THOMAS JEFFERSON
In June, 1776, the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS of the rebellious 13 American colonies needed to ARTICULATE their grievances with the BRITISH CROWN and the man drafted to DRAFT this DECLARATION was the QUIETEST delegate in Congress – a red-haired, 33 year-old farmer from VIRGINIA.
written by Fred Van Lente drawn by Ryan Dunlavey colored by Adam Guzowski
Script for ACTION PHILOSOPHERS: THOMAS JEFFERSON!
Comic book script by Fred Van Lente
PAGE ONE Panel 1: SPLASH PANEL: JEFFERSON SITS QUIETLY IN CENTER OF MAELSTROM THAT IS CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. We’re going to do things a little differently this time and have our philosopher be still and quiet while events rage around him. A young Thomas Jefferson (see Ken Burns DVD flick) sits quietly taking notes while all the other Continental Congress delegates scream, rail, and argue with each other – largely standing in the Council chamber. Go nuts. Have them pointing fingers, flinging paper balls, chasing each other with chairs, etc.
1. CAPTION: In June, 1776, the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS of the rebellious 13 American colonies could agree on almost NOTHING – except the need to ARTICULATE their grievances with the BRITISH CROWN!
2. CAPTION: The man drafted to DRAFT this DECLARATION was the QUIETEST delegate in Congress – a man whose own SPEAKING VOICE barely rose above a WHISPER – but UNANIMOUSLY AGREED to be the greatest POLITICAL WRITER in the country…
3. CAPTION: …a man WE know better as ACTION PHILOSOPHER #36:
4. TITLE: THOMAS JEFFERSON!
5. CREDITS BOX (sl): We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor:
[signed] Frederick J. Van Lente
[signed] Ryan Michael Dunlavey
Panel 2: [line 6 deleted]The Declaration of Independence, like a scroll, floats up, before a happy 1950s suburban family – pour on the Cheeze.
7. CAPTION: Jefferson authored what turned out to be AMERICAN SCRIPTURE, but it was the CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT of THE ENLIGHTENMENT, itself a REVOLUTIONARY shift in EUROPEAN philosophy!
Panel 3: MS: ISAAC NEWTON: scowling stand-offishly into a camera. Over his head an apple on the end of a branch dangles. (All of the really famous people I have reference for on my CD ROM Encyclopedia, which I can lend you if you want.)
8. CAPTION: The Enlightenment was inaugurated by the publication of SIR ISAAC NEWTON’S Principia Mathematica in 1687.
9. NEWTON: Thou must not draweth yon APPLE falling on mine head.
10. NEWTON: ‘Tis a MYTH. ‘Tis a CLICHÉ most BASE! Such a thing never HAPPENED—
Panel 4: SAME SHOT: Apple falls on his head. Newton goes nearly apoplectic with rage, smoke shooting out of his ears, et cetera.
11. SFX (sl): BONK!
12. NEWTON: MUST…DESTROYETH…!!!
13. CAPTION: By laying out the laws of Nature in simple, IRREFUTABLE terms, Newton proved that the inner workings of God’s Creation could be LAID BARE by HUMAN REASON!
Panel 5: SAME SHOT: NEWTON REACHES OFF PANEL AND STARTS STRANGLING RYAN: Homer/Bart style. Ryan drops pen and knocks over inkwell as he’s hauled off drafting table.
14. CAPTION: Newton also showed that Nature, like the human mind, was RATIONAL! It followed certain pre-set laws, not the whims of an angry god!
15. RYAN: Gak! CHOKE!
Panel 6: WOODS: GOD PATS BEAR ON THE BACK; BEAR PATS ADAM ON THE BACK: Everything is all real happy.
16. CAPTION: Human beings MUST be fundamentally GOOD, then, because God endowed them REASON…
17. CAPTION: …for God would NEVER have given the secrets of His Creation to a fundamentally EVIL creature.
PANEL 7: GIANT MUSHROOM CLOUD levels city. People run screaming, like in a 1950s Atomic Horror flick.
