# Taco McSoombrero and the Golden Salsa
## the comic script

Adapted for comics from Book 1, written by Adhiyan and Danwin.
61 comic pages. 360 panels. Adapted from the 58-page manuscript, `story.md`.

---

## HOW TO USE THIS SCRIPT

This is the artist's copy — the most detailed version. Draw past it wherever
you see something better; it is a floor, not a ceiling.

Each page is a **printed page of the comic**. The panels on it have to fit on
one sheet, and the last panel of a page is always the one the reader sees
before they turn — so the last panel of a page is never wasted.

Line types:

* **PANEL n** — a new panel. The words under it are what the artist draws.
* **CAPTION** — a box of narration. There are very few of these on purpose.
* **NAME:** — a speech balloon. The name is who says it.
* **SFX** — a sound effect drawn as lettering.
* **NOTE** — an instruction to the letterer or a staging note, not something drawn.

---

## THE RULES THIS ADAPTATION FOLLOWED

**1. Every spoken line is Adhiyan's, word for word.**
Not one balloon in this script contains a word he did not write. They appear
in the order he wrote them. If a line reads oddly, that is the book, and the
book wins.

**2. The narration was re-decided, not copied.**
A book can say "he was worried." A comic cannot — it has to show a worried
face. So almost every narrated line in the manuscript became a drawing
instead of a caption. Captions survive in only three cases: when the line is
a *joke in its own words* ("The prices were fine. Somebody shouted anyway."),
when it moves *time* ("Two hours later."), or when it describes something a
picture genuinely cannot carry — a **smell**. There are four smells in Book 1
and every one of them matters to the plot, so those four kept their captions.

**3. No invented sound effects.**
Every SFX in this script — DONG!, THUMP, SQUISH!, BOOM!, CRUNCH!, CLANG!,
BONK!, CRASH!, SPLAT!, WASH!, THUD!, SPLASH!, BAM!, CLICK. — is one Adhiyan
wrote. Where the book describes a noise without naming it (a whistle, a
cannon, a laugh), it is **drawn**, not lettered. This keeps his sound effects
special; they are the loudest things on the page because nothing else shouts.

**4. Silence is a drawing.**
Wherever the book says nobody spoke, the panel holds with no balloon in it.
Those beats are marked and they should be kept — the comedy in this book runs
on timing, and in comics timing is panel count.

---

## RUNNING VISUAL GAGS — keep these consistent

**THE EMPTY BALLOON.** Three times in this book, Adhiyan writes that something
did not answer. Each time, draw a normal speech balloon with a tail pointing
at the thing, and **nothing inside it**. Same balloon shape all three times so
the reader recognises it.

  1. PAGE 10, PANEL 3 — the vault door says nothing.
  2. PAGE 42, PANEL 2 — the forest says nothing.
  3. PAGE 60, PANEL 6 — nobody answers Taco in his own kitchen.

**THE HAT-FIX.** Taco straightens his sombrero with both hands whenever he is
about to decide something. Draw it identically every time: PAGE 8 PANEL 1,
PAGE 38 PANEL 1, PAGE 56 PANEL 5. It is his signature gesture and the reader
should learn it by page 8 so it means something by page 56.

**THE IDENTICAL CROP.** Twice, a joke is made by repeating the exact same
drawing with one thing changed. PAGE 12 PANELS 2–3 (Don Gazpacho's face), and
PAGE 36 PANELS 2–3 (Captain Paellon's laugh, then the laugh gone). Trace them
if you have to — the joke only works if the panels really are identical.

**THE BURNT SMELL.** Four times, something smells burnt and nobody follows it
up. Draw it the same way every time: a single thin dark thread or wisp in the
air, small enough that a reader could miss it, always in the corner of the
panel, never remarked on by anyone. It is the trail of the villain of Book 2.

  Seen on: PAGE 9 PANEL 1 (Assembly Hall), PAGE 30 PANELS 1–2 (under the
  guacamole), PAGE 60 PANEL 6 (the warm cupboard door).

**TACO IS ALWAYS THE SMALLEST THING IN FRAME.** Whenever he is next to
anybody — a guard, Gazpacho, the Mayor, the monster, a coconut tree — he is
shorter. His hat is not. Play scale for comedy relentlessly.

---

## CAST AND DESIGN

Described once, here. After this the script assumes you know them.

### TACO McSOOMBRERO
A folded corn taco who walks on two little legs. Shell for a body — a crisp
golden-brown half-circle, seam up the middle, lettuce and a curl of cheese
visible along the fold. Two arms, two short legs, no neck. Big round eyes set
into the shell, an enormous confident grin, eyebrows that do all of his acting.
About the height of a fire hydrant. **He is never drawn without the hat.**
Everything he does is done at full commitment and slightly wrong.

### THE SOMBRERO
Treat it as a second character. It is **bigger than Taco** — the brim is wider
than he is tall, so from above he is a hat with feet. Straw-gold, wide flat
brim with a rolled edge, tall rounded crown, a red-and-green woven band, small
pom-poms hanging round the rim. It should read instantly as a plate, an
umbrella, a bed, a boat, a sled, a shield and a flying saucer, because it is
used as all seven. It is *always* the same hat — never redesign it for a stunt.
It should look heavy. When Taco runs, it drags him backwards like a parachute.

### DON GAZPACHO
A Spanish traveller. Human-shaped and human-sized, so he towers over Taco.
Long red cape with a high collar, dusty travelling boots, a wide flat-brimmed
black hat, a thin moustache. He carries **a large wooden spoon** the way a
knight carries a sword — over one shoulder, hand relaxed on the handle. His
whole face is set to "mildly unimpressed" and only moves about one millimetre,
ever. **Important:** from PAGE 31 onward, one corner of his cape is torn away.
That tear is on every drawing of him after PAGE 31 and it is never mended —
including the very last time we see him.

### THE MAYOR
Round, soft, tortilla-coloured, in a chain of office and a small formal hat.
The hat is **on backwards** from the moment we meet him and nobody ever tells
him. He is always slightly out of breath. He is also noticeably too wide to
hide behind a chair, which matters on PAGE 55.

### THE GUARD CAPTAIN AND HIS GUARDS
Tortilla-chip soldiers, triangular, in slate-blue helmets a size too big, with
small ceremonial spears. Extremely serious. Extremely wrong about everything.
The captain has a slightly taller helmet crest and takes a long time to answer.

### THE SLOW TAMALE
A tamale in its corn husk, standing upright, eyelids at half-mast. Moves at a
speed the reader should not be able to detect. Draw him with motion lines that
are one millimetre long. He appears twice: PAGE 4 and, dancing, PAGE 57.

### THE BEAN MONSTER
A giant made of packed beans — black, red and green beans all pressed together
into a rounded four-metre body, beans occasionally dropping off him and rolling
away. Small deep-set eyes, an enormous jaw, arms like tree trunks. Carries a
club that is a bundled bean pod. **He is not evil** — he is a large polite
security guard who takes his job seriously and would rather be home before
dark. His voice balloons should be big and heavy-bordered, but his expression
is mostly patient.

### THE JALAPENO RIDERS
Tiny riders — finger-sized chilli-people in pointed hats with whistles round
their necks — mounted on **giant angry jalapeños**. The jalapeños are the
horses: waist-high, glossy dark green, with furious little faces and stubby
galloping legs. The riders are calm. The mounts are enraged. That contrast is
the whole joke and it should be visible in every drawing of them.

### CAPTAIN PAELLON
The villain of this book. A tall figure in **paella-pan armour** — a real
paella pan, dented, worn as a breastplate, with a second smaller pan as a
helmet, its two handles sticking out like horns at the temples. Saffron-gold
and iron. A long dark cloak. Never hurries. Never raises his voice. Never
looks surprised. His posture is relaxed in every single panel he is in,
including the one where he loses.

### THE PAELLA RAIDERS
Hundreds of them, identical, in paella-pan armour, standing in **perfectly
straight rows**. They do not shout, they do not run, they do not break
formation even when the gate explodes. Their pans are shiny. Their pans are
also dented, and at least one has burnt-on egg. Somebody cooks with these.

### THE MASKED PERSON
Seen once, PAGE 32. Small, hooded, fast, a plain blank mask. **Draw the feet
small** — they are the footprints. Never unmasked in this book.

### THE MASTER
Seen only on PAGES 58–59, and never clearly. A tall cloaked silhouette at a
telescope, always back-lit, face never shown, hands never shown. On the back
of his cloak is **a strange pepper symbol that glows a little** — a chilli
pepper rendered like a rune, faint red light leaking from the stitching. Keep
him almost entirely dark; he is scary because he is calm and unhurried.

### PROPS THAT MATTER
**THE GOLDEN SALSA** — a heavy golden bowl of solid golden salsa, the surface
frozen mid-splash. Chunky, lumpy, unmistakably salsa, and unmistakably solid
gold. Fits in two hands. It should look *valuable* and slightly silly.
**THE GOLDEN MAP** — PAGE 54. Old cloth, gold thread, drawn coastlines that
simply **stop** at the edge of the known world, and beyond the stopping point,
in gold, one small drawing and the words THE SECRET FOOD KINGDOM.
**THE BEAN** — a single ordinary bean, PAGES 41–42. Taco keeps it. It is
evidence of nothing. Draw it exactly the same both times.

### THE PLACES
**CRUNCHYVILLE** — a warm bright food town in a valley. Tortilla-brick houses
with chilli-red roofs, bunting across the streets. Taco Avenue runs steeply
downhill, which is why everything in the first act rolls.
**ASSEMBLY HALL** — grey stone, cold, tall. The only cold place in town.
**BEAN FOREST** — tall trees hung with beans instead of leaves; the light
under them is green.
**THE JALAPENO FIELDS** — endless rows of chilli plants, heat shimmer, horizon.
**GUACAMOLE MOUNTAIN** — a green mountain that is guacamole all the way
through, and is *slightly soft*. It dents. It should look like it might slump.
**PAELLA FORTRESS** — underground, iron and saffron, torchlit, spotlessly
swept.
**THE COCO SEA** — very blue, very wide.
**LA COCADA ISLAND** — white sand, and at its centre the **COCADA CROWN**, the
tallest coconut tree in the world, which goes off the top of every panel it
is in. Never show its top.

### NOT IN THIS BOOK
Nacho and Señor Scoville do **not** appear in Book 1 and must not be drawn
here, however tempting. Book 1's villain-behind-the-villain is nameless and
faceless, and he stays that way — that is the whole point of the last two
pages.

---

PAGE 1 — CRUNCHYVILLE WAKES UP (5 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 1

PANEL 1
Establishing shot, the widest thing in the book, running the full width of the
page and the top half of it. Dawn over the whole valley, seen from high up. In
the foreground and below us, the rooftops of CRUNCHYVILLE. Beyond them, in
layers going back: TACO AVENUE dropping steeply downhill through the town,
then the green patchwork of FILLINGS VALLEY, then the dark mass of BEAN
FOREST, and behind everything, the mountains. The sun is just clearing the
ridge and throwing long orange light down the avenue. Bunting strung between
the houses, still and undisturbed. No people yet.
CAPTION: The sun rose over Crunchyville.

PANEL 2
Ground level. A baker — a round, floury character — hauls open the iron door
of a TORTILLA OVEN the size of a garage, and a wall of heat and steam rolls
out over him. He is squinting into it, unbothered. It is clearly something he
has done ten thousand times.

PANEL 3
The steep part of Taco Avenue, seen along the slope so we get the full
gradient. A CHEESE CART is rolling *down* the hill, wheels barely under
control, wheels of yellow cheese stacked high and one already escaping. A BEAN
CART is being hauled *up* the hill by a straining vendor. The two carts pass
each other exactly in the middle of the panel. Neither driver looks at the
other.

