The Kings of Poverty Row, S1E1
- Paul Kupperberg
- 13 hours ago
- 20 min read
This was a project I played around with during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. The Kings of Poverty Row started as stage play that gradually outgrew the time restraints of the stage and evolved into scripts for a television series. It's set in 1939, in the world of the fictional Esteem Comics, owned by quick buck publishers Harold and Jake Dinwitz, and tells the tale of their intrepid young editor Shermy Markowitz's efforts to introduce quality and integrity into a business that believed both its product and its creators were dispensable.
I had no serious expectations the story going anywhere beyond a file on my hard drive, and, as paying work came along, I set it aside and, as often happens with these stories that start as little creative itches, never got back to it. I still doubt I'll ever finish it, but if you can live with the disappointment of an incomplete story, I thought I would share some of the episodes I did complete.
Teaser:
EXT. DAY. NEW YORK CITY. SEPTEMBER 1939. ABE'S NEWSSTAND ON THE CORNER OF FIFTH AVENUE and 34th STREET.
A busy weekday. ABE sits in the old wooden newsstand, painted green, selling newspapers and cigarettes to the (mostly) men passing by. A delivery truck trundles by at a moderate speed, a man in the back dumping a few bundles of newspapers and magazines and comic books, tied up in heavy twine, onto the street in front of the newsstand without slowing down.
ABE hurries from his seat and retrieves the bundles, dragging them back to the newsstand. There he produces a box cutter to open the string and lay the newspapers on the stand. Passersby drop coins in a dish on the newsstand and take papers, but one customer stops. It’s SHERMY MARKOWITZ—18 years old, horn-rimmed glassed, dressed in a tweed suit, bowtie, and overcoat and hat, carrying a well-worn artists portfolio almost as big as himself—and he stands over ABE, who’s preoccupied with his newspapers.
SHERMY
You gonna open the magazines any time soon?
ABE
You mean any sooner than they just this second got delivered?
SHERMY
C’mon, Abe. I’m gonna be late for work.
ABE
So, you know what to do.
ABE tosses the closed box cutter to SHERMY, who fumbles catching it, then, with a grin, opens it and cuts the twine around the magazines.
SHERMY
Thanks, Abe.
SHERMY deftly flips through the stack of magazines—Time, New Yorker, Saturday Evening Post, etc.—until he hits gold: the layer of new COMIC BOOK titles! He eagerly riffles through them, looking for something specific.
SHERMY [to self]
Is it…? I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be out this week… yeah… okay, Detective Comics… More Fun… Flash Comics… and. Yes!
SHERMY triumphantly pulls a copy of ACTION COMICS #7 from the bundle.
SHERMY
He’s back on the cover!
ABE
Who’s back on which cover?
SHERMY
Superman! National put him on the cover of Action Comics again. First time since the first issue.
ABE
Hurray?
SHERMY
You don’t get it. He was on the cover of number one, which they had to go back to press for multiple printings of. You ever hear of such a thing with a comic magazine? You watch. I’ll bet this issue sells out too.
ABE
Yeah, I remember that one. Had a few customers asking me for copies.
SHERMY
(flipping thoughtfully through the issue)
Oh yeah?
ABE
Uh-huh. One guy tells me his kid’s all broken up because he can’t find one anywhere. Guess those guys scored a winner, huh? You got something like that coming up in one’a your funny books?
SHERMY stands, finding a dime in his pocket to toss into ABE’S dish. He stares thoughtfully at the comic in his hand, then taps the cover with his finger.
SHERMY
Not yet…
FADE OUT
Scene 1
INT. DAY. ESTEEM PERIODICALS. THE BULLPEN.
The BULLPEN is a conference room that’s had four drawing boards, taborets, and several battered art flat files jammed into it. A single window looks out into an airshaft. Two others are occupied by FRANK and ALBERT (both early-20s), both bent over their boards, talking across the room without looking up from their work.
FRANK
...So, Monday morning, when Chuck gets home, he calls Willie, just to make sure the job got delivered. He says, “Jeez, Chuck, I been trying to reach you all weekend. I fell asleep on the subway going into the city and somebody stole my portfolio.”
ALBERT
Jeez, Frank. Chuck must’ve shit a brick.
FRANK [laughing]
A brickyard! The son of a bitch starts screaming at Willie. “How could you fall sleep, you dumb bastard? I worked three days and nights straight to meet that deadline. All you hadda do was drop it off with Joe! You knew how important this was!” I’m telling you Albert, he’s practically crying. This was his last shot with Joe at Timely, you know? He swore on his mother and his kids that he’d make that deadline.
