this is the first draft, far from complete, of an attempt at a graphic novel. i know almost nothing about real samurai or being a warrior, so that'll need some research. but the novel is not about samurai. why samurai matter at all will be clear early on. anyway, this is an experiment and i'm enjoying it.

a prison cell: one of those classic views, from above, at an angle so we see him sitting on his cot, head in his hands, shadows of the bars striping the room. a black-and-white view of a man on death row, sitting up in the darkness of the night.

It was his shoes that did it. Hideous things, ugly just for the sake of being ugly. Bad enough they would be manufactured and sold; worse that anyone would purchase and wear them.

from behind, a close-up of his hand holding his head, fingers digging into his close-shorn scalp

He did. He bought them He wore them. I saw them. Hideous things.

from in front, a low angle up at his face. what little we can see in the darkness is impassive, in contrast to the anguish in his fingers.

I now recognize my reaction as excessive. Awful that the shoes were, my reaction was worse. The shoes deserved to be mocked and then thrown in the trash. He deserved to be scorned, humiliated, forced to watch episodes of ?¢‚Ǩ?ìWhat Not to Wear?¢‚Ǩ¬ù until he repented.

back to the first view, from above.

I cut his head off.

very close to his face, we look into this eyes: there's nothing there.

An excessive reaction. Psychotic even. I know better now, but then....

move into one eye, almost entirely blackness, as a camera direction: fade to black

Then....

another close-up, same face, but a different time & place

Here I am, as I was then.

pull back to a full view, as if he were heroic; he is not. his hair is long, mousy brown and pulled into a limp version of a Japanese top-knot. he's dressed in a poor rendition of a Japanese warrior, and he has a sword on a belt. on his feet, cheap sneakers. the look on his face as a lame attempt at nobility; the effect is idiocy.

Comic, yes? Stupid. Above all, pathetic.

the angle drops down to accentuate what is most definitely not an heroic aspect.

I had gotten it into my mind that the city needed me to save it from the darkness overwhelming it. But rather than volunteer at the soup kitchen or teach kids how to read, I became a Hero.

from the side, we see a close view of his head and shoulders. he's attempting, and failing, to look powerful, noble, heroic.

A samurai.

for a moment, the vision he has of himself: he is strong, the dress is rich and accurate, the affect is every bit as noble and powerful as he hopes.

Yea, that's the picture I had of me. Great Hero Samurai. Glorious, yes?

and then right back to being a loser. a flicker of that awareness might be on his face, or that could just be the way an idiot's face appears.

Glorious, no. Here is the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìsamurai?¢‚Ǩ¬ù others saw. As I said, pathetic. But scary, not in the respect-for-a-hero way I saw...

clearly a dreaming shot, himself as hero being acclaimed by the masses, seen from above

...but in the holy-crap-what-a-creep way the rest of the world saw. Cheesy costume, hair too short for the topknot, and possibly a real sword. I was scary because people saw me for who I was. Only I saw me for who I dreamed I was.

we return for a single frame to the prison cell, viewing him from in front as his continues to sit; behind him, the memory of the character he pretended to be.

The cops saw me, of course. I had been out on the street for less than an hour before I was stopped.

a typical city street, with a typical cop talking to him, shaking his head, pointing to the sword.

He was a nice guy, and that was just one stone in the avalanche that was to follow. If he had been one of the assholes who I would soon meet, perhaps that would have been the end of it.

Rushing into a crowded coffeeshop, sticks of dynamite wrapped around his torso, visible as his coat whips open. A few faces spot what's about to happen; they see the explosives and the detonator in his hand. A few faces of dawning horror; more faces, though, of oblivious happiness, to end in just a moment...

Or perhaps a different choice might have followed...