SCRIPT:

PANEL 1: A hallway at QUAGMIRE HIGH SCHOOL; ICHI, ASRIAL, and a 3RD FEMALE STUDENT talk; JEREMY is standing nearby.

ASRIAL: Ichi, did you HEAR? We're getting a new PHYS-ED TEACHER!
ICHI: REALLY? What happened to Ms. ____?
ASRIAL: From what I heard, she ELOPED with Mr. _____, the HISTORY TEACHER!

PANEL 2: CLOSEUP on Jeremy, as he imagines Ms. _____, a blonde-haired, butch-looking woman in a T-shirt...

PANEL 3: Same as panel 2 except that now Ms. _____ is wearing a wedding dress. Jeremy has a look of disgust on his face.

JEREMY: ELOPED?? YICCH!! Who'd want to marry THAT old BATTLEAXE??

PANEL 4: TWO-SHOT of Ichi and Jeremy; Ichi's face is stern as she lectures Jeremy. (Tetsuko's voice comes from off-panel.)

ICHI: HONESTLY, Jeremy! You think love has to be based solely on PHYSICAL BEAUTY?
JEREMY: Well, ah, I - -
TETSUKO (o.p.): EXCUSE me...

PANEL 5: TETSUKO is dressed in sweats that hide her physique; but her beautiful face and long blonde hair are certainly on display.

TETSUKO: ...I'm sorry to INTERRUPT, but... I'm NEW here and I'm trying to find the GYMNASIUM...

PANEL 6: Jeremy starts fawning over Tetsuko; Ichi does a not-so-slow burn in background.

JEREMY: No need for APOLOGIES, miss! As it happens, I'm heading there MYSELF, and I would be HONORED to ESCORT you PERSONALLY!
TETSUKO: Why, that's so SWEET of you - -

PANEL 7: EXTREME CLOSE-UP of Ichi's face as she screams.

ICHI: JEREMMYYYY!!

PANEL 8: Jeremy lies crumpled in a heap on the floor a la Beetle Bailey; one arm manages to point the way for Tetsuko who looks down at Jeremy with her hand to her mouth in an Oh-my-goodness what-just-happened-here gesture. In background, Ichi stalks away in high dudgeon, a huge WOODEN SLEDGEHAMMER over one shoulder. (Lettering for Jeremy's dialogue should be crooked and skewed.)

ICHI: RRR!!
JEREMY: Through that door, turn left, second building on yer right...

COMMENTS: I warned you the art was rough, didn't I? Just barely enough to indicate setting, position of characters, and (sometimes) placement of word balloons. Speaking of which, the first thing I'd probably realize when I did draw this out was that I most likely have too much text on the page.

There are blanks for the names of the two teachers about whom the students are talking because I wanted to get the story laid out before worrying about incidentals like names for two characters who won't even be mentioned again after this page. Were I drawing this page today, I think I'd make the "battleaxe" phys-ed teacher look like a (vaguely) female version of Onsen-mark-sensei from Urusei Yatsura.

Speaking of names...

At this point in Tetsuko's history, I thought I'd give her the last name "Lockhart"; the first of three different last names I'd be trying on the character. I decided later that I liked the first name "Melissa" better with "Lockhart", and gave that name, Melissa Lockhart, to my character Starburst's alter-ego. For awhile, I thought I'd give Tetsuko the same last name as my favorite brand of computer ("Tetsuko McIntosh", a slight respelling of "Macintosh"), only to discard that idea after some time for being too "cutesy" (and obvious), finally (as detailed here) settling on "Breckenridge".

"Ninja High School", its associated characters, locations, designs, etc. © Antarctic Press

All other material © 2006 David C. Matthews