ALBERT
My mother always told me it wasn’t right to swear.
FRANK
Willie lets him go on a little, trying to get a word in, you know, while Chuck’s telling him all the horrible things he’s gonna do to him. Finally, Willie shouts, “Chuck, Chuck, simmer down, willya! It’s okay. I took care of it. I told Joe it was all my fault and he shouldn’t blame you.” He tells Chuck he made good on the job for him. All eight pages, overnight, so Joe could make shipping on the book.
ALBERT
How did Chuck like them apples?
FRANK
On the one hand, he’s relieved. I mean, Timely’s his last big account, right? But then he says, “Jeez, eight pages overnight? They couldn’t’ve been very good.” “Naw, they were fine,” Chuck said. “Joe loved them. Matter of fact, he liked ‘em so much, he wants me to take over the feature from you on a regular basis.”
ALBERT [Explodes laughing]
Aw, jeez, FRANK, you almost made me spill my ink.
FRANK
You know what the Bible says about spilling your ink in vain on the ground.
ALBERT
It’s a sin.
FRANK
Almost as big a sin as the one you commit the way you spill it on those pages. What are you using there, a housepainter’s brush?
SHERMY enters, portfolio in one hand, out of breath.
SHERMY
Hey. Sorry I’m late, guys. I got caught up at the newsstand.
ALBERT [to FRANK]
Is that a euphemism for getting laid?
FRANK
From anyone else, yes. From Shermy, it means he was stuck at the newsstand.
SHERMY hustles to his drawing board, propping the portfolio up against its side and drops the comics. He shrugs out of his overcoat and hangs it and his hat on the coat tree, then shrugs out of his jacket as he goes back to his board, draping it on the back of his chair, then rolling up his shirtsleeves, chattering away the whole time. It’s not until he’s about to take his seat that he notices the thick stack of comic book artboards on his board.
SHERMY
Ha! You guys must think I’m some kind of Boy Scout.
ALBERT
Aren’t you?
SHERMY
Well, yeah. An Eagle Scout, but Scouts are people too, you know.
ALBERT
And trustworthy and kind and trained to help old ladies cross the street.
FRANK
To get to the other side?
ALBERT
Vus den?
SHERMY
I’m just keeping an eye on what the competition is up to.
ALBERT
Competition! Against what level of dreck are we competing?
FRANK
You know the Dinowitz brothers’ slogan, “If it can’t be done on the cheap, it can’t be done!”
SHERMY
Look, all we need is one good strip to... hey! What’s this?
ALBERT
Lillian dropped them on your board a little while ago.
SHERMY picks up the first page from the stack of comic art on his board. He wrinkles his nose in distaste.
SHERMY
Did she say what it’s... oh.
Turns the first page over. Looks at the second. It’s worse. Curious, FRANK and ALBERT get up to stand behind SHERMY and look at the pages over his shoulder.
SHERMY
Oh.
Turns to the next page. Then the next. And the next. And so on, faster and faster, but it’s going from awful to cataclysmic. SHERMY is a study in pain. FRANK and ALBERT are looking and pointing in disbelief, commenting.
SHERMY
Oh.
ALBERT
This is painful.
FRANK
A boil on the ass is painful. This is agony.
ALBERT
I’m pretty sure the human body doesn’t move that way.
FRANK
Is that what those are supposed to be? Human?
SHERMY
Oh, god.
FRANK
Wait... is that Mighty Miss character a... a woman?
SHERMY
Oh, dear god in heaven.
ALBERT
They don’t expect you to publish this elementary school art project, do they?
SHERMY
How would I know? I’m just the editor.
FRANK
I guess we’ve published worse.
SHERMY is gathering up the pages, too nice to be annoyed but clearly bothered by what he’s looking at.
SHERMY
“It could be worse” isn’t an editorial standard, Frank.
FRANK
Since when does this joint have standards?
SHERMY
Maybe it’s about time we established some.
SHERMY takes the artboards with him and exits.
CUT TO:
Scene 2
INT. ESTEEM PERIODICALS. OFFICE OF THE DINOWITZ BROTHERS. DAY.
