PPP
Earlier, I went through some old SL-related e-mails, and ran across this unused and forgotten draft for a Plywood comic. As far as I am concerned, the Plywood Players Present comics were kind of cheating, in any case. When I posted a PPP, odds are it meant I was either feeling burned out or was out of real ideas. Not that some of them weren't pretty good, if I do say so myself, but they always felt like pointless filler to me.

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Title: Plywood Players Present #N

Frame One:
A typical court room. Gretel, dressed in black robe, plays the judge. She's sitting behind the bench at left, gavel in hand. Jayne sits at the witness stand at right, dressed in formal attire suitable for court. Jon stands in front of the bench, center of frame, with white hair and the trademark light grey suit. He's playing the part of Matlock, the famous TV lawyer.

Caption (at top) The Plywood Players Proudly Present... Matlock

Matlock (Jon): So you say you saw the defendant leaving the victim's house?
Witness (Jayne): Yes.
M: From your shop waaay over on the other side of the sim.
W: That's right.

Frame Two:
Change camera angle. Jon/Matlock stands at left, gesticulating in a casual manner as he speaks. Gretel/Judge still sits at her bench, now at right of frame, watching Jon/Matlock. The Prosecutor, played by Spicoli in formal black suit, stands at his table in the background, visible between the two. (The defendant, who is irrelevant to the story here, is conveniently hidden by Jon/Matlock.) Spicoli's hand is raised in objection, and his mouth is open. Jayne/Witness is not visible, but it's assumed she's out of frame at right.

M: Now, I'm just a simple country boy, and I don't understand all this technical mumbo-jumbo, but I have to ask...
M: Mrs. Smith, what is your draw distance?
Prosecutor (Spicoli, with emphasis): WTF?!
P: Objection, your honor! Relevance!
Judge (Gretel): I'll allow it. But get to the point, Mr. Matlock.
M: Thank you, your honor.

Frame Three:
Back to original camera angle. Jon/Matlock is addressing the witness. The witness looks upset.

M: Mrs. Smith?
W: It's...
W (emphasis): It's 64 meters.

Frame Four:
Same camera. Witness is slumped in her chair, defeated and deflated. Matlock smirks. Judge bangs gavel.

Offscreen Jury/Audience: Gasp!
J: "Order in the court!"
M: "I rest my case!"

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And that was the joke. See, I was going for the old lawyer show cliche about the nearsighted eye witness. Said witness is somehow deprived of his glasses at the time of the incident, and is ultimately revealed to be lying about seeing the wrongly accused defendant. It's been in every legal drama ever made, in one variation or another. And low draw distance equals nearsightedness. See? Ha ha ha?

Draw distance. I was going to make a comic gag centered around draw distance settings. What was I thinking?
Posted by Moriash Moreau at 11:33 AM