PANEL 4
A market stall. A SALSA SELLER is standing on his own crate, arms up, mouth
wide, in full public outrage. Behind him, clearly legible, his own price
board: SALSA — 3. Next to him, a rival stall's board: SALSA — 3. The
shoppers in front of him are not listening; one is checking a bean.
CAPTION: The prices were fine. Somebody shouted anyway.

PANEL 5
Wide, running the full width at the bottom of the page. The middle of Taco
Avenue, now properly awake — carts, shoppers, bunting, steam. Dead centre, one
small shopfront with the shutters still down. On its flat roof, silhouetted
against the risen sun and far too small to make out properly, is an ENORMOUS
SOMBRERO. Underneath the sombrero, presumably, is somebody. This is the only
thing in the panel not moving.
CAPTION: It was a normal morning.
CAPTION: In the middle of Taco Avenue lived a strange hero.


PAGE 2 — MEET TACO (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGES 1–2

PANEL 1
Hero shot. Full width, top third of the page. TACO McSOOMBRERO, seen from
slightly below, arms folded, grinning straight out at the reader, the hat
absurdly wide above him, the morning sun behind. This is the reader's first
proper look at him — make him look like a hero and slightly ridiculous at
exactly the same time.
NOTE: Title logo goes here — TACO McSOOMBRERO AND THE GOLDEN SALSA.
CAPTION: His name was Taco McSoombrero.
CAPTION: A taco with a large sombrero, a big appetite, and a habit of causing trouble.

PANEL 2
Straight-on, level with the hat. The sombrero fills the panel edge to edge and
top to bottom. Underneath it, visible only in the shadow, two little legs and
the bottom of a grin. It is genuinely difficult to tell where the hat ends.

PANEL 3
Pull back. Taco standing in the street. Three TOWNSFOLK have stopped to look
at the hat, heads tilted back.
TOWNSFOLK: “Why is your hat so big?”

PANEL 4
Close on Taco, entirely serious. One finger raised. The correction matters to
him.
TACO: “It is not a hat.”

PANEL 5
The townsfolk, deadpan, all three looking at the same enormous obvious hat.
TOWNSFOLK: “It looks like a hat.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco already walking away from them, chin up, hat
casting a shadow across the entire street and two of the three townsfolk.
TACO: “It is a tool.”


PAGE 3 — THE TOOL (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 2

NOTE: Panels 1–4 are a four-square grid, all the same size — a catalogue of
uses. Same hat, same angle-ish, four different situations. Panel 4 is the
punchline so it gets no more room than the others; the flatness is the joke.

PANEL 1
THE PLATE. The sombrero upside down on a table, brim up like a bowl, filled
to the rim with food — beans, rice, cheese, three whole tacos, a churro
standing up in it like a flagpole. Taco is eating out of it with both hands,
delighted.

PANEL 2
THE UMBRELLA. Heavy rain. Taco walks along a completely dry street — dry
because the hat is wider than the street. Two townsfolk are sheltering under
the far edge of the brim without asking. One of them has a cup of something.

PANEL 3
THE BED. Night. The sombrero on the ground, brim flat, Taco fast asleep in the
dip of it with the crown folded over him as a blanket. One leg hanging out.
Stars above.

PANEL 4
THE BOAT. Broad daylight, open water. We can see the rim of the sombrero and
about four centimetres of it above the surface, going down. Two hands and the
top of a grin are still visible. Bubbles. The grin has not changed.
CAPTION: That did not go well.

PANEL 5
Back to the street. A TOWNSPERSON, hands on hips, asking the obvious question.
Taco is mid-stride and does not stop for it.
TOWNSFOLK: “Do you ever take it off?”
TACO: “It stays on.”
TOWNSFOLK: “Why not?”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Tight and low on Taco, who has stopped and turned back.
He is not joking. The hat fills everything above him. This is the most
sincere he will be until page 38.
TACO: “Then I would just be a taco.”


PAGE 4 — DOWNHILL (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 3

PANEL 1
Wide, full width. Taco Avenue at its steepest, shot from below looking up the
hill. Taco is coming straight at us at speed on a TACO-SHAPED SKATEBOARD — a
board carved and painted as a folded taco shell, lettuce trim along the edge.
He is crouched, one arm out, hat flattened back by the wind, grinning
enormously. Everything on the street behind him is already reacting.

PANEL 2
Tight close-up on the underside of the board as it goes over a bump: four
wheels, one lettuce sticker, and absolutely no brake of any kind. Nothing.
Nowhere on the board is there a brake.
CAPTION: Taco did not use the brakes.
CAPTION: Taco did not have brakes.

PANEL 3
Street level. A CHURRO SELLER flings himself sideways, churros going up like a
firework. A BEAN CART is yanked out of the way, beans spraying. Taco is
already past both of them, looking back over his shoulder to shout.
TACO: “Make way!”

PANEL 4
Dead ahead in the middle of the road: THE SLOW TAMALE. Eyes half shut.
Perfectly calm. He is, technically, walking. Draw his motion lines one
millimetre long. Taco is bearing down on him with his heels dug in and
achieving nothing.
TACO: “Move!”
TAMALE: “I am moving.”

PANEL 5
Same shot, a moment later. The tamale has advanced by about the width of a
bean. Taco is now very close and getting louder.
TACO: “You are not moving.”
TAMALE: “I am moving slowly.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco carves around the tamale in a huge unnecessary arc,
up onto a wall and off it, hat trailing. He passes a large painted sign
reading PRODUCTION POINT. The tamale, behind him, has not turned his head.
TACO: “Coming through!”


PAGE 5 — THE JUMP (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 4

PANEL 1
Taco's point of view, low and fast: THREE BOXES OF CHEESE stacked across the
road ahead, wheels of yellow cheese visible over the top. Taco, bottom of
frame, is grinning at them the way you grin at good news.
TACO: “This is fine.”

PANEL 2
Side-on. The launch. The board leaves the ground, Taco goes up over the boxes
in a beautiful arc, one arm thrown out, hat flaring. It genuinely looks great.
TACO: “Easy!”

PANEL 3
Wide, full width, and give it room. Taco is still in the air — but we have
pulled all the way back and the whole street is going about its business
beneath him. The baker is shutting the oven. The cheese cart has reached the
bottom. Two people are having a conversation. A bird is flying past at Taco's
eye level and has turned to look at him. Taco's grin is beginning to falter.
CAPTION: He was in the air for a long time.
CAPTION: Too long.

PANEL 4
Impact. A cart of LETTUCE, and Taco arriving in it head first. Leaves erupting
in every direction, filling the panel.

PANEL 5
The aftermath. A mound of lettuce with the sombrero sitting on top of it,
perfectly level, undamaged. From somewhere underneath, muffled, comes a
balloon.
TACO: “Perfect.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. A WORKER stands over the lettuce mound with a rake,
entirely unimpressed. Taco has surfaced to shoulder height and is picking a
single leaf off the brim of his hat with great dignity. The rest of the
lettuce is still on him.
WORKER: “That was not perfect.”
TACO: “It was close.”


PAGE 6 — THE BELLS (5 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 5

PANEL 1
Straight up at the bell tower of ASSEMBLY HALL — grey stone, cold, the only
cold-looking building in a warm town. Three bells swinging hard.
SFX: DONG! DONG! DONG!

PANEL 2
Wide. The whole street frozen. Everybody has stopped exactly where they were:
the baker half-turned, the salsa seller with his mouth still open, the worker
with the rake up. A churro is still in mid-air where somebody dropped it.
Nothing is moving except the churro. Taco is standing up in the lettuce.
CAPTION: The bells only rang for two reasons. A festival, or trouble.
CAPTION: Nobody planned a festival.

PANEL 3
THE MAYOR bursts into the street at a dead run, robes flying, chain of office
swinging, arms up. His small formal hat is on backwards. Nobody will ever
mention this.
MAYOR: “Everyone! There is an emergency!”

PANEL 4
The crowd, from the Mayor's point of view — a wall of worried faces turned at
him at once.
TOWNSFOLK: “What happened?”

PANEL 5
Wide, bottom of page, and make it the biggest panel here. The Mayor has
stopped and turned, one arm flung back toward Assembly Hall behind him. The
whole crowd's heads turn with the gesture. The hall looms grey at the end of
the street.
MAYOR: “The Golden Salsa has been stolen!”


PAGE 7 — WHAT THE GOLDEN SALSA IS (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 6

NOTE: Panels 2, 3 and 4 are flashback — draw them with a soft warm border and
slightly faded colour so they read instantly as "before".

PANEL 1
The crowd, from behind the Mayor. Not one mouth open. A hand over a mouth. A
child being picked up. The silence is complete and it should look physically
heavy.

PANEL 2
FLASHBACK. THE GOLDEN SALSA on a velvet cushion, lit from above — a heavy
golden bowl, the salsa inside frozen mid-splash in solid gold, chunky and
lumpy and enormously valuable. The most beautiful object in the book.
CAPTION: The most valuable treasure in Crunchyville. Somebody made it a long time ago. Nobody knew who made it. Everybody knew it was important.

PANEL 3
FLASHBACK. A trestle table in the square, bunting overhead, the Golden Salsa
sitting on it. The entire town is standing in a neat ring around the table,
looking at it. That is all they are doing. Nobody is eating, dancing or
playing music. They are looking at a bowl.
CAPTION: Once a year the town put it on a table. Everyone looked at it.

PANEL 4
FLASHBACK. Two officials carrying the bowl back inside. Everybody else is
already walking home with their hands in their pockets. The bunting is coming
down. It is about four in the afternoon.
CAPTION: Then they put it back. That was the whole festival.

PANEL 5
Back to now. Taco, still standing in the lettuce cart with one leaf on his
head, genuinely surprised — the first time in six pages his face has changed.
TACO: “Who stole it?”
MAYOR: “We do not know.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. The Mayor sits down heavily on a crate at the edge of
the street, hands hanging between his knees, hat still backwards. Behind and
above him, out of focus, the whole town is waiting for him to have an idea.
He does not have one.
MAYOR: “Without the Golden Salsa there is no festival.”


PAGE 8 — DETECTIVE WORK (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 7

NOTE: This page is a comedy duet. Keep the panels the same size and the
camera almost still — the joke is the rhythm, and moving the camera slows it
down. Only the last panel breaks the pattern.

PANEL 1
Taco, in the foreground, takes hold of the brim of his sombrero with both
hands and straightens it. THE HAT-FIX — first appearance. Learn this drawing.
The Mayor, behind him on his crate, looks up.
TACO: “Then I know what I will do.”
MAYOR: “What?”

PANEL 2
Taco strikes a detective pose — one hand behind his back, the other holding a
magnifying glass he did not have in the previous panel and will never be seen
to have acquired. The lens magnifies one eye to four times its size.
TACO: “Detective work!”
MAYOR: “You have never done detective work.”

PANEL 3
Taco, absolutely thrilled with himself, leaning in. This is the best argument
he has ever made.
TACO: “Exactly. Nobody will expect me.”

PANEL 4
The Mayor, thinking about it properly. Genuinely thinking. You can see him
try the sentence out and fail to find the hole in it.
MAYOR: “That is not how you choose detective work.”
TACO: “It is now.”

PANEL 5
Same two, same size, faster.
MAYOR: “Do you have a plan?”
TACO: “I have a very good plan.”
MAYOR: “What is the plan?”
TACO: “I will find clues.”
MAYOR: “And then?”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page, and now the camera finally moves — we pull right back
and up. Taco is already walking away up the street toward Assembly Hall,
tiny, hat enormous, one hand raised without looking back. The Mayor is still
sitting on his crate with his mouth slightly open. The whole town is watching
him go. This is the panel the reader turns the page on.
TACO: “Then I will have clues.”