This is the office of the BROTHERS DINIWITZ, president HAROLD and accountant JAKE. They sit at facing desks butted together in the middle of the small cramped room. JAKE’S desk is neat and organized, with only what he’s using at the moment visible: a ledger book and pen. HAROLD’S desk is overflowing with contracts and invoices and magazines and newspapers and seems to be the well from which the rest of the room’s mess flows. HAROLD is going through a stack of bills, taking them off one filled spike and jamming them down onto a second spike after JAKE acknowledges the entry in the giant ledger book in front of him.
HAROLD
Manhattan Photo-Engraving. $213.27.
JAKE
Manhattan Photo-Engraving. $213.27. Check.
HAROLD
Gotham Typography. $62.84.
JAKE
Gotham Typography. $62.84. Check.
HAROLD
Eastern Color and Separation. $261.54.
JAKE
Eastern Color and Separation. $261.54? Those bastards raise their rates again?
HAROLD
No. We added a new comic magazine to the schedule.
JAKE
We did? When did we do that? Why did we do that?
HAROLD
On Friday. I called Morty Eiber for 64 pages of new material. The printer’s got an open slot to run it on Friday.
JAKE
Christ, Harold, what’s the rush?
HAROLD
You saw the same reports from the newsstand scouts I did, Jake. The first issue of the Manhunter Comics magazine sold out here in the city, and in Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles. And Columbus.
JAKE
We’re a hit in Columbus? Why didn’t you say so?
HAROLD
Kush meyn tuchus. Look, I don’t like the goddamned things any more than you do, but they sell, no?
JAKE
They sell, yes. But they’re a pain in the ass. The kind of money the newspaper syndicates want for the reprint rights to their comic strips...!
HAROLD
Forget them. That’s why we commission new stories. They’re cheap and we don’t gotta pay royalties to the syndicates. I need a cup of coffee. You want a cup of coffee? Where’s the kid? He’ll get us some coffee.
(shouting)
Hey, kid! Coffee!
JAKE
I don’t want coffee. And leave the kid alone. I keep telling you, he’s not the office boy. He’s our comic book editor.
HAROLD
I thought he was the gofer.
JAKE
Jesus, Harold, sometimes you’re as oblivious as Hooperman.
HAROLD
Shoot me for making an assumption! The kid is, what, thirteen years old? Has he even been Bar Mitzvah yet?
JAKE
He’s eighteen. And he’s got a real knack for this comic strip stuff. On top of that, he writes and draws like nobody’s business and does it on staff, on salary.
HAROLD
I know that. I just assumed he also got the coffee and swept up.
JAKE
No.
HAROLD
Then why is he always bringing me coffee?
JAKE
What are you always yelling at him for?
HAROLD
To get me coffee!
SHERMY enters, the stack of art clutched under his arm while he carefully balances two steaming mugs of coffee in either hand.
SHERMY
Coffee, Harold? I brought one for you too, Jake.
JAKE
Thank you, Shermy. But I keep telling you, it’s not your job.
SHERMY
That’s okay. I don’t mind. I was coming to talk to you anyway.
HAROLD
See!
JAKE
First, you got any last-minute invoices from those thieves you call writers and artists? We’re closing the books on last month.
SHERMY
All caught up.
JAKE
Good. Thanks. Oh, did Harold tell you about the new comic book we’ve added to the schedule? Morty Eiber’s supplied the editorial.
SHERMY [holds up artboards]
Is that what this is?
JAKE [to HAROLD]
You don’t think you should mention these things to the comics magazine editor? A memo, a passing word?
HAROLD
You just got finished telling me how hard the boy works, Jake. You want I should be piling more on his shoulders?
SHERMY
No disrespect meant to Mr. Eiber...
HAROLD
Why not? He’s a gonif.
JAKE
A lying bastard.
SHERMY
... Sure, and he hires the dregs for his shop and pays them slave wages.
HAROLD
Dregs need to make a living too.
SHERMY
All I’m saying is, I’ve got a file drawer full of submissions that are better than this. Instead of printing the dreck Eiber sends us, we could publish some quality comics.
HAROLD [laughs]
Please, you think the pishers reading this dreck know good from bad? What do you think we’re selling here anyway? How long do you think this gravy train is gonna run? There’s no time for quality, not if we’re gonna cash in while it’s still hot. Two years from now, we’ll be on to publishing whatever the next hot thing is. You know, Jake, I hear there’s a few dollars to be made in the music lyric magazines.
JAKE
Music lyrics are copyrighted. You gotta pay royalties to ASCAP.