18. CAPTION: Unless, of course, you prefer the “GOD IS A TOTAL RETARD” theory.
19. CAPTION: Many critics derided the Enlightenment thinkers as hopelessly NAÏVE.
PANEL 8: MEDIEVAL SERF SCENE: It’s raining on dirty, ignorant, diseased serfs, toiling pointlessly in the middle of their dilapidated farm. God’s giant hand comes down from the black Heavens, Terry Gilliam-style, to give them the finger.
20. CAPTION: After all, this was a RADICAL DEVIATION from CENTURIES of Christian thought!
21. CAPTION: Throughout the MIDDLE AGES it was presumed that humans were hopelessly CORRUPT. Our expulsion from Eden ALIENATED us from God and we would achieve union with Him only in DEATH!
PAGE TWO
PANEL 1: LONG PANEL: GOD’S OFFICE: (ON THE LEFT) A serf stands at a secretary’s desk. The secretary is a (male) priest he condescendingly shoots down the serf’s requests while (ON THE RIGHT) we can see that God is passed out, asleep, in his office. Sign on God’s office door (in the center) reads “GOD.”
1. CAPTION: To Enlightenment thinkers, however, this alienation was the result of an overly complicated, MANMADE ecclesiastical bureaucracy that had no COUNTERPART in Nature!
2. PRIEST: I’m SORRY, sir, He’s VERY busy, so if you don’t have an APPOINTMENT I’m afraid I can’t let you in…
3. GOD: ZZZZZZ…
PANEL 2: SERF UNZIPS LIKE A SUIT – AND OUT BOUNDS JESUS CROSSED WITH TARZAN: body and loincloth of Tarzan, beard of Jesus. Various animals cluster around to stare at him beatifically. [Do this in two panels – unzipping then emerging – if need be.]
4. CAPTION: Only by doing AWAY with manmade CONSTRUCTS and cleaving close to our OWN innate NATURE could we be truly good, innocent, and (therefore) closer to GOD…
5. TARZAN-JESUS: Ah-AAAAAHHH!
6. CAPTION: …a so-called “NOBLE SAVAGE!”
PANEL 3: JEFFERSON LONG CABIN, MIDDLE OF WOODS: Kid Jefferson sits in a mud puddle, reading a BOOK. Out of a thought bubble comes the SPLASH PANEL to Action Philosopher: PLATO, depicting the wrestling scene.
7. CAPTION: Thomas Jefferson was the Noble Savage INCARNATE! He was born in 1743 in a LOG CABIN in the middle of the WOODS!
8. CAPTION: His upwardly mobile father INSISTED on giving him a CLASSICAL EDUCATION with an emphasis on ENLIGHTENMENT PHILOSOPHY.
PANEL 4: A KNEELING JEFFERSON AS A HINDU DEITY: each of his six arms holding (respectively) a pitchfork, a T-square, a gavel, a vote (with a check on it), a violin, and a book.
9. CAPTION: From his isolated rural PLANTATION, Monticello – the house for which he DESIGNED himself -- Jefferson found time to maintain a LEGAL practice --
10. CAPTION: -- serve in the Virginia LEGISLATURE –-
11. CAPTION: -- become an accomplished VIOLINIST --
12. CAPTION: -- invent a LAP DESK and an improved PLOW --
13. CAPTION: -- and amass over 6,400 BOOKS, which would serve as the BASIS for the U.S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS!
PANEL 5: GOD’S OFFICE: Jefferson kicks in the door to God’s office, leading the serf inside. God wakes up. (If possible, show the priest tied up outside.)
14. CAPTION: Jefferson’s entire LEGISLATIVE CAREER involved freeing the colony’s citizens to find their OWN inner Noble Savage!
15. CAPTION: He WROTE the statute guaranteeing Virginians’ RELIGIOUS FREEDOM to find God in THEIR OWN way!
16. GOD: >Snort!< Huh? Wha..?
PANEL 6: An oversized New Yorker mascot (I forget his name—the guy in the monocle and top hat) gets lanced through the heart with a pirate cutlass, held by a much smaller Jefferson. Show farm background.
