Vector 2/3 or 4
To pick up where I left off in my previous post:
Vector obviously couldn't be done as a plain old book, considering that it was a story all about visual arts. The story I was developing felt too large and complicated for a movie, so I decided the best approach would be a limited series comic book. This was a stupid idea from the start--I'm just not that sort of an artist--but I went ahead developing the story anyway. This post includes the complete plot summary and some miscellaneous details. The script for the (ludicrously short) first issue will follow later.
PLOT SUMMARY
The basic premise is this: Adobe, the company behind leading design software like Photoshop, has created technology which can manipulate the real world as though it were a piece of digital artwork. Their prototypes are stolen, and they enlist the help of a talented, idealistic young designer named Carter Digby. Over time he learns the prototypes were distributed to five people:
Wassily Plevitz, an artist who believes design should be used to highlight, rather than conceal, the ugliness of reality. Though the design community considers him the most dangerous villain, his attacks are mostly psychological. He never directly endangers anyone’s life.
Fabian Romero, a temperamental, self-absorbed avant-garde/abstract artist who values form over function. He uses Adobe’s technology to do things like remove unsightly doors and windows from buildings (with people still trapped inside) and launching flying sculptures that disrupt air traffic.
Jon Pearl, Carter’s mentor, who feels design is meant to simplify and bring order to the chaos of the world. With this in mind, he uses his tech to erase anything--and anyone--he deems unnecessary.
Aaron Locke and Norton Finn, the career criminal who break into Adobe to steal the prototypes in the first place. Locke keeps a one-of-a-kind device based on Adobe Illustrator’s “pathfinder” tool, which he uses primarily for breaking and entering. Finn, a bit of a doofus, has the same extremely versatile devices as the other villains, but can only figure out how to make copies of himself. Both crooks are employed by Davis Steele, a designer once rejected by the firm Carter Digby works at. Steele is evidently trying to amass a fast fortune, but his ultimate objective is unclear until the end of the story.
Wassily Plevitz makes his debut as a villain at a fashion show in Paris, grotesquely disfiguring the models (Issue #1). Carter is too busy pursuing Aaron Locke to deal with this, and the police in Paris view it as low priority. Wanting to draw more attention to the problem, Tucker Crowley, the fashion consultant in charge of the show, murders the models and blames it on Plevitz (Issue #2).
After several failed confrontations with Plevitz, Romero, and the two crooks (Issues 3 and 4), Carter is unexpectedly rescued by Frank Connelly, a con artist in possession of some earlier Adobe prototypes. Adobe tells Carter not to trust him, but Carter ignores this and together they capture Aaron Locke.
Issue 5 is more about character development than plot. Through conversations and flashbacks we learn: (1) Connelly’s absent father and years as a con artist have made it difficult to trust anyone, particularly authority figures. (2) Carter was once a rebellious starving artist in California, but became a does-what-he’s-told-goody-two-shoes after his girlfriend died of a drug overdose. (3) Tucker Crowley’s path to fashion design began with self-loathing caused by his mother’s constant berating of his father and men in general. The only major plot point occurs when Crowley convinces Congress to put him in charge of a military task force called the Fashion Police, intended to expedite the capture of Wassily Plevitz.
Crowley uses his newfound power to impose his vision of good taste on the world. The Fashion Police do everything from destroying an old woman’s tacky ceramic cat collection to arresting people who wear white after Labor Day, claiming all these “violations” can be tied back to Plevitz. Afraid to have his scapegoat captured too quickly, Crowley instructs Carter and Connelly to focus their attentions on Jon Pearl and Fabian Romero. Meanwhile, one of the FP’s agents, a model turned fashion designer named Barbie Kensington, seduces Norton Finn and steals his tech. The first thing she does with it, mostly as an experiment, is turn Finn into a doppelganger of herself. Tucker Crowley likes this idea so much that he and Barbie set about turning thousands more people into doppelgangers.
