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Welcome to the Summer 2002 Web Publisher's Commentary| 2014: "Cataclysm Catalyst" | 2013: "Nuclear Dragons" | 2013: "Damnation Brigade" | Blog on | Get Busy | 2012: "Goddess Gambit | 2010/11: "The Thousand Days of Disbelief" | 2009: The War of the Apocalyptics" | 2008: "Feeling Theocidal" | Phantacea Publications available in print and digitally | Quick Lynx | |
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What might have been, will be for sure in 2014Cover(s) by Verne Andru, 1980-2013; text by Jim McPherson, 2014 BTW, pHz-1 #12 only exists in script form; Kitty-Clysm is pH-Webworld shorthand for "Cataclysm Catalyst";Double-click to enlarge images in this panel here
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Phantacea Revisited 2: Cataclysm CatalystThe third graphic novel from Phantacea Publications extracts another complete story sequence from Phantacea 1-7 and Phantacea Phase One #1. Includes artwork by Dave Sim, Ian Fry, Sean Newton, Verne Andrusiek, and Ian Bateson. Dedicated webpage is here. Order online or from the publisher. Double-click to enlarge a black and white version of the cover in a separate window |
What was once, will be againThirty-six years after its original release, Jim McPherson completes his Launch 1980 project to novelize all the Phantacea comic books with the release of pH-3 artwork by Richard Sandoval, 1978; rollover adjustments made by Jim McPherson, 2013Double-click to enlarge images in this panel here |
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Phantacea Seven- The unpublished comic now novelized - At long last, the second entry in the Launch 1980 epic fantasy has arrived Check out the expanded Availability Listings for places you can order or buy Phantacea Publications in person Images in this row double-click to enlarge here |
Look out below!Nuclear Dragons are here!- A phantacea Mythos Mosaic Novel - Jim McPherson continues his ongoing project to novelize the entire Phantacea comic book seriesDouble-click on image to enlarge in a separate windowDedicated webpage can be found here; back cover text here; lynx to excerpts from the book start here and here; check out material that didn't make it here and related excerpts from its scheduled follow-up, 2014's |
Centauri Island- The web-serial enlarged radically - Ian Bateson's unpublished artwork from Phantacea Seven provides the basis for the first full-length phantacea Mythos Mosaic Novel since Ian Bateson's breathtaking wraparound cover for the novel utilizes his own dragons from pH-7. Those from the unfinished cover for the Phantacea Phase One project can be seen here and here. Images in this row double-click to enlarge here and here |
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Phantacea Revisited 1Check out the expanded Availability Listings for places you can order or buy Phantacea Publications in person NEW: Read most of the mini-novels making up "The Thousand Days of Disbelief" today on Google Books Hit here to see what else is currently available there |
Guess what isn't coming soon any more?Phantacea Revisited 1: The Damnation Brigade"A Watermarked PDF of the graphic novel can be ordered from Drive Thru Comics here
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The Damnation Brigade Graphic NovelArtwork never seen before in print; almost all of pH-5 available for the first time since 1980 Images in this row double-click to enlarge here |
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No wonder they call themselves the Damnation BrigadeNow available from Phantacea Publications Images in this row are double-clickable from here, here, and, to a lesser degree, here. |
pHantaBlog OnRegister now and contribute whenever you pleaseThe 2006 PDF of Mythos Mag, with its updated 2012 lynx, can be downloaded here. Hit here for a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) of the most recent pHantaBlog entries |
The Phantacea Revisited ProjectCollecting the Phantacea comic books 1977-1980, 1987, Rv1:DB contains material from pH #s 1-5 + pHz1 #s 1 & 2. This will be the first time in the better part of 30 years that material from pH-5 has been available except from online traders. Watch for
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Search all the Phantacea Sites
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"Goddess Gambit"– Now available from Phantacea Publications –
Thus Ends
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If they're not, kindly direct local librarians and neighbourhood booksellers to www.phantacea.com in order to start rectifying that sad situation. Either that or, if you're feeling even more proactive, click here, copy the link, paste it into an email and send it to them, along with everyone else you reckon could use a double dose of anheroic fantasy. It will certainly be appreciated. Help build the buzz. The more books sell, the faster the PHANTACEA Mythos spreads. |
