On the story concept for the “Special Delivery” vignette, and comparisons to past vignettes

Each vignette has its own origin story and purpose in the Night Zero world, and this newest is no exception. Jezebel was produced as a replacement for the untitled vignette (which was repeatedly postponed due to inclement weather), and its function was to tell a story of the night itself and how it changed the individual survivor’s world. The untitled vignette, in turn, was conceived and submitted by a fan writer, and was chosen for production as a means to introduce a zombie-centric story into our zombie-themed comic. Sisters was developed over many months as a full-scale endeavor and sought to broaden the relationship establishment and backstory of two known characters. The inception of “Special Delivery” was purely a matter of utility, and its purpose was to experiment with a brand-new production technique while throwing a different angle on the ‘messenger’ lore of the Night Zero world.

In December 2008, when it became clear that the repeated snowstorms in Seattle would require an indefinite postponement of the Untitled vignette, I fast-tracked the development and production of a new vignette that could be written and wrapped in time to premiere after the run of Episode One. From that decision up to our final shot took two and a half weeks, which was impressive for the time but is no longer a record. In November of 2009, it became inevitable that the insurance and production costs for the Scratcher Catchers shoot at the shipping container yard would run in excess of a thousand dollars. That scene for Episode Three was fun and unique, but being the low-budget labor of love that we are, averaging out at thirty-dollars-per-photo is a terrible going rate. I knew that more had to be done in that production to justify the expense of being there, so when I signed the check for the insurance premium, I decided to fast-track another vignette– this one based solely on the location that would be available. From that decision to our final shot and wrap? Five days.

One of the joys and challenges of the vignette style is the freedom it allows us as storytellers. Every vignette is canon in the Night Zero universe, but there are no restrictions on characters or timeline, so we are free to tell any story we want, with any people we want, for whatever reason. Our only restriction in this case was the location, but being the gorgeous and photogenic location that it was, this “restriction” would more accurately be called inspiration. It was a huge space we had to work with, a veritable playground of backdrops and set pieces unlike anything we’d likely come across again. I wanted to be able to explore the space, and especially since the Scratcher Catcher scene was to be fixed to a single location, I wanted the vignette to be all over. Something moving, something active, which naturally meant something intense. Running, hiding, fighting, but at the same time simple and with low overhead. There were two ingredients that were guaranteed to meet these needs, and so that’s the story I created: a messenger and a scratcher.

When exploring the freedom of vignette story development, one of the first questions on the table is—do we incorporate existing characters or create brand new ones? Existing characters are already cast (but therefore harder to schedule), and have an immediate connection to the reader simply by virtue of recognizability. New characters can take more time to establish with the reader, but new faces and new stories can give a healthy boost to the story world. For “Special Delivery”, it was a tough call whether to build this story around Marion (our definitive Messenger) or to try our luck with a fresh slate. A quick inventory tallies that we’ve met eight skullhunters and six soldiers, but only two messengers in all our comics combined. Towards the end of Episode Five and into Episode Six we will meet quite a number of them, but that’s still a while out and I find the messengers to be a very interesting group, so with that in mind I created Natalie as the heroine of this tale.

Messengers have to be fast, that’s a given, and they have to be able to hold their own, so playing both angles of the fight-or-flight was a solid foundation for the story. Start with a challenge to the perceived normality: if a messenger is so fast and so smart, why wouldn’t she always run away? What circumstances might allow a messenger to flee, but at the same time force her to fight? The obvious options are (1) a debilitating wound that would impair flight or (2) being flanked and surrounded to prevent escape, but both of these scenarios are a bit trite and neither really endows the character with anything more than simple survival instinct. Being physically able to flee but mentally or emotionally motivated to fight instead, now that says something about a character and what they’re willing to risk. Does Natalie actually choose to fight, though, or is she forced to do so when her flight is cut short? Well, that’s for you to decide.

The messengers were one of the earliest and most thoroughly-developed concepts of the Night Zero universe, but as is often the case, there’s just too much going on in our other storylines to really explore their place in the world. There are dozens of idea fragments for messenger stories, some of which have blended in to other tales, some of which are being held for future Marion tales, and others which I’ve brought into play for “Special Delivery”. The most obvious concept at work here is that of the living charge, the idea that messengers transport not only post and parcels, but people too. Which only makes sense–if you need to move someone from one place to another, who better to escort them than those responsible for mapping and running the safe routes through the destruction? There are innumerable scenarios in which a person might need to be transported, but I chose a doctor for this story because of the simple and immediate justification. With a doctor, an explanation is not required as who they are or why they need safe passage (which isn’t to say that its a throwaway story or that its all superficial, quite the contrary, but whether or not the deeper story is ever revealed, the reader instantly recognizes the fundamental importance of the delivery). This simple clarity is exactly the kind of minimalism that makes “Special Delivery” what it is.