Seeing the FP’s corruption, Carter decides he has to capture Wassily Plevitz immediately to shut them down. He succeeds, but the diversion gives Jon Pearl time to make an unfortunate discovery. The process used to create the Barbie doppelganger’s makes it possible to select them all at once for a mass deletion. Only the original Barbie is left standing.
Fabian Romero, an admirer and occasional lover of Barbie Kensington, is so enraged that he deals with Pearl himself. He then demands a final showdown with Carter and Connelly in his Escher-inspired labyrinth. They oblige, but are unable to subdue him until Barbie, seeking redemption for the deaths she caused, shows up to save the day. Romero is captured, leaving only one loose end to tie up: Davis Steele.
Steele has used his knack for forging documents and circumventing security systems to access a missile command center. Carter arrives before he launches anything but is betrayed by Connelly, who reveals he’s been working with Steele all along. They use the missiles to bring down the network of satellites that makes Adobe’s technology possible. Steele believes the debacle will throw the company into financial ruin, allowing him to buy it with his ill-gotten fortune. He plans to rebuild the very system he destroyed, using the carnage of the past several weeks as a publicity stunt.
MISCELLANEOUS DETAILS (in no particular order)
Vector obviously couldn't be done as a plain old book, considering that it was a story all about visual arts. The story I was developing felt too large and complicated for a movie, so I decided the best approach would be a limited series comic book. This was a stupid idea from the start--I'm just not that sort of an artist--but I went ahead developing the story anyway. This post includes the complete plot summary and some miscellaneous details. The script for the (ludicrously short) first issue will follow later.
PLOT SUMMARY
The basic premise is this: Adobe, the company behind leading design software like Photoshop, has created technology which can manipulate the real world as though it were a piece of digital artwork. Their prototypes are stolen, and they enlist the help of a talented, idealistic young designer named Carter Digby. Over time he learns the prototypes were distributed to five people:
Wassily Plevitz, an artist who believes design should be used to highlight, rather than conceal, the ugliness of reality. Though the design community considers him the most dangerous villain, his attacks are mostly psychological. He never directly endangers anyone’s life.
Fabian Romero, a temperamental, self-absorbed avant-garde/abstract artist who values form over function. He uses Adobe’s technology to do things like remove unsightly doors and windows from buildings (with people still trapped inside) and launching flying sculptures that disrupt air traffic.
Jon Pearl, Carter’s mentor, who feels design is meant to simplify and bring order to the chaos of the world. With this in mind, he uses his tech to erase anything--and anyone--he deems unnecessary.
Aaron Locke and Norton Finn, the career criminal who break into Adobe to steal the prototypes in the first place. Locke keeps a one-of-a-kind device based on Adobe Illustrator’s “pathfinder” tool, which he uses primarily for breaking and entering. Finn, a bit of a doofus, has the same extremely versatile devices as the other villains, but can only figure out how to make copies of himself. Both crooks are employed by Davis Steele, a designer once rejected by the firm Carter Digby works at. Steele is evidently trying to amass a fast fortune, but his ultimate objective is unclear until the end of the story.
Wassily Plevitz makes his debut as a villain at a fashion show in Paris, grotesquely disfiguring the models (Issue #1). Carter is too busy pursuing Aaron Locke to deal with this, and the police in Paris view it as low priority. Wanting to draw more attention to the problem, Tucker Crowley, the fashion consultant in charge of the show, murders the models and blames it on Plevitz (Issue #2).
After several failed confrontations with Plevitz, Romero, and the two crooks (Issues 3 and 4), Carter is unexpectedly rescued by Frank Connelly, a con artist in possession of some earlier Adobe prototypes. Adobe tells Carter not to trust him, but Carter ignores this and together they capture Aaron Locke.
Issue 5 is more about character development than plot. Through conversations and flashbacks we learn: (1) Connelly’s absent father and years as a con artist have made it difficult to trust anyone, particularly authority figures. (2) Carter was once a rebellious starving artist in California, but became a does-what-he’s-told-goody-two-shoes after his girlfriend died of a drug overdose. (3) Tucker Crowley’s path to fashion design began with self-loathing caused by his mother’s constant berating of his father and men in general. The only major plot point occurs when Crowley convinces Congress to put him in charge of a military task force called the Fashion Police, intended to expedite the capture of Wassily Plevitz.
