TITLE PAGE

Close-up profile of a chicken eye framed in wooden fence posts and wrapped in uneven barbed wire. Behind and around the frame, a spooky old farmhouse and a Farris wheel that fade into the cover.

VOLUME 1 – AN UNUSUAL LOVE AFFAIR

PAGE 1 – Chapter 1 “Escape from Muddlehump Farm”

SPLASH PAGE

Circa 1949: In the foreground, a dormant old tractor sits alone. In the background, a run-down farmhouse with soft-lit windows illuminates snow flurries. To the side of the house and closer, a chicken coop rests under a spooky old maple tree.

PAGE 2 - 5 Panels

PANEL 1

Snow piles high above the side of a chicken coop.

CLARENCE (OP):
Rosemary Featherbottom was bought a day in late November with five others… two being her sisters.

PANEL 2

Close-on the dark entrance to the coop.

CLARENCE (OP):
They were purchased by a certain Molly Muddlehump. Muddlehump had a fine piece of property just a short distance north of the Missourian town of Boonville.

PANEL 3

Inside, a faint light seeps through the cracks of the coop. Five chickens are asleep on their shelves. A sixth chicken sleeps away from the others.

CLARENCE (OP):
The fertile land had been given to Muddlehump by her late uncle Bubby. He was a decent man that had know one else to give it to.
PANEL 4

Close-on the sixth chicken, ROSEMARY FEATHERBOTTOM.