PAGE 9 — ASSEMBLY HALL (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 8

PANEL 1
Tall panel down the left of the page. Interior, Assembly Hall. Vast, grey,
echoing, cold — draw the cold: breath visible, the warm town light cut off at
the door behind Taco, who has just stepped in and is a very small orange shape
at the bottom of an enormous grey room. Up in one corner, easy to miss, a
single thin dark wisp hangs in the air.
CAPTION: It was cold inside. It also smelled burnt.
CAPTION: Nothing in the hall had been burning.

PANEL 2
The wall of PAINTINGS OF OLD MAYORS — eight or nine of them in heavy frames,
all past Mayors, all painted from a low angle so they are all looking down. And
every single one of them is disappointed. Not angry. Disappointed. Taco walks
underneath them looking up, and his grin flickers slightly.

PANEL 3
THE VAULT. A round iron door set in stone with three separate LOCKS down its
face, each bigger than Taco. Draw the door itself with the personality of a
stern elderly official — the bolt heads and hinge plates falling into an
expression that does not approve of anybody. It is still shut. It is
completely undamaged.
CAPTION: Three locks and one very serious door.

PANEL 4
THE GUARDS, three of them in oversized slate helmets, standing to attention
in front of the door. The CAPTAIN in the middle. Taco, in front of them and
much shorter, has the magnifying glass out again.
GUARD: “No one entered.”
TACO: “Are you sure?”

PANEL 5
Close on the captain. Chest out. Total confidence.
GUARD: “I watched the door all night.”
TACO: “Did anyone leave?”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Same shot, and nothing has moved — except that the
captain's chest has come down and his eyes have gone to the ceiling. Hold it.
He is thinking about it for a long time. The other two guards have begun,
very slowly, to look at him.
GUARD: “Also no.”


PAGE 10 — CLUES (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 9

PANEL 1
Taco, arms spread, asking the room. All three guards are looking at their own
boots. Nobody answers him.
TACO: “Then how was it stolen?”

PANEL 2
Overhead shot looking straight down at the vault and the floor in front of it.
Taco is drawn three times in the same panel, walking a circle around the
vault, with a dotted footprint trail looping round it three times. The guards
stand in the middle of the loop, turning to follow him, getting dizzy.

PANEL 3
Taco with one ear flat against the iron door, eyes shut, concentrating with
his whole body. A completely normal speech balloon comes out of the door with
a tail pointing at it — and there is nothing inside it. THE EMPTY BALLOON,
first of three. Nothing else in the panel. Let it be quiet.

PANEL 4
Low on the stone floor. A trail of FOOTPRINTS in the dust, running from the
vault off to the right. They are tiny. Put Taco's own foot in frame for scale
and make the prints smaller than his toes.

PANEL 5
Taco on one knee over the prints, magnifying glass down, hat brim resting on
the floor around him like a collapsed tent. The guards lean in over him.
TACO: “These are clues.”
GUARD: “What do they tell you?”
TACO: “That somebody has small feet.”
GUARD: “How small?”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco has stood up and is holding two fingers apart —
about a centimetre. That is the whole gesture. All three guards are bent right
over, helmets clashing, staring at the tiny gap between his fingers with total
professional seriousness. Nobody speaks.
CAPTION: Nobody in Crunchyville had feet that small.


PAGE 11 — THE WINDOW (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 10

PANEL 1
Wide. The footprint trail leads away across the hall floor — past the vault,
and then straight past the three guards' own boots. Taco follows it on hands
and knees. All three guards are looking very hard in three different
directions, and one of them has gone red.

PANEL 2
The trail ends at a WINDOW in the stone wall, high up, and the window is
ridiculous: a slot barely wider than a hand. The captain gestures at it with
the flat certainty of a man closing a case.
GUARD: “Nobody could fit through that.”

PANEL 3
Close on Taco. He has not stopped grinning since page 2 but this is a
different grin.
TACO: “Lucky for me, I am not normal.”

PANEL 4
And he takes the hat off. Big moment — give it room. Taco, bare-headed for the
first and almost the last time in this book, holding the enormous sombrero in
both hands in front of him. He looks small, ordinary and faintly indecent. The
guards have gone very quiet. One of them has removed his own helmet out of
respect.

PANEL 5
The window from outside, looking back in. The sombrero comes through the slot
first — folded, crushed, squeezed through like a letter through a letterbox,
brim buckling. Then, after it, a pair of small legs kicking.
SFX: SQUISH!

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Outside, in a narrow alley behind the hall. Taco has
landed in a heap, hat back on and already perfect again, and the footprints
carry on away from him across the dirt toward the distant dark line of BEAN
FOREST. Across all of it — across Taco, the alley and the footprints — falls
a long shadow from behind him, with a hat and a spoon in it. Taco has not
turned round yet.
GAZPACHO (off-panel): “Looking for something?”


PAGE 12 — DON GAZPACHO (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 11

PANEL 1
Big panel, top half of the page. Taco has spun round. DON GAZPACHO stands in
the mouth of the alley, backlit, red cape hanging still, wide black hat, large
wooden spoon resting on one shoulder. Full height, so the reader sees at once
that he is roughly four Tacos tall. He is not doing anything. He is just
there.

NOTE: Panels 2, 3 and 4 below. Panels 2 and 3 must be the IDENTICAL drawing —
same crop, same lines, same expression, nothing changed at all. Panel 4 is the
same shot pulled back. The joke is entirely in the repetition, so do not
improve it.

PANEL 2
Tight crop on Don Gazpacho's face. Mildly unimpressed.
CAPTION: He did not look friendly.

PANEL 3
The identical drawing again. Nothing has moved.
CAPTION: He did not look unfriendly.

PANEL 4
Same shot, pulled back just far enough to include the enormous wooden spoon on
his shoulder. His face has still not changed.
CAPTION: He looked like a man holding a spoon.

PANEL 5
The two of them, Taco craning up.
GAZPACHO: “My name is Don Gazpacho.”
TACO: “That is a long name.”
GAZPACHO: “It is a normal name.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco has produced a notebook-shaped seriousness he does
not have the equipment for. Gazpacho is already looking off toward the forest.
TACO: “Where are you from?”
GAZPACHO: “Far away.”


PAGE 13 — A BETTER QUESTION (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGES 11–12

PANEL 1
Tight two-shot. Taco pressing. Gazpacho not moving a muscle.
TACO: “How far?”
GAZPACHO: “It is farther than that.”

PANEL 2
Same shot. Taco's eyebrows have done something complicated. Gazpacho's face
is exactly where it was.
TACO: “Farther than what?”
GAZPACHO: “Than far away.”

PANEL 3
Taco visibly restarts. New posture, new angle of hat, new voice — you can see
him decide to try a completely different approach. Gazpacho, for the first
time, looks mildly surprised.
TACO: “Are you the thief?”
GAZPACHO: “Me? Steal salsa? No.”

PANEL 4
Taco has walked round behind him and is looking the spoon up and down like a
police officer at a roadside.
TACO: “You have a spoon.”
GAZPACHO: “Yes.”
TACO: “And you look suspicious.”
GAZPACHO: “That is not proof.”

PANEL 5
Taco pointing at the spoon with the magnifying glass, in full courtroom mode.
Gazpacho answers each question at exactly the same unhurried speed.
TACO: “Why do you carry a spoon?”
GAZPACHO: “For soup.”
TACO: “Where is the soup?”
GAZPACHO: “I have not made it yet.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Close and low on the ground: Taco has knelt down and is
writing his notes IN THE DUST with one finger, in careful shaky capitals, and
we can read them: SPOON. NO SOUP. Above and behind him, out of focus,
Gazpacho is watching this happen without comment.


PAGE 14 — SMALLER THAN YOU (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 13

PANEL 1
Taco closes his investigation by standing up and scuffing the dust notes out
with one foot, satisfied. Case file closed.
TACO: “Fair enough.”

PANEL 2
Wide. Gazpacho raises the spoon and points with it, off across the scrubland
toward the dark line of the forest. Taco follows the point. Both of them small
in a big empty landscape.
GAZPACHO: “I saw someone running that way.”
TACO: “How did they run?”
GAZPACHO: “They ran quickly.”

PANEL 3
Two-shot.
TACO: “Was it a big person or a small person?”
GAZPACHO: “He was small.”

PANEL 4
Closer.
TACO: “How small?”
GAZPACHO: “Smaller than you.”

PANEL 5
Taco has drawn himself up to his absolute full indignant height — chest out,
chin up, on his toes — and is still comfortably shorter than the spoon.
Personally offended. This is the only insult in the book that lands on him.
TACO: “Nobody is smaller than me.”
GAZPACHO: “Somebody is.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco's anger goes out of him all at once as he looks
down. At his feet, running away into the scrub, the tiny footprints. He nods
once, professionally. The case has just become real.
TACO: “Small feet.”


PAGE 15 — WITNESSES COME ALONG (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 14

PANEL 1
Taco turns for the forest, already going.
TACO: “Then let us go.”
GAZPACHO: “You said we.”

PANEL 2
Taco, walking backwards so he can keep talking, one finger up, laying down the
law of a profession he has held for about eleven minutes.
TACO: “You are a witness. Witnesses come along.”
GAZPACHO: “That is also not how detective work works.”
TACO: “It is now.”

PANEL 3
Gazpacho, who has decided, looks up at the sun with one hand shading his eyes
and reads the whole afternoon off it in about a second.
GAZPACHO: “The forest is one hour that way.”

PANEL 4
Taco squinting up at the same sun and getting nothing out of it at all.
TACO: “How do you know?”
GAZPACHO: “I walked here.”

PANEL 5
Close on Taco, walking, looking up at him sideways. He already knows the
answer and asks anyway.
TACO: “From where?”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Pull all the way back and up. The two of them small on a
long dusty road, the forest a dark band across the horizon, the sun high. They
are not looking at each other.
GAZPACHO: “Far away.”


PAGE 16 — BEAN FOREST (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 15

PANEL 1
Big panel, top half. They step in under the trees. Enormous trunks, and where
the leaves should be, BEANS — hanging in heavy clusters, pods and pods of
them. Warm light coming down through gaps. On several of the low branches
hang small hand-painted wooden name tags: BLACK. RED. GREEN. And on one
cluster near Taco's head, a name tag that has been hung up but never written
on. It is completely blank.

PANEL 2
Taco has eaten one. Cheek bulging, hand already reaching for another.
Gazpacho, without breaking stride, without looking.
GAZPACHO: “Do not eat the forest.”
TACO: “I am investigating it.”
GAZPACHO: “With your mouth?”
TACO: “It is a valid method.”

PANEL 3
The path narrows to a squeeze. Taco's hat brim is scraping both sides at once
and pulling down leaves. The light has gone green — everything in this panel
and every panel after it in the forest is lit green from above.

PANEL 4
Give this one room and make the reader uneasy without telling them why. A
TREE WITH NO BEANS. Bare black branches. And under it, a perfect circle of
bare grey earth where nothing grows at all — the green forest floor stops in a
clean line at its edge. Taco and Gazpacho are walking past it in the
background, talking, and neither of them has looked at it.

PANEL 5
Something large shifts behind the trees to their left. We see only the
movement — beans falling from a high branch, a shape going through the gap
between two trunks, gone.

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. The forest floor at ground level. A fallen bean jumps a
centimetre into the air. Then everything on the ground jumps. Taco's hat
brim ripples.
SFX: THUMP.


PAGE 17 — THE BEAN MONSTER (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 16

PANEL 1
Taco has stopped dead, one foot still up. Behind him Gazpacho has stopped too.
Everything in the frame is mid-bounce.
SFX: THUMP.

