Sean Knickerbocker - Best of Three
Above is page 67 of a serialized story called Best of Three. I have been serializing this story in my comics anthology Rust Belt Review. This page is from the last chapter of the story, it will appear in Rust Belt Review Volume 7... Available soon!
Page Breakdown
Panel 1: A flip phone on silent buzzes on the dash of an old truck. We hear a character say "Somebody is popular today" implying that there have been several calls.
Panel 2: Zoom out to our three characters crammed into the cabin of the truck. Shelly is sitting in the middle, normally she's driving since this is her truck. David has taken the wheel metaphorically and literally after catching Shelly attempting to abandon David and Georgie while on their journey to find a stockpile of money that David's father hid away.
Panel 3: Deadpan face on shot of a cocky David implying that the tables have turned. "We have the upper-hand now"
Panel 4: Establishing shot of the truck arriving at the supposed destination of the hidden treasure, Pedro's Storage; a storage unit facility located outside a novelty truck stop in South Carolina.
Panel 5: Close up of a hand ringing a bell at the desk.
Panel 6: Camera pulls out to show the gang waiting at the desk while the storage unit attendant is in a back office on a gaming rig of some sort.
Panel 7: The attendant waddles out of the office to ask the gang what they are here for. David tells the attendant that he's here to collect his dead father's belongings.
Panel 8: The attendant looks up the account on the computer and reveals that there is an account in his father's name, but the payment is current and there's no other names listed as a point of contact. This reveals to David, Shelly, and Georgie that David's father Dennis might still be alive.
Panel 9: The attendant refuses to let them in. David plays along and implies that his father is incapacitated sent him as a surrogate to collect his things.
Panel 10: The attendant is unphased by David's scenario. While looking at his nails he says "Sounds like a you problem, not a me problem."
Thought process:
Best of Three is an American dirtbag picaresque. All of the characters are oafs, and the stakes presented are petty at best. At this point in the story, our characters are getting close to discovering Dennis' earnings from his career in competitive trading card gaming. After travelling this far, they learn that Dennis' stockpile exists and is located at this storage center, but are denied access by a disheveled attendant that relishes in his power to grant or deny access to units often full of unwanted junk.
Throughout the story I want to display a flavor of greed and desperation that's tied to modern American life. In this moment we see a small business owner flaunt his small amount of power to deny access to his kingdom of junk, "Pedro's Storage". The storage center itself is based on a real life roadside attraction in South Carolina called "South of the Border". As the name implies, it's a problematically themed tourist attraction that appropriates Mexican culture through the lens of white America.
Greed, bigotry, and stupidity. What's more American than that?!