17. NEW YORKER MASCOT: I’m SO glad the MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN system of PRIMOGENITURE maintains an AMERICAN aristocracy by forcing ALL LANDS to be inherited by the ELDEST SON—GAK!!
20. CAPTION: Believing this system UNNATURAL too, Jefferson spearheaded ENDING it, so ALL would have the opportunity to WORK THE LAND!
PANEL 7: Jefferson stares balefully up at a Jabba-the-Hut version of King George III, gorging himself with food atop a pile of riches.
21. CAPTION: You can only IMAGINE how he felt about the BRITISH aristocracy, which RULED America from LONDON!
22. CAPTION: He was one of the FIRST revolutionaries to openly advocate FULL succession from England, in 1774!
PANEL 8: 1950s BILLBOARD: Jefferson advertising like a rock star the words “LIFE, LIBERTY, & THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.” 1950s motorists drive past.
23. CAPTION: For the Declaration of Independence Jefferson turned in some of the catchiest AD SLOGANS for DEMOCRACY in HISTORY!
24. CAPTION: But he was no HIPPIE. “Pursuit of Happiness” had a very SPECIFIC meaning to someone of his CLASS…
PANEL 9: FARMHOUSE PORCH: MA & PA KETTLE: Ma peels potatoes into a pot while Pa smokes a corncob pipe. Pa also wears futuristic Virtual Reality goggles that are powered via cable by a portable COLD FUSION REACTOR resting at his feet.
25. CAPTION: …in Jefferson’s mind America was to become an AGRARIAN PARADISE dominated by FARMER/ INTELLECTUALS!
26. MA: Them V.R. GOGGLES runnin’ on th’ COLD FUSION REACTOR thar, Pa?
27. PA: Yessum. Invented the gol-danged thing after I milked the HOG, I did.
PANEL 10: JEFFERSON STANDS TRIUMPHANTLY ON HILLSIDE: watching farmhouse as sun sets brilliantly behind farm.
28. MA (in distance) You mend the CHICKEN COOP and finish that monograph on the Natural Rights of PROPERTY yet?
29. PA: All in its own good TIME, Mother …
30. CAPTION: In other words, if left to their own devices, ALL Americans would NATURALLY turn out just like JEFFERSON!
PANEL 11: CU: SMALL PANEL: A black hand taps Jefferson on the shoulder. He looks BACK—
31. CAPTION: There was only one slight PROBLEM with this plan, however.
PAGE THREE
PANEL 1: PULL BACK: EXTREME LS: Jefferson jumps back, shocked, as pissed-off African slaves in rags stand behind him—there must be HUNDREDS of them!
1. SLAVE: What about US?
2. CAPTION: JEFFERSON wasn’t entirely “Jefferson” HIMSELF!
3. CAPTION: His “NATURAL” existence was largely a result of a MANMADE construct – one of the most HEINOUS in history!
PANEL 2: JEFFERSON’S STUDY: Jefferson has his nose buried in a book while slaves work around him—dusting, carrying heavy bags of potatoes, etc. He uses one slave, bent over and wiping the floors, as a footstool. All the slaves stare peevishly at him.
The book he’s reading is marked “FREEDOM”.
4. CAPTION: About 200 AFRICAN SLAVES did all of Jefferson’s farming FOR him, granting him the LUXURY to live a life of thought and science!
PANEL 3: Panicked Jefferson is trapped in a double-take, looking LEFT at floating words “ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL” then right at the foot-tapping, impatient slave.
5. CAPTION: How to RECONCILE such an OBVIOUS contradiction between IDEAL and REALITY?
PANEL 4: Thomas Jefferson forces the slave into a closet marked “NOT MEN,” slamming the door shut on the slave’s hand!
6. JEFFERSON: EASY…
7. SLAVE: HEY! QUIT IT!
PANEL 5: The annoyed slave finds himself in a dark, narrow room. Around a table beneath a single light bulb a bear (the same bear from PAGE ONE), a dolphin, a chimp and a horse play poker.