HAROLD
Pay a union? To hell with that!
SHERMY
The comics don’t have to be bad. There are great newspaper strip artists, like Hal Foster on Prince Valiant, Roy Crane on Captain Easy, Burne Hogarth on Tarzan, Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond. They’re creating works of substance, art that will last.
HAROLD
Ha! That’s what you think.
(grabbing a newspaper from his desk in his fist)
That great art of yours is printed on the cheapest newsprint money can buy, boychik. Read it in the morning, wrap the trash in it in the afternoon, throw it away in the evening. Done.
SHERMY
A lot of people save the comics. I do.
HAROLD
Oy.
JAKE
Me too. I got a run of Little Orphan Annie going back to the beginning.
SHERMY [surprised]
Really, Jake?
JAKE
No! Don’t be a schmuck!
SHERMY
Alright, so it doesn’t have to be fine art. But... this?
HAROLD
Yes. That. It’s bought and paid for. To me, that’s a masterpiece!
SHERMY
But...
JAKE
Shermy, let’s make believe we had the argument and get to the part where you lose so I can get on with my day.
SHERMY
I’m telling you, Jake, we can...
JAKE
Enough, Shermy! It’s a done deal.
SHERMY [sighs, giving in]
Okay, okay. Have you got a title? I’ll need something to put on the schedule.
JAKE
It’s that action-adventure and costume hero stuff, right? Action Comics?
SHERMY
Taken. By National Comics. Speaking of which...
HAROLD
Wait! Adventure Comics?
SHERMY
National’s got that too. Listen, this Action Comics of theirs is on to something with...
JAKE
Detective?
SHERMY
National again. And that the character they had on the cover of the first issue, Superman? He’s back on number seven...
HAROLD
What’d they do? Trademark the dictionary? Okay. Bold Comics. Brave Comics. Tough. Wild.
JAKE
Manly Comics.
HAROLD
Super Comics.
JAKE
Best Comics.
HAROLD
Better Comics.
JAKE
Hero Comics.
HAROLD
Crackerjack Comics.
SHERMY
Wait, that’s not bad.
HAROLD
Crackerjack?
SHERMY
No, that’s terrible. Anyway, Whitman is already using it. I like Hero Comics.
JAKE
Done. I’ll register the trademark.
SHERMY
I’ll draw up a logo. So, uhm, this Superman? I think they’re on to something with the super guys. Maybe instead of Mighty Miss’s circus adventures and the rest of this, we could...
HAROLD
Naw, kids want cowboys and pilots and circuses. And I could use another cup of coffee when you get a chance.
JAKE
Harold!
SHERMY [trying not to show disappointment]
It’s okay, Jake. Sure thing, Harold.
SHERMY, defeated, exits.
HAROLD
Are we done?
JAKE
Why? There a race at Aqueduct you’re missing? The books, remember?
HAROLD
Yeah. Where were we? Right. Comstock Pulp and Paper. $445.03.
JAKE
Comstock Pulp and Paper. $445.03....
CUT TO:
Scene 3
INT. ESTEEM PERIODICALS BULLPEN. DAY.
FRANK and ALBERT are bent over their drawing boards. SHERMY is working at his, laboriously drawing.
ALBERT
Hard to believe I gave up a promising career in the theater to become an artist.
FRANK
Really? Do you still have the flashlight you carried as an usher?
ALBERT
It’s true, m’boy. As a lad, I was cast in a Yiddish theater production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream as Puck.
FRANK
What happened? Shakespeare didn't think you were right for the part?
SHERMY [not looking up]
Hey, guys.
(holds up the finished HERO COMICS logo)
What do you think?
FRANK
It’s... manly!
ALBERT
I’d dare call it heroic. What is it?
SHERMY [examining the logo]
The new title.
FRANK
Yeah? You assigning stories for it?
SHERMY
I wish. This is for the one we were looking at this morning.
FRANK
A Morty Eiber production. From the creative equivalent of the San Francisco earthquake.
SHERMY
I know, I know. I’ve got talent like you guys stuck doing art and lettering corrections on guys you can draw circles around for twenty-two fifty a week... not to mention a flat file full of stories already to go, while Harold and Jake fill the pages with Eiber’s amateurs.
FRANK
You’re being kind calling those bums amateurs. They can’t draw flies.
ALBERT
They’re the same as most of the publishers in town. They sold their souls to the devil for kickbacks from packagers like Eiber. The devil hates anything good. It takes time and costs money.