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Individual copies of Libraries, bookstores and bookseller collectives can place bulk orders through Ingram Books, Ingram International, Baker & Taylor, Coutts Information Services, and a large number of other distributors worldwide. E-books for Kindle, Kindle Fire, I-pad, I-phone and other applications can be ordered through amazon.com, amazon.co.uk and other amazon affiliates worldwide. An interactive e-book containing the entirety of BookFinder.com lists the latest releases from Phantacea Publications along with a goodly number of additional booksellers carrying them. Also listed therein are almost all of the PHANTACEA Mythos print and e-publications, including the graphic novel and some of the comic books. Another interesting option for the curious is Chegg, which has a rent-a-book program. Thus far its search engine shows no results for phantacea (any style or permutation thereof) but it does recognize Jim McPherson (a variety of them) and the titles of many releases from Phantacea Publications. As for the Whole Earth (other than the Hidden Continent of Sedon's Head, at least as far as I can say and always assuming it's still around in what be its 61st century), well, this page contains a list of a few other websites where you can probably order the novels in a variety of currencies and with credit cards. Of course you can always email or send me your order(s) via surface mail. No matter where you live or what currency you prefer to use, I'll figure out a way to fill your order(s) myself. Just be aware that I can only accept certified cheques or money orders. Plus, I'll have to charge an additional 12% to cover Canadian and provincial goods and sales taxes as well as Canada Post rates for shipping. I do use bubble mailers, though. |
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Summer 2002 |
© copyright 2002 Jim McPherson | |
| pH-Webworld's Welcoming Page | Internal Search Engine | Main Menu | Online PHANTACEA Primer | Ongoing PHANTACEA Features | pHantaBlog | Information for ordering by credit card | Information for ordering by certified cheque or money order | Serial Synopses | Contact | pH-Webworld Miscellanea | Lynx to additional websites featuring Jim McPherson's PHANTACEA Mythos | Bottom of Page Lynx | |
1. Featured Story
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2. Introductory RemarksGreetings. Welcome, or welcome back. On this webpage there are any number of day-glow links, like that one, that'll take all over PHANTACEA on the Web. Chances are, however, you'll quickly get lost and forget where you were so my best advice is to read this season's pHpubs: Web-Publisher's Commentary down to the bottom then hit the Top of the Page mark, come back up and start clicking away to your hart's content. Or your Raven Doe's content, as the case may be. Want to buy into the PHANTACEA Mythos? Go straight to the downloadable order form and do just that. Want to browse? Best places to start are right here, on my flagship page; my home page, where you can always find lynx to PHANTACEA Features and Photo Essays, new, old, and recently added onto; the overall synopsis page, where you can access all the synopses pages I have ever web-published; or from the main menu, which consists of lynx to almost every webpage still out here in Cyberia. The menu page is also available in a framed version. Let me know what you like, don't like and would like to see in PHANTACEA on the Web. JMcP [jmcp@phantacea.com] |
3. Hestia-HousekeepingSo much for the obligatory introductory remarks, ==> onto our usual Hestia Housekeeping. (Why I call it that is explained elsewhere.) First up is where last time up's pHpubs went. Now that that's out of the way, next up is what's new this time up. A fay-fairy-fair bit actually. Should mention straight off that, no, you didn't miss a couple of seasons of PHANTACEA on the Web. I did. World was too much with me and all that. Main thing to report, other than I'm gainfully unemployed for the first time pretty much since I was thirteen, is that most of the new material out here has to do with 'The Moloch Manoeuvres'. That's because I've been occupying a lot of my income-free time completely revising it. That and trying to interest agents and publishers such that Manoeuvres can become gainfully in-coming, income-wise, for me. Want some more dot-dot-dots to see how I'm doing in that regard? Consider it done... And, just for good measure, that was another one. (In case you didn't notice already there are even more down below.) Do contact me if you know of any agents or publishers who might be interested in assisting me get Manoeuvres out there in non-WWW.Dotland, that is to say in actual book form. [jmcp@phantacea.com] Haven't abandoned the two other web-serials I began running last time up: 'The Damnation Brigade' (Year One - After Limbo), which starts out in December 1980, and 'Helioddity', which eventually picks up from where Manoeuvres left off in January 1938. Have three new story sequences, plus synopses, for each and even got around to scanning in some new images as well. As always, -- good reading!