PANEL 2
Gazpacho brings the spoon down off his shoulder and holds it properly, two
hands, like a sword. He is not joking now. Taco is entirely relaxed.
GAZPACHO: “What was that?”
TACO: “Probably nothing.”

PANEL 3
Closer, bigger, and the lettering bigger with it. Leaves and beans coming off
the trees in a rain. The ground is visibly deforming.
SFX: THUMP.

PANEL 4
Gazpacho, flat.
GAZPACHO: “That was a large nothing.”

PANEL 5
Big, half the page. THE BEAN MONSTER comes through the trees — four metres of
packed black, red and green beans, small deep-set eyes, an enormous jaw, beans
dropping off him and rolling away down the path toward Taco's feet. He fills
the entire panel and Taco and Gazpacho are two small shapes in the bottom
corner. The panel border should feel too small for him.
MONSTER: “Who enters my forest?”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco raises both hands — not in surrender, in greeting —
and is entirely unafraid, which is not brave so much as a failure to
understand. Gazpacho beside him has the spoon up.
TACO: “Hello.”
MONSTER: “Leave!”
TACO: “We are looking for the Golden Salsa.”
MONSTER: “Golden Salsa?”
TACO: “Yes.”


PAGE 18 — THEY WORE PANS (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 17

PANEL 1
The monster sits down. It is like a building sitting down. Beans bounce off
the ground all round him, Gazpacho staggers, Taco's hat drops over his eyes.
Two balloons from the monster, one after the other.
MONSTER: “I protect Guacamole Mountain.”
MONSTER: “I saw strangers going toward it.”

PANEL 2
Taco pushing his hat back up. All business again.
TACO: “How many?”
MONSTER: “Enough of them.”

PANEL 3
Close on the monster's face. Whatever he is remembering, he does not like it.
TACO: “What did they look like?”
MONSTER: “They wore pans.”

PANEL 4
No dialogue at all. Taco turns his head and looks at Gazpacho. Gazpacho turns
his head and looks at Taco. Two profiles, facing each other, both perfectly
blank. Hold this beat — it is a whole panel doing nothing and it must not be
cut.

PANEL 5
Same two, still looking at each other.
TACO: “They were wearing pans?”
GAZPACHO: “They were wearing pans.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page, and stage it from low down so the sombrero takes up the
top third of the panel like weather. Taco is delivering his verdict on
headwear while wearing the largest hat that has ever been made.
TACO: “Why would anybody wear a pan?”
GAZPACHO: “To keep the rain off.”
TACO: “That is a hat.”


PAGE 19 — THE WARNING (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 18

PANEL 1
The monster, still seated, raises one enormous arm and points away through the
trees toward the mountains.
MONSTER: “But be careful.”
TACO: “Why?”

PANEL 2
What he is pointing at, seen through a gap in the trunks: rank after rank of
chilli plants stretching to the horizon in the heat, and behind them the green
mountain.
MONSTER: “The Jalapeno Fields are between the forest and the mountain.”

PANEL 3
Taco, breezy, waving it off with one hand. He has never seen a jalapeño in his
life.
TACO: “Jalapenos? I can handle them.”

PANEL 4
The monster laughs — and it is the only time in the book he is genuinely
delighted. Every tree in the panel is shaking. Beans are coming down like
hail. Taco is being pelted and has his arms over his hat.
MONSTER: “You will not say that after meeting the Jalapeno Riders.”

PANEL 5
The laugh stops. The monster has turned his head to look back over his
shoulder, into the forest, at something we can see in the distance behind him:
the bare black tree in its dead grey circle. He does not take his eyes off it.
MONSTER: “One more thing.”
MONSTER: “Stay away from the tree with no beans.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco asks. The monster is already standing and turning
away, and does not answer — not a refusal, not a pause, just nothing. Behind
him the bare tree stands in its grey circle, small and far off and perfectly
still. This is the panel the reader turns the page on and it should feel
unfinished, because it is.
TACO: “Why should I stay away?”


PAGE 20 — THE JALAPENO FIELDS (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 19

PANEL 1
Wide establishing, full width. They come out of the trees into the open and
the world goes from green shade to white heat. Rows and rows and rows of
chilli plants, dead straight, running all the way to the horizon and over it.
On a leaning fence post at the edge, a painted board: JALAPENO FIELDS — THE
FAMOUS GUACAMOLE OF CRUNCHYVILLE MADE HERE.

PANEL 2
Heat shimmer rising off the rows so the horizon wobbles. Taco walking into it.
The air is visibly hot and visibly spiced — draw fine red dust hanging in it.

PANEL 3
Close on Taco. His eyes have gone glassy and there is water in them. Gazpacho
glances down.
GAZPACHO: “Are you crying?”
TACO: “Tacos do not cry.”

PANEL 4
Closer. Two absolutely enormous tears are now running down the shell.
GAZPACHO: “You are crying.”
TACO: “It is the field.”

PANEL 5
Gazpacho, looking dead ahead, walking on. His eyes are completely dry.
GAZPACHO: “Of course it is.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco picking his way carefully between two rows, still
weeping, pleased with the countryside. And in the background, three rows back
and well out of his eyeline, the first silhouette: a tiny rider sitting on top
of a very large jalapeño, watching him. Neither Taco nor Gazpacho has seen it.
TACO: “This is a peaceful farm.”


PAGE 21 — THE RIDERS (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 20

PANEL 1
On a low ridge above the rows, backlit, one tiny rider stands in his stirrups
and blows a whistle. Draw the blast — the plants flattening away from him in a
ring, dust lifting — but letter no sound effect at all.

PANEL 2
Big, full width. They come up out of the rows on every side at once. THE
JALAPENO RIDERS — finger-sized chilli-people in pointed hats, sitting calmly
on waist-high GIANT JALAPEÑOS with furious little faces and stubby galloping
legs. Forty of them. Taco and Gazpacho in the middle, surrounded.
RIDERS: “Intruders!”

PANEL 3
Taco, genuinely confused, pointing. He has misread the entire situation.
TACO: “Why are the jalapenos riding?”
GAZPACHO: “The small ones are the riders.”
TACO: “The small ones are on top.”
GAZPACHO: “That is where riders sit.”

PANEL 4
Gazpacho explaining the concept of a horse, patiently, in the middle of an
ambush.
TACO: “Then the jalapenos are the horses.”
GAZPACHO: “That is what a horse is.”

PANEL 5
Extreme close-up on one jalapeño's face. Total, incandescent, unexplained
rage. The rider on top of it is relaxed and slightly bored.
TACO: “Then why do the horses look angry?”
GAZPACHO: “Because they are jalapenos.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. No sound, no motion, no dialogue. Every rider has taken
the whistle out of his mouth and lowered it. Forty jalapeños stand completely
still. The dust settles. Nothing is happening at all and it is the most
frightening panel so far.
CAPTION: That was worse.


PAGE 22 — CHASED (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 21

PANEL 1
Big, full width. The charge. Forty jalapeños coming straight at the reader
through the rows, plants exploding sideways, riders low over their necks.

PANEL 2
Running shot from the side. Don Gazpacho is a clear ten metres ahead, cape
streaming, moving beautifully. Taco is behind him doing everything he can —
and the sombrero has caught the air like a parachute, brim bent back, visibly
dragging him backwards. He is running at full effort and going almost nowhere.

PANEL 3
Gazpacho, over his shoulder, not slowing down. Taco, purple in the face.
GAZPACHO: “Faster!”
TACO: “I am a taco!”
GAZPACHO: “What does that mean?”
TACO: “It means I am not fast!”

PANEL 4
Behind Taco, very close now: the lead jalapeño, teeth bared, one stubby leg
about to come down where Taco's heel is.

PANEL 5
Gazpacho, ahead, points down the slope with the spoon without breaking stride.
GAZPACHO: “Then roll!”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco whips the sombrero off, drops it crown-down on the
slope and jumps in — and the whole thing tips over the lip of the hill like a
sled. First frame of the descent: hat, Taco, gravity.


PAGE 23 — CRUNCH (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 22

PANEL 1
The sombrero going down the hill at a speed nobody wanted, spinning as it
goes, Taco holding the brim with both hands and both feet, speed lines
everywhere.
TACO: “I cannot steer!”
GAZPACHO: “Steer anyway!”

PANEL 2
Big, full width. The collision. Sombrero and Taco arrive in the middle of the
Jalapeno Riders at full speed. Riders, jalapeños, hats and whistles going up
and outward in all directions.
SFX: CRUNCH!

PANEL 3
Aftermath, wide. A large pile of leaves with riders and jalapeños in it, legs
sticking out. The sombrero has come to rest upside down. Taco stands up out of
it, unhurt, and turns round to Gazpacho, who has jogged down the hill and is
standing with the spoon on his shoulder again.
TACO: “See?”
GAZPACHO: “You planned that?”
TACO: “No.”

PANEL 4
A single rider sits up in the leaves, hat crushed flat, one leaf on his face.
He is not hurt. He is offended.
RIDER: “That was rude.”

PANEL 5
Taco, absolutely sincere, holds out a taco to him in both hands. Small
ceremonial moment — stage it like a peace treaty. This is the first time he
does this. It will not be the last.
TACO: “I am sorry about that.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. The rider, still sitting in the leaves, eating the taco
with both hands. Around him the other riders are picking themselves up and
dusting their jalapeños off, and one of them is helping straighten another's
hat. Nobody is angry any more. Taco and Gazpacho are already walking off
toward the mountain in the background.
RIDER: “Apology accepted.”


PAGE 24 — GUACAMOLE MOUNTAIN (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 23

PANEL 1
Big establishing, full width, top third. GUACAMOLE MOUNTAIN. Enormous, green,
and not quite the right shape for a mountain — the slopes sag a little, the
peak leans, and there is a large smooth dent in one flank where something
heavy leaned on it. A slow bead of guacamole is running down a gully like a
tear. Taco and Gazpacho tiny at the bottom of the frame for scale.

PANEL 2
Taco has stopped and is poking the lower slope with one finger. It has gone in
up to the knuckle and left a hole.
TACO: “Is the whole mountain guacamole?”
GAZPACHO: “All the way through.”

PANEL 3
The sun overhead, hard and white. Somewhere above them a small slab of the
mountain lets go and slides two metres with a wet noise.
TACO: “Is that safe?”
GAZPACHO: “Not in warm weather.”

PANEL 4
The entrance — a dark mouth in the green. Standing squarely in front of it,
arms at his sides, waiting: THE BEAN MONSTER. He got here first and he is not
even out of breath.
MONSTER: “You have returned.”

PANEL 5
Taco, stopped, hat pushed back, pointing behind himself at the entire forest.
TACO: “You were in the forest.”
MONSTER: “I was.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco has walked right up to him and is looking almost
straight up. The monster does not explain, elaborate or look pleased with
himself. He simply says the thing and it is true.
TACO: “How did you get here first?”
MONSTER: “I know the mountain.”


PAGE 25 — PROVE YOURSELF (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 24

PANEL 1
Taco points past him at the dark entrance.
TACO: “We need to enter.”

PANEL 2
The monster folds his enormous arms. The entrance disappears entirely behind
them.
MONSTER: “No one enters without proving that they are worthy.”

PANEL 3
Taco's shoulders drop. A whole sigh in one drawing. He has been awake since
dawn and has already crashed twice.
TACO: “What do I have to do?”

PANEL 4
Big, half the page, steep low angle. The Bean Monster from Taco's eye level —
all four metres of him going up out of the top of the panel, jaw set, the club
of bundled bean pods now in one hand. Taco is a small orange wedge at the
bottom of the frame. Two words.
MONSTER: “Defeat me.”