(lowers his voice)
Word is, they also cook the books on Mr. Hooperman.
SHERMY
Hey, come on, guys. I don’t mind making fun, but talk like that...
FRANK
I thought “crook” was what they filled in under occupation on their tax returns.
SHERMY
Okay, that’s enough, I’m not kidding.
LILLIAN [OFFSCREEN]
SHERMMMMMM-YYYYYY!
FRANK [cocking his head]
What’s that I hear? The mating call of the aged prune-faced persnickety!
SHERMY [glancing nervously O.S.]
Shh! Stop that! She’ll hear you!
LILLIAN [O.S./closer]
Oh, Sherrrrmm! I’ve got a package for you!
ALBERT (sotto voce)
And I’ll bet you wishes you had a package for her too!
SHERMY
Please, guys. Just this once, can you not...
FRANK (interrupting/loud/winking at SHERMY)
...And my cop buddy said they found the body of another spinster up in Riverdale stuffed into the trunk of a Ford.
ALBERT (loud)
You’re kidding. That’s terrible! That’s what, the sixth spinster they’ve found?
LILLIAN ENTERS, carrying a bulky inter-office envelope.
FRANK
The seventh! The cops are baffled. They’re warning all virgins over the age of 60 in the neighborhood to take extra precautions and stay out of the trunks of Ford automobiles.
LILLIAN
Drop dead, FRANK. I’m fifty-six.
ALBERT
And you wear your age, uhm...fitfully.
LILLIAN
Sure, laugh now, Klonsky. One day you’ll be old too and it won’t be so funny when you’re tripping over your own balls.
ALBERT
I beg your pardon, ma’am, but the name is Cole. And I’ll have you know, I come from a long line of strong and sturdy scrotums.
FRANK
Literally.
LILLIAN [to Shermy]
Listen to him. “Cole.” (laughs) He’s a Cole like I’m a Rockefeller. Remember who fills out your income tax forms, boys. Klonsky. Markowitz. Lieberman. Schneider, Shindler... have to sign their names Cole, Manning, Lundy, Small, Shavers. What’s the matter, ashamed of being Jewish?
ALBERT
I’m not ashamed of anything. Cole is just an easier name to remember than Klonsky.
FRANK
Is that why you had the nose job? Because a smaller nose is easier to remember than that honker you were born with?
ALBERT
That was a medical procedure, m’boy.
LILLIAN
Sure. You just told the surgeon to take a little off the top while he was at it.
FRANK
He’s such a Jew, he demanded a nasal circumcision.
LILLIAN
This came, Shermy. Color proofs for you to check. Rush job.
SHERMY
Thanks, Lillian.
LILLIAN
You’re welcome, Shermy.
(looking at FRANK and ALBERT)
Give a holler if you need help changing the diapers on these two.
FRANK
Ah—grown men in diapers! Is that the key for a man to enter the boudoir of Miss Lillian Blumenfeld?
LILLIAN
Ask me again, when there are any men around.
LILLIAN exits to FRANK and ALBERT’S laughter.
With a sigh, SHERMY opens the envelope and takes out the stack of printed comic books color proofs. He picks up a red grease pencil and starts to look through them, stopping occasionally to circle some mistake on a page.
SHERMY [muttering]
I mean, what am I supposed to do? Fight city hall...?
SHERMY’S eyes wander back to the stack of comic book artboards on the side of his drawing table. Finally, he drops his pencil and pulls the boards towards him.
SHERMY
Okay, so maybe we can salvage some of the back-ups... but this Mighty Miss story...
ALBERT
It’s really a remarkable achievement. There’s not a single useable panel in the entire sixteen pages.
FRANK
A comparison to used toilet tissue comes readily to mind.
ALBERT
Yes, but without the artistic integrity of actual crap.
SHERMY
I... I can’t let the brothers do this. This time, I’ve got to put my foot down. We’ve published a lot of junk in our time, but this is too much. It’s a first issue, for crying out loud. A kid maybe will buy it once--maybe. If he doesn’t look inside first--but when they get a load of this stuff... we’re dead.
FRANK
You don’t have to sell us, kiddo. But good luck with the brothers.
SHERMY clutching pages to his chest, EXITS.
FRANK
A buck says they tell him to shut up and publish it.
ALBERT
Do I look like a sucker?
FRANK
It’s hard to tell with that plastic nose of yours.