8. CAPTION: “…NEGROES are not MEN!”
9. BEAR: Better pull up a CHAIR. Something tells me you’re gonna be STUCK here until the NINETEEN-SIXTIES.
10. DOLPHIN: HA! You’re not so tough NOW, are ya, Mr. “I’ve-Got-Opposable-Thumbs!”
11. SLAVE (sl): Argh.
Panel 6: A giant Jefferson looks down on the closet – it has no roof – and watches the slave play cards with the animals.
12. JEFFERSON: “In REASON [blacks are] much inferior … NEVER could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain NARRATION.”*
13. SMALL CAP (sl): *: T.J., NOTES ON VIRGINIA (1783)
14. CAPTION: Pretty SIMPLE, right?
Panel 7: A black field battles a white field as amorphous blobs with ambiguous weapons. This should look like a “yin-yang” symbol crossed with a Marvel comic.
15. CAPTION: Jefferson’s REAL genius lay not just in his IDEAS – but in his ability to CONVEY them in easy-to-understand terms! He saw ALL conflicts as stark WHITE versus BLACK!
16. CAPTION (sl): (If you’ll pardon the term.)
Panel 8: TIMOTHY McVEIGH: wearing a t-shirt with the mentioned quotation. If you can’t show McVeigh’s face, that’s fine – maybe just show one hand holding a bomb, that way you don’t have to go get photo reference … ☺
17. CAPTION: This ACCESSIBILITY of his philosophy has inspired would-be REVOLUTIONARIES of EVERY stripe ever since!
18. CAPTION: A t-shirt with THIS quotation was found in the apartment of Oklahoma City bomber TIMOTHY McVEIGH:
19. T-SHIRT COPY: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” – T.J.
Panel 9: CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION: MIRROR IMAGE OF PANEL 6: and the first panel, for that matter. A giant Jefferson looms like a mountain, serenely looking off into the distance while the delegates squabble angrily below.
20. CAPTION: He proved much more adroit at fighting BAD laws than supporting GOOD ones.
21. CAPTION: Ironically, America’s greatest political theorist MISSED the entire CONSTITUTIONAL DEBATES serving as the USA’s ambassador as France!
Panel 10: THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: Jefferson stands approvingly in the mob as a French aristocrat is led to the guillotine.
22. CAPTION: There he disturbed many of his comrades with his unequivocal support of the blood-soaked FRENCH REVOLUTION:
23. JEFFERSON: “Rather than it should have FAILED, I would have seen half the EARTH desolated!”
Panel 11: WELFARE MOTHER WATCHES ANTI-JEFFERSON ATTACK AD ON TV
24. CAPTION: By the middle of his first term as PRESIDENT, Jefferson had made many ENEMIES, who thought he was a DANGEROUS RADICAL. In 1802 they spread reports that alleged:
25. TV (j): President Jefferson keeps one of his OWN SLAVES as his MISTRESS!
26. WELFARE MOTHER (sl): Friggin’ ATTACK ADS…
PAGE “FOUR”
Panel 1: SALLY HEMMINGS (dressed in period style) surrounded by photographers and paparazzi who snap her photo. (Historians have no clue what Sally looked like, so enjoy.)
1. CAPTION: In 1998, D.N.A. TESTING on descendants proved that SALLY HEMMINGS, a slave 20 years Jefferson’s junior, was his LOVER for DECADES!
Panel 2: MRS. JEFFERSON’S DEATHBED: As she dies, with Tom kneeling by her side, sobbing; several slaves (including YOUNG SALLY) behind him, she gasps out her last request. (Historians don’t know what Mrs. Jefferson looks like, either … Coincidence?)
2. CAPTION: Jefferson’s young wife had died in 1781. Right before the END, she made him PROMISE:
3. MRS. JEFFERSON: You must NEVER … marry … again!
4. CAPTION: And he DIDN’T.
Panel 3: ZOOM INTO SAME PANEL: CIRCULAR INSET: YOUNG SALLY BEHIND JEFFERSON: I would say just blow up the previous panel.