PANEL 5
Close on Taco. He is not frightened, he is negotiating. He has already put on
a hopeful, reasonable face.
TACO: “Can we play rock-paper-scissors instead?”
MONSTER: “No.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco has produced the hopeful face again, slightly
smaller. The monster has not moved at all between the two panels.
TACO: “Best of three?”
MONSTER: “There is no best of three.”


PAGE 26 — THE BATTLE (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 25

PANEL 1
The monster brings one foot down. Big panel. The whole ground goes up in a
ring of dust and flying guacamole, rocks jumping, Gazpacho staggering at the
edge of frame.
SFX: BOOM!

PANEL 2
Taco jumps. Side-on, low to the ground, and measure it precisely: the
shockwave is passing underneath him with about two millimetres to spare. He is
not high. He is exactly high enough. His face is set with enormous effort.

PANEL 3
The club of bundled bean pods comes round in a huge arc. Taco leans back out
of its path by a hand's width. The club carries on past him and hits a boulder,
and the boulder simply comes apart.

PANEL 4
Gazpacho, off at the side of the fight, spoon ready, calling across. Taco is
mid-dive behind a rock.
GAZPACHO: “Do you have a plan?”
TACO: “I always have a plan.”

PANEL 5
Same two, faster, smaller panel.
GAZPACHO: “Does it involve rolling?”
TACO: “It involves a little rolling.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco is already standing on the brim of the sombrero
with one foot, tipping it, absolutely giving the game away. Gazpacho is
watching him do it.
GAZPACHO: “It always involves rolling.”
TACO: “It is a good plan.”


PAGE 27 — THE PLAN (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 26

PANEL 1
Gazpacho throws the wooden spoon end over end across the whole width of the
panel. It hits the monster square on the jaw.
SFX: CLANG!

PANEL 2
The monster's arms go out. He is not hurt — he is off balance, which for
something that size is much more dramatic. A dozen beans come loose and drop.

PANEL 3
Taco jumps onto the sombrero and it spins up like a saw blade with him
crouched on top of it, and he goes in low and fast at the monster's knee.
SFX: BONK!

PANEL 4
The monster's knee, close up. Completely unmarked. Not a bean out of place.
The monster is looking down at it with mild academic interest.

PANEL 5
The floor, next to the knee. Taco, face down, flat, completely still, hat
landing gently on top of him a second later.

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. The monster is delighted — genuinely, hugely delighted,
head back. Taco has not got up. One arm comes up off the floor and gives a
thumbs-up without the rest of him moving.
MONSTER: “You are very strange!”
TACO: “Thank you!”


PAGE 28 — LUNCH (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGES 26–27

PANEL 1
Tall panel, the full height of the page down one side. Taco gets up, slowly.
And the shot is pure scale: the Bean Monster as a vast dark shape filling
almost the entire panel, and Taco standing at the very bottom of it, about as
tall as one of the monster's toes, brushing himself off. No dialogue. Let the
reader do the arithmetic.

PANEL 2
And Taco does not put his fists up. He reaches under the brim of his hat,
takes out a taco, and holds it up over his head with both hands as high as he
can reach — which is nowhere near high enough.

PANEL 3
Enormous fingers take the taco. A bite. The taco is gone in one.

PANEL 4
Chewing. And chewing. Wide panel, and the point of it is duration: Taco and
Gazpacho standing side by side waiting, hands behind their backs. Gazpacho has
looked up to check where the sun has got to. Nobody has said anything for some
time.

PANEL 5
The monster swallows. His whole expression has changed.
MONSTER: “This is good.”
TACO: “Thank you.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page.
MONSTER: “What is in it?”
TACO: “It is made of beans.”


PAGE 29 — YOU MAY ENTER (5 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 27

PANEL 1
Big. The monster considers this. He looks down at the taco crumbs on his
fingers, and then, slowly, at his own arm, which is made entirely of beans.
Hold the panel on his face while he thinks it through. He arrives somewhere
respectful.
MONSTER: “That is a bold choice.”

PANEL 2
He steps aside. One enormous pace, and the dark entrance of Guacamole Mountain
is open behind him.
MONSTER: “You may enter.”

PANEL 3
Gazpacho, staring at Taco. It is the largest expression his face has made so
far, which is to say one eyebrow is up.
GAZPACHO: “You beat him with lunch.”

PANEL 4
Taco walking past him toward the entrance, not stopping, not looking back,
straightening his hat as he goes.
TACO: “Fighting is loud.”

PANEL 5
Wide, bottom of page. The two of them from behind, small, walking into the
dark mouth of the mountain. The Bean Monster stands to one side of it with his
arms at his sides, watching them go in, and does not follow.


PAGE 30 — THE GUACAMOLE CORE (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 28

PANEL 1
Big, top half of the page. Inside: an enormous underground cavern, warm,
green-walled, the ceiling lost in the dark. Everything in here glows faintly
green from below. Taco and Gazpacho on a ledge at the entrance, tiny. In the
top corner of the panel, small and easy to miss, one thin dark wisp hangs in
the green air.
CAPTION: It smelled green. Under the green it smelled burnt.

PANEL 2
Close on the two of them. Gazpacho breathes in appreciatively. Taco has
stopped, nose up, and is looking off to one side at nothing — following the
thread of dark air, which trails away out of the panel past his head. Only
Taco and the reader can see it.
TACO: “Do you smell that?”
GAZPACHO: “I smell guacamole.”

PANEL 3
Big, full width. THE GUACAMOLE CORE — a glowing green chamber in the middle of
the cavern floor, a great column of light going up out of it into the dark,
and running away from it in every direction across the cavern floor, channels
of guacamole feeding out through the rock and away under the mountain toward
the town.
CAPTION: All the guacamole in Crunchyville came from here.

PANEL 4
Taco, lit green from below, face open, the hat brim edge-lit. For one panel he
is not funny at all.
TACO: “Wow.”

PANEL 5
Gazpacho's arm comes across in front of him like a barrier.
GAZPACHO: “Do not touch it.”
TACO: “I was not going to.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco's hand is out in front of him, and draw it caught
exactly halfway through the change: three fingers still curled from reaching,
the index finger already straightening into a point. Taco's face has arranged
itself into complete innocence. Gazpacho is looking at the hand, not the face.
GAZPACHO: “You were reaching.”
TACO: “I was pointing.”


PAGE 31 — THE THREAD (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 29

PANEL 1
Gazpacho stops, head turning, reading the cavern floor. His whole posture has
changed and Taco notices it.
GAZPACHO: “Someone has been here.”

PANEL 2
The footprints, on the green stone. Draw this panel as the IDENTICAL crop to
PAGE 10 PANEL 4 — same angle, same distance, same tiny prints — with only the
floor colour changed from grey dust to green stone. The reader should feel
the match before they work it out.

PANEL 3
A BLACK MARK on the stone wall — a scorch, a hand-sized burn, and the rock
around it is clean. Taco has two fingers on it.
TACO: “This is cold.”
GAZPACHO: “Most stones are.”

PANEL 4
On the ground at the edge of the burn: a single GOLDEN THREAD, curled, about
as long as Taco's arm.

PANEL 5
Taco holds the thread up into the green light of the Core and turns it. It
catches the light like wire. He is working something out and for once he is
not saying it out loud.
TACO: “This looks like part of a Spanish cape.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. No dialogue. Two things in the panel and nothing else:
in the foreground, Don Gazpacho's hand, lifting the hem of his own red cape
and turning it over — and the corner of it is torn clean away, a bright ragged
gap with golden threads hanging off it. In the background, out of focus,
Taco, watching him do it. Nobody says anything. Turn the page.
NOTE: From here on, in every drawing of Don Gazpacho for the rest of the book,
that corner of the cape is missing. It is never repaired.


PAGE 32 — TOO LATE (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 30

PANEL 1
The two of them facing each other across the green light. Taco is holding the
thread up between them. This is the most serious he has been.
TACO: “Don Gazpacho, why is your cape missing a piece?”

PANEL 2
Gazpacho, worried — properly worried, the first real expression on his face in
twenty pages. Taco folds his arms and waits him out.
GAZPACHO: “I can explain.”
TACO: “Good. I am listening.”
GAZPACHO: “It is a long explanation.”
TACO: “I have time.”

PANEL 3
He does not have time. The whole cavern lurches. Guacamole comes off the walls
in sheets. Both of them are thrown sideways, and a section of the rock wall
swings in on a hidden pivot — a SECRET DOOR.
SFX: BOOM!

PANEL 4
Big, half the page. Standing in the opening, lit from behind by torchlight
from a tunnel, a small hooded figure in a plain blank MASK. Draw the feet
clearly and draw them tiny.
MASKED: “Too late!”

PANEL 5
Taco, on his back on the cavern floor, up on his elbows, entirely reasonable.
TACO: “Too late for what?”
MASKED: “Too late for everything!”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. The masked figure is already gone — a flick of cloak
disappearing into the tunnel mouth. Taco is up and running after it flat out,
hat streaming behind him, and Gazpacho, half up off the floor, has his hand
out to stop him and is too late.


PAGE 33 — THE SIGNS (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 31

NOTE: Panels 2, 3 and 4 are three identical narrow panels in a row — same
angle, same tunnel, same running Taco, only the sign changes. Do not vary the
drawing.

PANEL 1
The tunnel. Steep, going down, then down more. Torches in brackets throwing
orange light, old rice barrels stacked along the walls. Taco running down it at
speed, small in a long perspective.

PANEL 2
Narrow panel. Taco going past a wooden sign bolted to the wall: DO NOT RUN.
He is running.

PANEL 3
Identical narrow panel, further down. Second sign: WE MEAN IT.
He is running.

PANEL 4
Identical narrow panel, further down. Third sign: PLEASE.
He is running.

PANEL 5
And now something is wrong, and it is worth stopping for. The tunnel floor
here is immaculate — not a grain of dust, not a crumb, the stone swept clean
in long careful strokes. A broom stands upright in a niche in the wall.
Whoever lives at the bottom of this tunnel is tidy. Taco runs across it
without noticing.

PANEL 6
Big, bottom of page, full width. The tunnel opens out and the floor drops away
into an enormous underground space — iron and saffron and torchlight,
galleries, ranks of doors, a hall the size of a town. Over the entrance, in
huge iron letters: PAELLA FORTRESS. Taco has stopped dead on the threshold,
tiny, hat and all.
TACO: “Who are these people?”


PAGE 34 — THE PAELLA RAIDERS (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 32

PANEL 1
Big, top half of the page. They come out to meet him. Hundreds of warriors in
paella-pan armour, marching out of the galleries and the side doors and
forming up on the floor of the hall in rows — and the rows are perfectly,
inhumanly straight. Draw enough of them that the reader gives up counting.
Taco and Gazpacho are two dots at the edge.

PANEL 2
No dialogue. Extreme close-up on one single raider's breastplate: a real
paella pan, saffron-stained, polished to a shine — and dented, scratched, and
with a burnt-on fried egg welded to one corner of it that no amount of
polishing has ever shifted. Somebody cooks with these.

PANEL 3
The front rank, seen from Taco's height. Nobody moves. Nobody speaks. Nobody
even shifts their weight. Beside Taco, Don Gazpacho quietly lowers the spoon
from his shoulder and holds it in both hands.
GAZPACHO: “There are a lot of them.”

PANEL 4
Taco, pointing along the front rank, lips moving, genuinely doing the work.
TACO: “I counted to fifty.”
GAZPACHO: “Then keep counting.”

PANEL 5
Taco stops pointing. His hand comes down. He has hit a wall.
TACO: “I ran out of numbers.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Gazpacho, flat, not taking his eyes off the rows.
GAZPACHO: “That is not how numbers work.”