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4. Today's Topic: The Sorority of Sausages & other Graphic LynxNot just because sausages come in links, the title of this season's Topic is a bit of a joke, one that'll be fleshed out shortly. If you haven't realized yet I should warn you that there are bits of jokes throughout on the Web. There is even a section on humour in PHANTACEA over in one of Manoeuvres's background pages. (One hopes that that does not make it one big joke.) The first time I used the word 'phantacea', which means imagination in Greek, was something like (gasp!) 33 years ago in a story entitled 'Brimstone Wonderland'. Although I've been tempted I haven't got around to web-publishing Wonderland as yet, but I can tell you that a version of it forms the basis of a 1938 story sequence I haven't got around to finishing yet either. Story leads into how Barsine Mandam realized her Summoning Heritage and became, well, that would telling. Reason I bring this up is the Fall of 2002 AD (that would be 6002 YD - Year of the Dome) marks a quarter century (25 years) since PHANTACEA saw the light of day for purposes of public consumption. 'The Moloch Manoeuvres' was one of the first story sequences I serialized out here in 'pH-Webworld'. Other one was, of course, 'The Launching of the Cosmic Express', which only ended last year. Manoeuvres ran from 1996 until 1998. At the time it consisted of a baker's dozen (13) of not particularly lengthy chapters. The revised version has 30 chapters and each one of them is about 20 pages long when printed out single-spaced using 12-point type. So, what happened? Mostly it was rainy weekends and more than a few workweek evenings. (I tend to eat late and don't watch much television.) As noted elsewhere, my father built train sets in his basement. I write books and publish web-pages in mine. As I published these web-pages and wrote more and more of those books, something would come up that I felt either belonged or should have been at least referenced in Manoeuvres. So I went back and put it there. And, thus, it grew and grew and grew. The ending did not substantially change but the climactic encounter on Charan's Ark did become more graphic. Most of the midsection did not change either, -- unfortunately like too much of mine it just became more expansive. As dot-dot-dotted above, what follows are some non-sausage lynx where you can find out more information on Manoeuvres's 2002 revision, including its first three chapters, and some concise background on the Mythos itself.
As I've said many a time before, -- good ! |
Good viewing too, -- since for the first time in quite awhile I've scanned in some new images to perhaps entice you to have a more in depth look around PHANTACEA on the Web. Most of the black and white scans found on this webpage are sketches made by Ian Fry, the artist who drew 'Forever And Forty Days', which is still available. They were done in the late-Eighties when I was contemplating writing and publishing another graphic novel. (I still have the script but seem to have lost or hopefully only misplaced some of the sketches.) The colour scans found throughout on the Web are mostly from my own photographs, as taken during occasionally far-ranging Travels in my Pants. I use them in the Features sections and Photo Essays I sometimes publish out here in Cyberia. Often the pictures I take are of objects such as statuary (as below)) or masks, which remain my personal favourites. The graphics that follow, together with their day-glow links, exemplify what I'm saying. They are suggestive of characters, themes and even events found in PHANTACEA. Once in awhile I find an etching or an old painting, the model for which had to have been one of my characters. Examples of these last are the two images found further down the page. In my view the etching is of the very essence of Wilderwitch, -- complete with fearsome soul-self, what she can unleash even when she's so out of it she's lying on her back otherwise unaware of what's happening to her --, while the painting has to be of John Sundown, albeit with features more Mayan than Cheyenne. Thus far PHANTACEA on the Web has presented events from three distinct time periods: that of the late-Thirties (starting in early January 1938); that of, in terms of the United States, the 2nd Eisenhower Mandate (roughly from late '55 to early '60); and that of little more than a couple of weeks in December 1980. Other than the Dual Entities, probably the main constant throughout 'pH-Webworld' has been the Summoning Children. There were any number of these Summoning Children. Very few, less than two dozen, their younger selves rather, were named in Manoeuvres and, of them, perhaps only half a dozen could be considered major protagonists. However, at least five were charter members of what eventually became 'The Society of Saints', which flourished during World War Two, and a total of eight Summoning Children first went into action as part of different group, one that preceeded that SOS but was also an SOS, one whose collective souls very much needed saving on January 13, 1938. Little has been said about the SOS's predecessor group thus far in PHANTACEA. That is because I, um, neglected to mention it until I revised 'The Molech Manoeuvres' in Spring Two Thousand Two. Four of the eight were men. Which, perhaps suprisingly given PHANTACEA's ornery quirkiness, made the other four non-male. These latter four, they of the female persuasion, found a way, in 1938, to resist being categorized as anything less than full partners in their joint enterprise. So, equality in numbers amazingly begetting equality in naming rights, -- what to call this