5. CAPTION: But Jefferson was 38 – not exactly CHASTE WIDOWER material – and he had a particularly POIGNANT temptation living right under his ROOF:
6. CAPTION: Jefferson INHERITED Sally Hemmings and 99 OTHER slaves from his wife’s FATHER. Sally’s mother BETTY was Jefferson’s FATHER-IN-LAW’s mistress…
Panel 4: WELFARE MOTHER from Page Three, Panel 11 watches TV with Sally’s face on it, shoveling in popcorn into her mouth.
7. TV: …the beautiful, octoroon SALLY was Jefferson’s DEAD WIFE’S HALF-SISTER!!
8. WELFARE MOTHER: Oh, yeah! NOW you’re talkin’!
9. CAPTION: Was this a way of having his cake and eating it too … did keeping an alleged INFERIOR as his lover “not count” as breaking his promise to his wife?
Panel 5: TWO-HEADED JEFFERSON: The NICE JEFFERSON wears a halo; the NASTY JEFFERSON spits fire from a fanged mouth. One is in a white field, one is in a black field (white lines on black) – you choose which one.
9. CAPTION: After all, this IS the same man who tried to be a SLAVEHOLDING guru of personal FREEDOM!
10. NICE J.: “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of FATE, that these people [blacks] are meant to be FREE …”
11. NASTY J.: “… nor is it LESS certain that the two races CANNOT live in the SAME government!”*
12. CAPTION (sl): *: T.J., AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1821)
PANEL 6: Pirate Jefferson, with the serf behind him, the dead New Yorker mascot at his feet, girds his sword against SLAVERY, represented here as a big slave overseer/ogre with a whip and chains dangling from his wrists and ankles. (Maybe you should write “slavery” on the dude, political cartoon-style, just so it’s totally transparent.)
13. CAPTION: Despite his RACISM, Jefferson believed slavery was WRONG – yet it was the one UNNATURAL construct he could NOT slay.
14. CAPTION: His original draft of the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE contained a passage CONDEMNING slavery, but it was excised at the demand of SOUTHERN DELEGATES!
15. CAPTION: When he was a youthful member of the Virginia legislature, Jefferson introduced a bill ABOLISHING slavery, but it was voted down!
PANEL 7: BIG SLAVES (HEADS) GLARE DOWN ON NICKEL LYING ON TABLE: with bashful, sweating Jefferson on its face…
16. CAPTION: Perpetually in DEBT after the Revolution, he would have been RUINED if he freed his OWN slaves -- which, as property, could be used for EQUITY!
17. JEFFERSON: >Heh<…Sorry about this guys…>Gulp!<
PANEL 8: JEFFERSON ON MOUNTAIN, BLINDFOLDED, fingers in ears. Around the base of the little mountain stand slaves, revolutionaries, delegates, etc. – the cast of our strip so far.
18. CAPTION: He dealt with his failures and contradictions by IGNORING them! Slavery … infidelity … these had NO place in his black-and-white world, so he DEFERRED confronting them INDEFINITELY!
19. JEFFERSON: La-la-la, I can’t HEAR you…
Panel 9: URBAN INDUSTRIAL PARK: Jefferson, holding nose, stands waist-deep in liquid waste pumping from a nearby factory – and he’s not happy about it.
20. CAPTION: Slavery BLINDED him to America’s TRUE destiny – which was INDUSTRIAL and URBAN, not pastoral and agrarian.
21. JEFFERSON: !@#$!
Panel 10: THE CIVIL WAR: Blue and gray duke it out on the battlefield. Enjoy.
22. CAPTION: America’s deferral of the SLAVERY issue EXPLODED when slaveholding states tried to SECEDE from the Union…
23. CAPTION: …quoting JEFFERSON as justification for their REBELLION, of course.
24. CAPTION: As inspiring as Jefferson’s WORDS were, it would be the BLOOD spilled during the CIVIL WAR that would at last realize his VISION of equality for ALL.
25. … In the end, his GENUIS was matched only by his capacity for DENIAL!
###