PAGE 35 — CAPTAIN PAELLON (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 33

PANEL 1
Big, half the page. The rows part and CAPTAIN PAELLON walks down between them.
Pan breastplate, pan helmet with its two handles sticking out at the temples
like horns, long dark cloak. He is not in a hurry and he is not going to be.
Give him the most confident silhouette in the book.
PAELLON: “Welcome, Taco McSoombrero.”

PANEL 2
Taco, taken aback.
TACO: “How do you know my name?”
PAELLON: “Everyone knows your name.”
TACO: “Do they really?”

PANEL 3
Paellon, deadpan — and set into the corner of his panel, a small inset flashback
panel: the exact drawing from PAGE 5 PANEL 4, Taco arriving head-first in the
lettuce cart, leaves everywhere. Same soft warm border as the flashbacks on
page 7.
PAELLON: “You crashed into a pile of lettuce this morning.”

PANEL 4
Taco, appalled — not that he is known, but at how long today has been.
TACO: “That was this morning?”
PAELLON: “It was.”

PANEL 5
Taco's hand goes up. Something has occurred to him that he does not like.
TACO: “How do you know that?”
PAELLON: “I was told before you arrived.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Pull back to include the whole hall — Taco small, the
rows of raiders, Paellon relaxed. And take the light down: the torches on this
panel throw less light than the ones on the panel before, and the corners of
the hall are darker than they should be. Paellon is not looking at Taco when
he says it.
TACO: “Told by who?”
PAELLON: “Somebody is watching you.”


PAGE 36 — HE IS PROUD OF IT (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 34

PANEL 1
Taco, both feet planted, one arm out, finger pointing. Full accusation, full
volume.
TACO: “You stole the Golden Salsa!”

NOTE: Panels 2 and 3 are the SAME DRAWING of Captain Paellon's head and
shoulders, identically cropped, with only the mouth and eyes changed. Do not
change anything else — not the angle, not the background, not the tilt of the
helmet. The whole joke is the cut between them.

PANEL 2
Paellon laughing. Head back, mouth open, genuinely amused.
PAELLON: “Yes!”

PANEL 3
The identical panel, and the laugh is simply gone. Mouth shut, eyes level,
face blank, head back in exactly the same position. He did not stop laughing
because something happened. He stopped because he decided to.

PANEL 4
Taco, thrown, gesturing between them, trying to explain the rules of this
situation to a man who is not following them.
TACO: “You are supposed to deny it.”
PAELLON: “I am proud of it.”
TACO: “Was this your idea?”
PAELLON: “It was my idea.”

PANEL 5
Paellon, still not moving. Every answer arrives before Taco has finished
asking.
TACO: “You answered very fast.”
PAELLON: “I have had time to think about it.”
TACO: “Why are you proud of it?”
PAELLON: “Because the Golden Salsa is the key to controlling the greatest food treasure in the world.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Tight on Taco and nothing else — no raiders, no hall,
just him against the dark, hat pushed back, completely lost. He has understood
that this is much bigger than a festival and he has understood nothing else.
TACO: “What treasure?”


PAGE 37 — THE COCADA CROWN (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 35

PANEL 1
Big, half the page. Captain Paellon raises the GOLDEN SALSA above his head
with one hand. Torchlight catches it and it throws gold across the whole hall,
across the pans, across Taco's face. It is the most beautiful drawing in the
chapter.

PANEL 2
And the rows of raiders, lit gold by it, are not looking. One is looking at his
boots. One has his head tilted back and his eyes shut. One is scratching under
his breastplate. They have all seen it before.

PANEL 3
Paellon, lowering it. Taco, ahead of him for once.
PAELLON: “The Cocada Crown.”
TACO: “La Cocada Island?”
PAELLON: “Exactly.”

PANEL 4
Paellon turning away, walking, talking over his shoulder — a man explaining
something he considers obvious.
PAELLON: “With the Golden Salsa, we will control the Coco Sea.”
TACO: “Why do you want the Coco Sea?”
PAELLON: “Every boat in the world crosses it.”

PANEL 5
Taco, arms out, appealing to the entire room.
TACO: “That is not a reason.”
PAELLON: “It will be.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. No dialogue at all. Taco standing in the middle of a
hall full of silent armed men with his mouth very slightly open and nothing
whatsoever to say. Two beats of nothing. Then turn the page.


PAGE 38 — TAKE THE HAT FIRST (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGES 35–36

PANEL 1
Taco takes the brim of his sombrero in both hands and straightens it. THE
HAT-FIX — second appearance, and draw it exactly as on PAGE 8 PANEL 1. He has
found the answer and the answer is that he is going to try anyway.
TACO: “Not if I can stop you.”

PANEL 2
Paellon, entirely untroubled, half-turns and gives one order.
PAELLON: “Take the hat first.”

PANEL 3
Taco, and this has hurt him more than anything else that has happened today.
His own words, coming back at him out of a pan helmet. Play his face for the
double-take.
TACO: “Why my hat?”
PAELLON: “It is a tool.”

PANEL 4
Paellon raises one hand. Just the hand — no shout, no gesture, no flourish.

PANEL 5
Big, full width. The charge. Hundreds of raiders coming forward at once across
the floor of the hall, in formation, at a steady pace. And there is not one
single balloon or sound effect anywhere in this panel. No shouting. No SFX. Do
not letter anything here — the silence of it is the frightening part and it
only works if the page is genuinely empty of words.

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco running flat out toward the reader. Gazpacho beside
him, spoon in both hands, running backwards half the time to keep the raiders
in view.
GAZPACHO: “Do you have a plan?”
TACO: “I am making one!”
GAZPACHO: “Make it faster!”


PAGE 39 — LEFT, RIGHT, DOWN (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 37

NOTE: Panels 1, 2 and 3 are three narrow panels in a row, running fast.

PANEL 1
Narrow. Gazpacho, ahead, arm out to one side. Taco cuts left round a pillar,
raiders' hands closing on empty air behind him.
GAZPACHO: “Left!”

PANEL 2
Narrow. Arm out the other way. Taco cuts right. A pan-armoured arm swipes and
misses.
GAZPACHO: “Right!”

PANEL 3
Narrow. Gazpacho points straight down. Taco, at full speed, does not ask why —
he jumps, and goes head-first into a heavy wooden FOOD CART parked on a ramp.
GAZPACHO: “Down!”
SFX: CRASH!

PANEL 4
Wide. The cart's chocks break and it starts down the ramp, gathering speed
fast, Taco's hat and both hands just visible over the rim. Gazpacho runs and
vaults in over the tailgate.

PANEL 5
Halfway down, the cart clips a raider and scoops him neatly off his feet and
into the back of it. He lands sitting upright among the vegetables, entirely
composed.

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Without any fuss, the raider stands up, steps off the
back of the moving cart, lands on his feet, and remains standing there
watching it go. He straightens his breastplate. He was not part of this.


PAGE 40 — WHY ROLLING (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 38

PANEL 1
Inside the runaway cart. Taco hanging onto the front rail, shouting into the
wind — genuinely asking, as though this were a question the universe owed him
an answer to.
TACO: “Why do all my plans involve rolling?”
GAZPACHO: “Because you are round!”

PANEL 2
Taco turning round to argue about geometry at forty miles an hour.
TACO: “I am folded!”
GAZPACHO: “Folded things also roll.”

PANEL 3
Taco, sulking, folded, rolling.
TACO: “Not on purpose.”

PANEL 4
Big, full width. The cart hits the fortress gate and goes through it. Iron,
splinters, hinges and one gate-guard's helmet going out and up in every
direction. Behind the explosion, the daylight of the mountainside.

PANEL 5
No dialogue. The broken gate. One raider has stopped, turned, and is pointing
at the ruined gate with both hands, clearly saying something about it. Every
other raider in the panel is running straight past him and out through the
hole. Nobody stops. Nobody helps. Nobody ever fixes the gate.

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. CAPTAIN PAELLON walks — walks — up to the broken gate,
stops in the middle of the wreckage, and looks out and up at the hillside
where two small figures are disappearing over the ridge. He does not raise his
voice. He does not look at whoever he is talking to.
PAELLON: “Bring the cannon.”


PAGE 41 — THE CANNON (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 39

PANEL 1
No caption. Paellon, still facing away, says two words — and in the same panel,
behind him, the raiders are already gone: an empty gateway, a dust cloud, one
dropped pan spinning on the flagstones. He said it once. Nobody needed it
twice.
PAELLON: “Get them!”

PANEL 2
Big, full width. Wide mountain shot. Taco and Gazpacho running along a high
ridge path, tiny against the green slopes, with the whole pursuit strung out
on the path below and behind them.

PANEL 3
Behind them, a PAELLA-PAN CANNON on the ridge — a vast iron pan mounted like a
mortar — going off.
SFX: BOOM!

PANEL 4
The blast catches Taco from behind. He is knocked flat on his face — and the
sombrero is blown clean off him and is going up and away, end over end, into
the sky. Taco, sprawled in the dirt, has both arms out toward it.
TACO: “No!”

PANEL 5
Taco jumps — the highest he jumps in the whole book, a proper heroic arc — and
catches the hat two-handed out of the air, and comes down on both feet, and it
is genuinely beautifully done. Gazpacho, stopped on the path ahead, is
actually impressed.
GAZPACHO: “That was good.”
TACO: “I know.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. One pace later. Taco's back foot comes down on a single
small bean lying in the middle of the path, and he goes horizontal.
SFX: SPLAT!
GAZPACHO: “Never mind.”


PAGE 42 — EVIDENCE (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 40

PANEL 1
Gazpacho hauls him up by one arm. Taco is holding the bean.
GAZPACHO: “Where did the bean come from?”
TACO: “The forest is far away.”

PANEL 2
Both of them stop and turn and look back the way they came. Wide panel: the
whole landscape behind them, the mountains, and far off at the edge of it all,
the dark line of Bean Forest. Coming out of the forest, across all that
distance, is a normal speech balloon with its tail pointing at the trees, and
there is nothing inside it. THE EMPTY BALLOON, second of three. Same balloon
shape as PAGE 10 PANEL 3.

PANEL 3
Taco puts the bean carefully into a pocket under the brim of his hat.
GAZPACHO: “Why are you keeping it?”
TACO: “It is evidence.”

PANEL 4
Close on Taco, walking on, entirely at peace with having no idea.
GAZPACHO: “Of what?”
TACO: “I will know later.”

PANEL 5
Big, full width. They come over the last ridge and THE COCO SEA opens out in
front of them — very blue, very wide, filling the panel from edge to edge, and
across the water, small on the horizon, LA COCADA ISLAND with one impossibly
tall tree sticking up off it.

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. The two of them tiny at the top of the beach, looking
out. And out on the water, a long way off and easy to miss, one dark sail,
already well on its way to the island.


PAGE 43 — THE RAFT (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 41

PANEL 1
Taco, at the water's edge, looking up at Gazpacho with total confidence in
somebody else's competence.
TACO: “Do you have a boat?”
GAZPACHO: “I walked here.”

PANEL 2
Same.
TACO: “Do you know anyone with a boat?”
GAZPACHO: “I know nobody here.”

PANEL 3
No dialogue. Taco has found a coconut. He is holding it in both hands at chest
height and looking at it. That is all that is happening in this panel and it
should be held for a long beat.

PANEL 4
Gazpacho, who has seen the face, from some distance away, already saying no.
GAZPACHO: “No.”
TACO: “I did not say anything.”

