KILL BILL sample, page 1 of 4

Behold: Page 1 of 4 of a sample excerpt from a pitch for a KILL BILL comic!

The story behind the story:

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 (not that they’d prolly care if I named ’em) 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-KILL BILL 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…”

The Unnamed Comics Company had a direct line to “QT”, and sent the pitch package along to him... Would my blatant reference to a horrendous 70s song appeal to Tarantino? Would the idea of a Deadly Vipers book not written by “QT” himself appeal to him in the slightest?

Well, lemme give you a hint: I’m posting these pages on “FAILED-PROJECT FRIDAY.”

Note: Yes, as you might’ve guessed, the only reason this scene took place in a hair salon was because I wanted to show a scissorfight. Perhaps the bad guy could've tracked Uma's character down in a scissor factory? Or that awesome room full o' scissors from DEAD AGAIN?