CUT TO:
Scene 4
INT. ESTEEM PERIODICALS. OFFICE OF THE DINOWITZ BROTHERS. DAY.
The BROTHERS are at their desks. HAROLD is leaning back, reading the racing form, while JAKE works on the books. The telephone starts to ring. Both ignore it. One ring. Two. Three. Four.
JAKE
Would you mind? Some of us are doing actual work here.
HAROLD begrudgingly closes the paper and swings his feet to the floor to reach for the phone.
HAROLD
Hello. Esteem Publications. (pause) Who? (Pause) No. There’s nobody here by that name... what?No, I don’t care what it says in the masthead. Never heard of him!
HAROLD bangs the phone down in its cradle.
JAKE
Who was that?
HAROLD [pretends to spit]
Phtooey! Another reporter.
JAKE
Why don’t they just give it a rest?
HAROLD
They smell blood in the water. I’m telling you, those pulp magazines of ours are nothing but trouble. It was bad enough when those religious groups started kicking up a fuss last year, but now with the D.A. and the FBI crawling all over the place... it’s not worth it. I mean, what the hell business is it of theirs if a grown-up person wants to read a spicy detective or romance pulp story in the privacy of his or her own home? Or maybe order some “adult merchandise” from the back pages? This is a crime?
JAKE
Well, it’s certainly none of my business, but technically, yeah. Obscenity is a crime. But the lawyers keep saying there’s nothing to worry about. Every magazine is its own separate corporation, and our names aren’t connected in any way, shape or form with the dirty ones.
HAROLD
The lawyers maybe don’t have anything to worry about, but they’re not the ones who’d have to face bankruptcy and jail. Anyway, we pay half a cent, a penny a word for pulp stories. It all adds up. You know what we pay Eiber for a whole comic books worth of new material?
JAKE
Bubkus. Of which he pays the those hacks of his approximately half-a-bubkus.
HAROLD
It’s for ten-year olds. It doesn’t have to be good.
JAKE
Then we’re in luck. I mean... ”Ace Weird, Ghost Detective.” “Chuck Washburn, Forest Ranger.” “The Phantom Cowboy.” Who thinks of this stuff?
HAROLD
What difference does it make? Pulps or comic books, they each cost a dime. I should care which dime goes into my pocket? And speaking of dimes, you finished with the books?
JAKE
The real ones, yeah. I’m working on the ones for Hooperman now.
HAROLD
Use plenty of red ink.
JAKE
Don’t you worry. I got a fountain pen made special for it. Anyway, he never asks to look at the books. All he ever says is, “How’s business?” I say, “Don’t ask!” and so he doesn’t.
HAROLD
Then he deserves whatever happens to him.
JAKE
I know, I know, sometimes I get these twinges. I don’t know what they are...
HAROLD
It’s called a conscience, Jakey. If you ignore it, though, it goes away.
SHERMY, looking determined, enters, the comic book artboards clutched in his hands.
SHERMY
Jake. Harold. I have to talk to you!
HAROLD
You got a logo for me?
SHERMY
Yes, but that’s not...
(holds out the artboards)
I know you told me to drop it, but I can’t. This material from Morty Eiber... it’s embarrassing even by Esteem standards.
HAROLD
What standards?
JAKE
Excuse me, Shermy, I like a good debate as much as the next guy, but I got news for you, kinder: this ain’t a democracy.
SHERMY
All I’m saying is...
JAKE
And all I’m saying is: No. Shut up and publish it.
SHERMY
But...
JAKE
No buts. Shut up.
HAROLD
And publish it. Or do we gotta find someone who will without all the tsurus.
JAKE
Farshteyn? Understand?
ON SHERMY, sagging in defeat.
SHERMY
Farshteyn.
CUT TO:
Scene 5
INT. ESTEEM PERIODICALS BULLPEN. DAY.
ON SHERMY, much as we saw him at the end of the last scene, a defeated man, except now he’s standing in the BULLPEN doorway, looking stunned, clutching the artboards to his chest.
FRANK
You were wise not to take that bet.
ALBERT
I always listen to my gut, m’boy. It hasn’t failed me yet.
FRANK
Except with that waitress at Luchow’s.
ALBERT
That time it wasn’t my gut.
SHERMY enters, pages under his arm, fuming.
SHERMY
They told me to shut up and publish it.
FRANK
I hate to say I told you so.