PANEL 5
Taco grinning enormously over the top of the coconut. He has been caught and
he does not mind at all.
GAZPACHO: “You were thinking about using it as a boat.”
TACO: “Yes.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. THE RAFT. Six coconuts lashed together with vine, sitting
lopsided on the sand, with one plank across it and a leaf tied to a stick for
a sail. It is the worst object in the book. Taco is standing beside it with
his chest out. Gazpacho has his hands on his hips and is looking at it with
his head on one side.
CAPTION: Two hours later.


PAGE 44 — A SHORT PLAN (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 42

PANEL 1
They push it out into the shallows and climb on. It takes both of them to keep
it the right way up.

PANEL 2
And it floats. Wide panel, low on the water, sun on the sea, the two of them
riding a raft made of coconuts about ten metres out, and Taco has his arms up.
It is working.
CAPTION: It was a good few seconds.

PANEL 3
It sinks. Straight down, level, without drama — Taco and Gazpacho going under
in the same posture they were standing in.

PANEL 4
Taco surfaces, spluttering. A moment later the sombrero comes up beside him
like a cork, rights itself, and lands back on his head at exactly the correct
angle.

PANEL 5
Taco, treading water, entirely unbothered. Gazpacho, treading water beside
him, with his eyes shut.
TACO: “I have another plan.”
GAZPACHO: “What?”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. One word, and then Gazpacho's face.
TACO: “Swim.”
GAZPACHO: “That is not a plan.”
TACO: “It is a short plan.”


PAGE 45 — THE CROSSING (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 43

PANEL 1
Big, full width. The Coco Sea from high above — enormous, empty, blue, and two
very small dots most of the way from nowhere to nowhere.

PANEL 2
Water level. Taco floats magnificently, high in the water, hat and all,
paddling with two small arms. Beside him, Don Gazpacho is going down. Cape
dragging, hat gone, and the last thing above the surface is the wooden spoon,
held up.

PANEL 3
Taco takes the sombrero off and pushes it across to him.
TACO: “Hold the sombrero.”

PANEL 4
And it works. The sombrero sits on the water like a coracle with Don Gazpacho
in it, knees up, entirely dry from the chest up, spoon across his lap. Taco
swims alongside, pushing.

PANEL 5
Small inset panel, soft warm flashback border: the exact drawing from
PAGE 3 PANEL 4 — the sombrero going down, two hands and a grin still above
the water, bubbles. Same drawing, no changes.
CAPTION: He had tried this before.

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Back to now. Taco, swimming, is looking straight ahead
and saying absolutely nothing, and is so pleased with himself that he is
glowing. Gazpacho, riding in the hat, does not look at him.
GAZPACHO: “Say nothing.”
TACO: “I am saying nothing.”
GAZPACHO: “You are smiling.”
TACO: “That is different.”


PAGE 46 — LA COCADA ISLAND (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 44

PANEL 1
The shallows. Taco crawls out and lies face down on the warm white sand with
his arms out and the hat resting on the back of his head. He is completely
finished.

PANEL 2
Don Gazpacho, already up, already dry-ish, hauls him back onto his feet by the
scruff without breaking stride.

PANEL 3
Tall panel, the full height of the page. THE COCADA CROWN. The tallest coconut
tree in the world, seen from its base, the trunk going up and up and straight
out of the top of the panel — and never show the top of it, here or anywhere
else in the book. Taco and Gazpacho at the bottom, smaller than its roots.
TACO: “How tall is that?”
GAZPACHO: “Taller than looking.”

PANEL 4
And CAPTAIN PAELLON is already standing under it. His raiders are formed up
behind him in rows on the sand. He is completely dry — not a drop on him,
cloak hanging straight, sand not even scuffed. Taco and Gazpacho are dripping
into two puddles.
PAELLON: “You are late.”

PANEL 5
Taco, outraged, still dripping.
TACO: “How did you get here first?”
PAELLON: “I used a boat.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco gestures helplessly back at the sea. And set into
the corner of the panel, a small round inset — the view down a telescope,
cross-hairs and all: the coconut raft, ten metres out, going straight down
with two figures on it.
TACO: “We used a coconut.”
PAELLON: “I know. I watched.”


PAGE 47 — THE CROWN WAKES (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 45

PANEL 1
At the foot of the Cocada Crown, set into the roots, a GOLDEN BOWL the size of
a bath. Captain Paellon lowers the Golden Salsa into it with both hands, with
the unhurried care of a man who has done this before.

PANEL 2
Big, full width. The tree lights up. Light runs up the trunk from the roots
and out along every frond, the ground hums hard enough to blur the sand, and
high above, one by one and then all at once, every coconut in the tree TURNS
TO GOLD.

PANEL 3
Taco and Gazpacho, small at the edge of the beach, lit gold from above.
Gazpacho is not looking at the tree.
GAZPACHO: “He has done this before.”
TACO: “How can you tell?”
GAZPACHO: “He is not watching it.”

PANEL 4
And here is the proof, and stage it carefully: the whole beach is lit by the
tree, every raider has turned to look up at it — and Captain Paellon, alone in
the crowd, has his back to the miracle and his eyes on Taco. Straight down the
barrel at the reader.
TACO: “What is he watching?”
GAZPACHO: “He is watching us.”

PANEL 5
The sea. The whole Coco Sea has started to turn — a slow enormous circle
beginning to open out from the island, the horizon tilting, water climbing.

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco running at Paellon across the sand, both arms up,
shouting. And Paellon, in the foreground with his back to him, does not turn
round, does not tense, does not so much as move his head.
TACO: “Stop!”
PAELLON: “You are too late!”


PAGE 48 — THE WAVE (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 46

PANEL 1
Taco, skidding to a halt, genuinely irritated. Of all the things that have
happened today, this is the one he is going to complain about.
TACO: “People keep saying that.”
PAELLON: “Because it keeps being true!”

PANEL 2
No dialogue. Captain Paellon takes one calm step backwards, sets his feet,
takes hold of the roots of the tree with one hand and braces. He knows exactly
what is coming and exactly when.

PANEL 3
Big, full width, the biggest panel on the page. The Cocada Crown lets go and a
wall of water comes out of the island in every direction at once, taller than
the raiders, taller than the boats, rolling across the whole beach.
SFX: WASH!

PANEL 4
Taco goes up the trunk of a coconut tree face-first, hat crushed flat against
the bark, arms and legs out like a starfish.

PANEL 5
Don Gazpacho goes into a bush. Draw the bush. It is a hard, wiry, unforgiving
bush with spikes on it and it does not give at all.

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Gazpacho's legs sticking out of the bush. Out of the
bush comes a large speech balloon, and inside the balloon is nothing but a
furious tangle of symbols, spirals, a skull, a lightning bolt and three
asterisks. Behind him, through the settling spray, Captain Paellon is standing
in the wreckage of the beach holding the Golden Salsa, perfectly dry.
CAPTION: Nobody wrote it down.
NOTE: The scribble balloon is Spanish and it is not translated. Letterer:
symbols only, no readable letters, no actual words.


PAGE 49 — ROLLING WITH STYLE (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 47

PANEL 1
Taco peels himself off the tree and stands up — and at exactly that moment a
golden coconut drops out of the branches and hits him squarely on the top of
the hat.
SFX: THUD!

PANEL 2
Taco looks out at the sea. The great slow circle of water is still turning, a
whirlpool the size of a bay, gold light on it.

PANEL 3
Taco looks down at his sombrero. Same shot, same posture, his head has just
turned ninety degrees. Do not draw a lightbulb, do not draw a caption — the
two panels next to each other are the idea.

PANEL 4
Taco, picking the hat up, all business.
TACO: “I have a plan.”

PANEL 5
Don Gazpacho climbs out of the bush. He is covered in twigs, one in the
moustache, and he has lost none of his dignity.
GAZPACHO: “Does it involve rolling?”
TACO: “There is no rolling in it.”
GAZPACHO: “That is a first.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco, holding the sombrero flat on his palms like a
tray, explaining a distinction that does not exist. Gazpacho pulls a twig out
of his moustache while he listens.
TACO: “It involves spinning.”
GAZPACHO: “That is rolling.”
TACO: “It is rolling with style.”


PAGE 50 — BAM (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 48

PANEL 1
Taco sets the sombrero down on the sand, crown-down, and steps back — and the
wind off the sea catches the brim and it begins to turn, slowly at first,
scattering sand out in a ring.

PANEL 2
It is spinning properly now, fast, a golden blur throwing up a cone of sand,
and Taco jumps up onto the middle of it and crouches with both hands on the
crown.

PANEL 3
Gazpacho, hands cupped, shouting across the beach. Taco, spinning, shouts
back.
GAZPACHO: “Do not fall off.”
TACO: “Falling off is part of it.”
TACO: “Let's go!”

PANEL 4
Big, full width. Launch. Taco and the spinning sombrero come off the sand and
fly the length of the beach toward Captain Paellon — and they do not fly
straight. Draw the flight path as a visible wobbling corkscrew, looping, badly
off line twice and correcting by accident. It is going to arrive. It is not
going to arrive tidily.

PANEL 5
Captain Paellon turns round. And here is the thing about him: he is not
surprised. Not by the spinning hat, not by the flying taco, not by any of it.
He looks at it the way you look at a bus. One flat word — and letter it with a
full stop, not a question mark. That is the joke.
PAELLON: “What.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page, full width. Impact.
SFX: BAM!


PAGE 51 — NOT FINISHED (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 49

PANEL 1
The GOLDEN SALSA goes up out of Paellon's hands, turning over and over,
catching the light at the top of its arc. Below it, Don Gazpacho is already
running with both hands out, and he catches it cleanly against his chest.

PANEL 2
Captain Paellon's feet go out from under him on the wet sand and he goes into
the Coco Sea backwards, cloak up over his head, boots last.
SFX: SPLASH!

PANEL 3
And Taco comes down on the beach. Feet first, knees bent, perfect. And half a
second later the sombrero arrives out of the sky behind him and drops onto his
head at precisely the correct angle. He does not react to it at all. He knew
it was coming.

PANEL 4
Gazpacho walks over with the Golden Salsa under one arm.
GAZPACHO: “That was lucky.”
TACO: “That was skill.”
GAZPACHO: “Which part?”
TACO: “The landing.”

PANEL 5
And the raiders do not run. Wide panel: hundreds of them turning as one,
forming up, and walking back down the beach to their boats in perfectly
straight rows, unhurried, in order, while their captain is still in the water.
Nobody is panicking. Nobody has even looked back.

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco and Gazpacho small in the foreground, watching them
go. Gazpacho is not watching the raiders — he is watching the horizon beyond
them.
TACO: “Why are they so calm?”
GAZPACHO: “Because they are not finished.”


PAGE 52 — HOME (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 50

PANEL 1
Big, full width. Crunchyville, and the whole town is out. The Golden Salsa is
carried back up Taco Avenue on a cushion at shoulder height through a crowd,
bunting up, hats in the air, the steep street packed from wall to wall.

PANEL 2
Inside Assembly Hall. The Golden Salsa going back into the vault — and on the
face of the iron door, next to the three great locks, a brand new FOURTH LOCK,
still shiny, being bolted on by two workmen. In the background of the same
panel, a third workman is bricking up the little high window, and doing a very
thorough job of it.

PANEL 3
Low on the hall floor, where the footprints were. A caretaker is mopping the
last of them away in long slow strokes. There is nothing else in the panel.
CAPTION: The footprints were never explained. They were too small for anybody in the town. After a week nobody asked.

PANEL 4
The Mayor, up on the steps, both of Taco's hands in both of his, the crowd
going up behind them. His hat is still on backwards.
MAYOR: “You saved the town.”