Crowley uses his newfound power to impose his vision of good taste on the world. The Fashion Police do everything from destroying an old woman’s tacky ceramic cat collection to arresting people who wear white after Labor Day, claiming all these “violations” can be tied back to Plevitz. Afraid to have his scapegoat captured too quickly, Crowley instructs Carter and Connelly to focus their attentions on Jon Pearl and Fabian Romero. Meanwhile, one of the FP’s agents, a model turned fashion designer named Barbie Kensington, seduces Norton Finn and steals his tech. The first thing she does with it, mostly as an experiment, is turn Finn into a doppelganger of herself. Tucker Crowley likes this idea so much that he and Barbie set about turning thousands more people into doppelgangers.
Seeing the FP’s corruption, Carter decides he has to capture Wassily Plevitz immediately to shut them down. He succeeds, but the diversion gives Jon Pearl time to make an unfortunate discovery. The process used to create the Barbie doppelganger’s makes it possible to select them all at once for a mass deletion. Only the original Barbie is left standing.
Fabian Romero, an admirer and occasional lover of Barbie Kensington, is so enraged that he deals with Pearl himself. He then demands a final showdown with Carter and Connelly in his Escher-inspired labyrinth. They oblige, but are unable to subdue him until Barbie, seeking redemption for the deaths she caused, shows up to save the day. Romero is captured, leaving only one loose end to tie up: Davis Steele.
Steele has used his knack for forging documents and circumventing security systems to access a missile command center. Carter arrives before he launches anything but is betrayed by Connelly, who reveals he’s been working with Steele all along. They use the missiles to bring down the network of satellites that makes Adobe’s technology possible. Steele believes the debacle will throw the company into financial ruin, allowing him to buy it with his ill-gotten fortune. He plans to rebuild the very system he destroyed, using the carnage of the past several weeks as a publicity stunt.
MISCELLANEOUS DETAILS (in no particular order)
- While the technology Carter and most of the villains use is based on Adobe Illustrator, Frank Connelly’s would be based on Photoshop. Prior to meeting Carter, he’s using it to run a mobile plastic surgery business called “Jiffy Boob”.
- Fashion Police agents have codenames based on pretentious color swatches-- “Agent Ecru”, for example.
- Only Plevitz, Romero, and Connelly have the necessary tools to manipulate color. Plevitz uses it the most: He subdues Carter by putting him in a room colored “Pepto Bismol Pink”, and drives civilians to violent rage by turning the sky red.
- One of Davis Steele’s money making schemes is to have Locke and Finn steal electronics from stores which offer mail-in rebates. Steele creates fake receipts to get the rebate checks, while the crooks are paid by selling the stolen goods.
- Pearl’s first action with his Adobe tech is to destroy all the signage in Times Square (which Carter discovers before learning his mentor is one of the villains). He then sets about deleting the mass quantities of garbage produced by New York City. Having made the garbage men obsolete, he decides to get rid of them, too.
- Carter’s flashback about his dead girlfriend occurs when he’s in one of Plevitz’s traps; Plevitz suspends him in the air in a large room and covers his eyes with a black box, giving Carter the impression he’s in an infinite void.
- Paranoid Frank Connelly sees graphic design and marketing as a form of mind control. He tells Carter “You don’t learn the rules [of design and marketing] so that you can use them. You learn them so they can’t be used on you.” This outlook makes him entirely immune to Wassily Plevitz’s mind games, which Carter repeatedly falls prey to.
- In the Issue #1 script I refer to Adobe’s technology as “CS10” because at the time Adobe’s Creative Suite was only up to version 6 or 7, so “CS10” would have been a few versions ahead. It doesn’t, of course, make a lick of sense anymore.
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