aforesaid, first SOS? Answer, they decided, was the Sorority (for the female four) of Sausages (for the male four). Well, they were teenagers back then. I won't tell who belonged to the initial SOS. All right, so I will tell you that one of the boys was Gentleman Jervis Murray, he who can become Wildman Dervish Furie, -- but who in 1938 initially described himself as a Werewolf in Shorts. (Though, sooth said, he wasn't that. He was a Werewolf in Grecian Skirts.) Times change and by 1980 he's becoming something somewhat different. He's becoming a faun. Unless he's becoming a satyr, which is much the same, albeit strictly male, Pan-like creature of the woods. (In PHANTACEA female fauns are not called wood nymphs, they're called faunas.) And everyone knows what fauns do best! Someone who was not an original member of SOS, either SOS, was not-yet-blind John Sundown. Neither was his childhood bride, Solace Sunrise, Sorciere. Both feature prominently in the 1938 story sequences, however. (Feature prominently in the 1955 and 1980 ones as well, though one of them isn't quite so lively by then.) And here is where we get into the thematic aspect of the photographs I take. Also get into the Serendipity stuff that seems to happen so often to me as the writer and publisher of PHANTACEA. |
In 1938 Sundown was very much connected with what we learn to call a "Raven Fetishim". Somewhat similarly, Sorciere was associated with Granny Garuda, whom we discover was an old-time Utopian witch named Kanin Nauroz before she donned all those feathers (her regalia). Not only can garudas make like a sunbird and rise anew (phoenix) if their corpses are burned wearing their regalia but they hate snakes. (Sentient snake-slime are referred to as Ophidians in PHANTACEA while their witches, -- predominantly Ophiomedea who, along with Sagitta, is Sorciere's most implacable enemy in the 1938 sequences --, are Ophirants, after Ophir-Moorset, the part of the Headworld where their Sisterhood is much stronger than that of Flowery Anthea. Medea, by the way, also resembles Vetala. Witch-which is understandable since it turns out she's Barsine's aunt.) So it was that in 1999, having written the original version of Manoeuvres and all four of the story sequences that follow on from it, I walked into an old Colonial building on the main square of Merida, Mexico, in the Yucatan Peninsula and spotted not only a painting that had to be of John Sundown, but a mural of what appears to be a Garuda attacking a huge serpent. Talk about Serendipity. Here's another example of it. In the story sequences set in '55 and '80 Sundown rides a fellow Creature of the Cosmos, Raven's Head. He also wields a Solar Spear. How he came to ride Raven and got hold of the Solar Spear were described in pH-5, which was published in the Spring of 1980. In the Year 2000 I was on my way to Egypt, where as part of my annual vacation I hoped to visit Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo, and learn more about the myth of the phoenix, which supposedly originated there, and the mysterious Sed-Ceremony, which was celebrated there almost from the beginning of Pharaonic Times. (For more on what I did discover in Egypt, at least in terms of PHANTACEA, check out Egyptian Evocations.) I had a few days in London, England, before flying to Cairo and it was on one of my rambles there that I strolled into the backyard of Leighton House. And what did I stumble upon there? A statue of an Native American riding a stallion and spearing a serpent is what! All right, so the Native American wasn't riding Raven's Head, -- who is female, has a unicorn horn when she's out to tromp devils, talarial wings and, funnily enough, a raven's head --, but the effect struck me as close enough to what Sundown and Raven get up to PHANTACEA that I snapped the shot anyhow. Finally, just to end what seems to have become another installment of Serendipity, I spotted the a whole rack of masks like these displayed on a street vendor's cart in the small, cobble-stoned city of Antigua Guatemala last year (2001). I thought they were of devils but one of those with me could speak Spanish and asked the vendor what they represented. He told her and she told me. At the time my back-home weekend writing was a revision of Year-1, the first draft of which I'd prepared in the early Nineties. That's the one where Furie, who is a Black Jamaican, starts becoming a faun. Don't need to tell you what the vendor told my interpreter, who was quite guapa, what the masks were of and what they're good at, do I? |
5. Graphics: Footnotes and off-page links
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6. Lynx to some previous Web-Publisher's Commentaries| Autumn 2002 | Summer 2002 | Autumn 2001 | Spring-Summer 2001 | Winter 2000/2001 | Samplings from other Not So Recent Commentaries | June-March '97 | Feb '97-July '96 | |
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Webpage last updated: Spring 2015There may be no cure for aphantasia (defined as 'having a blind or absent mind's eye') but there certainly is for aphantacea ('a'='without', like the 'an' in 'anheroic') Ordering Information for PHANTACEA Mythos comic books, graphic novels, standalone novels, mini-novels and e-booksDownloadable order form for additional PHANTACEA Mythos Print PublicationsCurrent Web-Publisher's CommentaryJim McPherson's Worldwide Email Address -- jmcp@phantacea.comPHANTACEA: The Web SerialspHantaJim's WeblogWebsite last updated: Autumn 2015 Written by: Jim McPherson -- jmcp@phantacea.com© copyright Jim McPherson (www.phantacea.com) Websites featuring, at least in part, Jim McPherson's PHANTACEA Mythos
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