SHERMY [slapping the pages on board]
They said the art looked good enough to them for ten-year-olds. Ha! I’ll bet any ten-year-old reader could draw better than this! They told me it’s paid for and it runs.
ALBERT
Surprise! Harold Diniwitz is the cheapest son of a bitch in the business. If there’s a way to save a penny, you can be sure he knows it. Especially if he can cheat someone at the same time.
FRANK
Jake’s got Lincoln’s face permanently impressed on his thumb from pinching pennies so hard.
ALBERT
It’s the nature of the beast. It’s a penny ante business that attracts penny ante people.
SHERMY slowly spreads the pages out in front of him on his board.
SHERMY
Yeah, I get that. You gotta sell a lot of comic books to make a buck, but doesn’t it make sense that you’d sell a lot more copies of a good comic book than you will a bad one?
ALBERT
They don’t know the difference. They’re scammers and squatters. They think short term and fast bucks. Last week, pulps sold so they sold pulps. This week, it’s comics. Next week, it’ll be crossword puzzle books or who knows what.
SHERMY
If it’s so bad, what are you guys doing here? You’re both a lot better than this. You could actually make a living in advertising or illustration.
FRANK
So could you.
SHERMY
Me? Thanks, but I’m just a cartoonist. All I can draw are funny animals and big foot characters. But it’s going to be the action-adventure hero, the super people, that’ll be the big thing in comic books. I can’t draw that stuff.
FRANK
Don’t sell yourself short, Shermy. You’ve got an eye for art and an ear for stories. I always figured you were just learning the ropes working here, passing through on the way to doing your own newspaper strip, like everybody else in this business.
SHERMY
That... that’s really flattering, FRANK, thanks, but no. I’m right where I want to be. I want to do comic books.
ALBERT
Then that’d make you the only guy in the business not angling to get his own newspaper strip.
SHERMY
Ha! Naw, I don’t have the patience for the strips. You get three or four panels, then you have to wait a whole day to read the next few panels, and then another day, and another, and another. I like the satisfaction of a complete story, all in one place. Read it, enjoy it, and get on to the next thrilling tale.
ALBERT
And if comics go away tomorrow?
SHERMY
I don’t think they will. But I figure so what? I’m eighteen. If the comics tank in a couple of years, I’m still young enough to find something else. Maybe I am wasting my time, but this way, I won’t have to go through the rest of my life wondering.
ALBERT
Wondering what?
SHERMY
Wondering what comics could have become. I read the strips when I was a kid and, sure, they’re what got me to start drawing in the first place. Copying Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy, and Segar’s Popeye, Young’s Blondie, and the rest. I loved the art, but I was too impatient to follow the stories, and then Famous Funnies came along, reprinting the comics as complete stories and then National published Detective Comics, with all new material instead of newspaper strip reprints. When I saw that, I went straight to National with my portfolio, but I never got past the receptionist. Some editor a couple of years older than me looked at my samples, told me I had a lot of potential, and to come back when I got some experience.
ALBERT
You’re getting that by the ton here.
SHERMY
But comic books... I don’t think they have to be just for kids. I think they could be considered as legitimate as books or movies or theater. I mean, a great story is a great story. Why should it matter if it’s being acted out on a stage, written in a book, or told in pictures and word balloons in a comic book? Romeo and Juliet is a classic, no matter how it’s told.
FRANK
Yeah, except Harold would try paying Shakespeare a buck a page.
SHERMY
I think you’re wrong, Albert. I think comics is a penny ante business because it’s run by penny ante people. But it doesn’t have to be.
ALBERT
I don’t disagree, m’boy. I’ve often thought this business could be dragged kicking and screaming to success, in spite of the people trying to cheapen it. The only limits are if we allow the penny ante people who believe they’re in charge of art get their way.
SHERMY (nods, thoughtful)
Yeah.
While FRANK and ALBERT watch curiously, SHERMY slowly shuffles through the pages of art, separating them into three different little piles. When he’s satisfied with the division of pages, he stacks two of the piles together and places them carefully on the chair behind him.
Then he fans the remaining pile, 16 pages, on his board. He looks at them for a moment or two more, making a decision. Then he picks up the open bottle of India Ink on the board, raises it over his head, and deliberately and slowly starts to dribble ink down onto the pages, splattering and ruining them.
FRANK and ALBERT watch in utter disbelief before they start to laugh.
SHERMY looks up from the ink-splattered pages, deadpan.
SHERMY
Oops.
FADE OUT
Comments