PANEL 5
The captain of the guard shakes Taco's hand, helmet under his arm, being very
sincere about it.
GUARD: “How did you solve it?”
TACO: “I found clues.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Stage this panel as the IDENTICAL composition to
PAGE 8 PANEL 6 — same camera height, same framing, Taco small in the
foreground walking away with one hand up, the other character behind him with
his mouth slightly open. The reader should feel that they have been here before.
GUARD: “And then?”
TACO: “Then I had clues.”


PAGE 53 — THE TRUTH (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 51

PANEL 1
Wide. The party in the hall — everybody eating, laughing, the Mayor being
lifted up. And at the very back, against the wall, alone, DON GAZPACHO,
holding his spoon in both hands. In front of him on a table is a full plate he
has not touched. The torn corner of his cape is very visible.

PANEL 2
Taco, halfway across the hall with a taco in each hand, has stopped and turned
round.
TACO: “Something is wrong.”

PANEL 3
The two of them at the back of the hall, the party out of focus behind them.
Gazpacho says it and then stops, and Taco does not fill the gap — he just
stands there and waits, looking up, eating nothing.
GAZPACHO: “I need to tell you the truth.”

PANEL 4
Gazpacho, bracing himself for a reaction that does not come.
GAZPACHO: “I was not working with Captain Paellon.”
TACO: “I know.”

PANEL 5
Same again, and Taco has still not moved his face.
GAZPACHO: “But I knew about the Cocada Crown.”
TACO: “I know.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Gazpacho genuinely thrown for the first time in the
book. Taco raises one small hand and taps the torn corner of the cape with a
finger — and set into the corner of the panel, a small inset of the golden
thread held up in green light, the drawing from PAGE 31 PANEL 5. Then Taco,
close, dead-eyed, magnificently smug.
GAZPACHO: “How did you know?”
TACO: “Your cape.”
GAZPACHO: “You knew the whole time?”
TACO: “I am a detective.”


PAGE 54 — THE SECRET FOOD KINGDOM (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 52

PANEL 1
Gazpacho reaches inside the cape and draws out a folded GOLDEN MAP. Close
enough that we can see, at the edge of frame, the torn corner where the thread
came from, still torn.

PANEL 2
Big, full width. The map open across a table — old cloth, gold thread, and on
it everything the reader has been to: Crunchyville, Bean Forest, the Jalapeno
Fields, Guacamole Mountain, the Coco Sea, La Cocada Island. And then, past the
island, the coastlines simply stop.
GAZPACHO: “Someone else is looking for something even more powerful.”

PANEL 3
Taco, up on his toes with both hands on the table edge, only his eyes and hat
over the top of the map.
TACO: “What?”

PANEL 4
Close on the map, past the last coastline. Empty gold cloth — past the Coco
Sea, past everything — and then one small careful drawing of a gate, and
lettering in gold thread: THE SECRET FOOD KINGDOM. Don Gazpacho's finger is on
it.

PANEL 5
Gazpacho, lit from below by the candle on the table.
GAZPACHO: “The Secret Food Kingdom.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco, flat, certain, entirely wrong. And Don Gazpacho
smiles — the only time he smiles in the whole book, and it is not a
comforting one.
TACO: “That cannot be real.”
GAZPACHO: “Maybe it is.”


PAGE 55 — THE SHADOW (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 53

PANEL 1
Every light in Assembly Hall goes out at once. Draw the panel in the instant
of it — the last of the light draining out of the room, faces caught
half-turned, a dropped cup still in the air.
SFX: CLICK.

PANEL 2
Darkness. Shapes of people, no faces, nobody moving. The only light is the
moon through the high windows.

PANEL 3
Big, full width. On the far wall, cast across all the old disappointed mayors,
A SHADOW — tall, cloaked, motionless. And there is nothing in the room casting
it. Everybody in the foreground is drawn as silhouettes with their backs to
us, looking at it.

PANEL 4
Close on the shadow. It has not moved.
VOICE: “The Golden Salsa was only the beginning.”
NOTE: Letterer — this balloon is SMALL and the type inside it is SMALL, the
quietest lettering anywhere in the book. It is on a full-width panel and it
should look almost lost in it. The voice is not loud. It does not need to be.

PANEL 5
The room. Not one person has moved. Not one. Draw the same arrangement of
people as panel 2, exactly, with nothing changed.

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. No dialogue. The Mayor is hiding behind a chair. It is a
small wooden chair with a narrow back. The Mayor is neither small nor narrow,
and approximately eighty per cent of him is in plain view on both sides of it.
His eyes are shut, because if he cannot see it, it cannot see him.


PAGE 56 — GETTING INTERESTING (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 54

PANEL 1
The lights come back on, all at once, harshly. The wall is empty. The shadow
is gone. The old mayors look, if anything, more disappointed.

PANEL 2
Taco, in the middle of the room, hand up, checking.
TACO: “Did anyone else hear that?”

PANEL 3
The whole room nodding. Every single person, in unison, nodding. Nobody is
saying anything. Taco, relieved, nods back.
TACO: “Good. I was worried.”

PANEL 4
The Mayor's head comes out from one side of the chair he is still behind.
MAYOR: “Is it over?”
GAZPACHO: “It is over for tonight.”

PANEL 5
Taco takes the brim of his sombrero in both hands and straightens it. THE
HAT-FIX — third and last appearance, and draw it exactly as on PAGE 8 PANEL 1
and PAGE 38 PANEL 1. And this time he is not nervous and he is not bluffing.
He is looking forward to it.
TACO: “Now this is getting interesting.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page, full width. Night over Crunchyville from above. Lanterns
strung across Taco Avenue, tables out in the street, the whole town lit up and
dancing. Beyond the rooftops the Coco Sea is flat calm and silver under the
moon, with the raiders' boats long gone off the edge of the panel.


PAGE 57 — THE PARTY (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 55

NOTE: This whole page is nearly wordless. Let it breathe — it is the last
happy page in the book.

PANEL 1
At the edge of the party, THE BEAN MONSTER accepts a tray of tacos from a
townsperson. He holds up ten fingers, then carefully counts ten tacos onto a
leaf and folds it up. He is being extremely responsible about it.
CAPTION: He said they were for later.

PANEL 2
Around the corner, forty seconds later. The leaf is empty on the ground. The
monster is eating the last one. There is nobody else in the panel.
CAPTION: They were not for later.

PANEL 3
The monster walking away up the hill toward the mountain with his back to the
music and the lanterns, hurrying slightly. The sun has gone. He wants to be
home before dark and he has left it a bit late.

PANEL 4
A very long scroll of paper. It starts in the hands of a churro messenger in
the foreground and unrolls away down the entire length of the panel, off the
edge, along the street, and round the corner. Taco is reading the first
line of it with an expression of dawning commitment. Beside him on the table
sits a large box of churros, already half gone.

PANEL 5
Tamale Village. A feast — long tables, lanterns, a great many tamales eating a
great deal, all at the same unhurried speed.

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Taco Avenue at three in the morning. Music, dancing,
lanterns, the whole street. And in the middle of the dance floor, THE SLOW
TAMALE, dancing. Both arms are out. He has rotated approximately four degrees
since the music started. Everybody has made a space for him.


PAGE 58 — FAR AWAY (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 56

PANEL 1
Big, full width. A dark ridge somewhere beyond the mountains, a long way from
anywhere. A tall cloaked figure — THE MASTER — stands at a brass TELESCOPE on a
tripod, back to us, looking down at the tiny warm lights of Crunchyville far
below in the valley. Keep him completely dark. No face, no hands.

PANEL 2
No dialogue. CAPTAIN PAELLON stands two paces behind him, helmet off and held
under one arm, at attention. He is still wet — cloak heavy with it, hair flat,
seaweed on one pauldron, and a spreading puddle on the rock around his boots
that has been there a while. He is waiting to be spoken to. The Master has not
turned round.

PANEL 3
The Master has still not turned round. Two words, over his shoulder, in no
hurry at all.
MASTER: “You failed.”

PANEL 4
Paellon lowers his head. For the first time in the book he does not look
relaxed.
PAELLON: “Yes, Master.”

PANEL 5
MASTER: “What stopped you?”
PAELLON: “A taco.”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. Two balloons over a silent panel — the Master at the
telescope, Paellon behind him, neither of them moving at all.
MASTER: “A taco.”
PAELLON: “With a hat.”


PAGE 59 — THE PEPPER SYMBOL (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 57

PANEL 1
Nothing is said. Wide, silent panel: the ridge, the telescope, the two
figures, the town's lights far below. The Master does not answer and Paellon
does not fill the gap. Hold it. This is the longest silence in the book.

PANEL 2
Close on Captain Paellon's hands, held in front of him. They are shaking.

PANEL 3
Same hands, a moment later, put firmly behind his back where they cannot be
seen.

PANEL 4
Paellon, head still down.
PAELLON: “I can try again.”
MASTER: “You will.”

PANEL 5
The Master leans to the telescope again and looks down at Crunchyville — at
the lanterns, at the dancing, at the one street where somebody is still
playing music.
MASTER: “Do not worry. We now know who stands in our way.”

PANEL 6
Big, bottom of page, full width, and this is the last scary panel in the book.
The Master turns around — and we still see nothing of his face, because he is
back-lit and hooded and the drawing keeps him black. But as he turns, the back
of his cloak comes into the light, and on it is A STRANGE PEPPER SYMBOL: a
chilli pepper drawn like a rune, stitched in dark thread, with faint red light
leaking out from between the stitches. It glows a little. In the foreground
Captain Paellon has turned his own face away from it and shut his eyes.


PAGE 60 — WHO STOLE MY TACOS (6 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 58

PANEL 1
Back in Crunchyville, late. Taco's little room over the shop. He is asleep on
his back with his mouth open. The enormous sombrero is on the pillow beside
him, taking up four fifths of the bed. Above him, a thought balloon full of
tacos.

PANEL 2
His eyes snap open. Both of them, at once, wide. This is an emergency.
TACO: “I am hungry.”

PANEL 3
The kitchen, dark, Taco in silhouette in the doorway. He crosses to the
cupboard and takes hold of both handles.

PANEL 4
The cupboard, open. Shelves. Clean, empty, swept shelves. Not a crumb.
CAPTION: There were no tacos. There were never no tacos.

PANEL 5
Taco, from inside the cupboard looking out, both hands on the shelf, at
maximum volume. Letter this as the largest dialogue in the entire book.
TACO: “WHO STOLE MY TACOS?”

PANEL 6
Wide, bottom of page. The dark kitchen, Taco very small in the middle of it,
and from the empty room around him comes a normal speech balloon with its tail
pointing at nothing, and there is nothing inside it. THE EMPTY BALLOON, third
and last — same shape as PAGE 10 PANEL 3 and PAGE 42 PANEL 2. And on the
cupboard door beside him, so faint the reader may not catch it on the first
read: a heat shimmer, a faint red glow around the edge of the wood, and one
thin dark wisp rising off the handle. The door is warm. Taco has not noticed.


PAGE 61 — THE NEXT ADVENTURE (3 panels)
FROM BOOK PAGE 58

PANEL 1
Wide, full width. Above the rooftops of the sleeping town, in the night sky,
drifting in from somewhere very far away: a laugh. Draw it as the shape of a
laugh in the air — long curling ribbons of sound coming over the mountains
from the direction of the ridge, unlettered, unattached to anybody. Nobody in
Crunchyville is awake to see it.

PANEL 2
Taco's hands take the sombrero off the pillow. Close and low.

PANEL 3
Full-page panel, the last drawing in the book. Taco in his own front doorway,
small, seen from behind and below, silhouetted against the enormous night — the
avenue running away downhill, the mountains, and one faint red point of light
out there beyond them. The hat is on. He is not smiling and he is not afraid.
His hands are in fists.
CAPTION: The next adventure was about to begin.


THE END OF BOOK 1