is around!

     Panel 4: Brightsword, smiling, stands between the two after Darkshield's
defeat (up to you how to indicate that).  They seem dubious about each other,
but Brightsword is pretty oblivious to that.

     BUBBLE 5 (BRIGHTSWORD): I think you two are going to make a great team!

     CAPTION 6: And what do you know, they did! 

     CAPTION 7: -FIN-

============================================================================

Author's Notes:

     Written for High Concept Challenge #36.5 (because no one got anything in
before the deadline for #36), "One Minute Origins".  I was tempted to
actually draw this, but decided it might not be done in time for *this*
challenge's deadline.  ;)
     As noted by the in-story editor, I figure this would be something you
might have seen around 1970 or 1971 in the alternate reality in which ASH
stuff was really published.  By that time, Union Label and Flower Power were
a couple, if not yet married, and had started their GL/GA-style traveling-
the-country phase.  And yes, these two were largely inspired by the GL/GA
stories, cranking up the "road trip of a liberal and a conservative" to 11 by
making them political cartoon stereotypes.  It may be hard to believe
nowadays, but back then the labor unions were a bastion of conservatism and
anti-communist sentiment: the hippie and the unionized worker were nearly as
iconic as the hawk and dove when it came to shorthand for the culture clash
of the late 60s and early 70s.  What kept FP and UL together despite their
other political differences is that both believed in protecting the common
folk from The Man, even if they disagreed about whether it was merely too
many bad apples, or if the idea of a barrel of apples was bad in the first
place. 

============================================================================

     For all the back issues, plus additional background information, art,
and more, go to http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/ASH !

     To discuss this issue or any others, either just hit "followup" to this
post, or check out our Yahoo discussion group, which can be found at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ash_stories/ !

     There's also a LiveJournal interest group for ASH, check it out at
http://www.livejournal.com/interests.bml?int=academy+of+super-heroes (if
you're on Facebook instead, there's an Academy of Super-Heroes group there
too). 

============================================================================