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Welcome to the Spring 2010 Web-Publisher's Commentary Page

"Forever & 40 Days — The Genesis of PHANTACEA", a graphic novel with additional features written by Jim McPherson, "Feeling Theocidal" (Book One of 'The Thrice Cursed Godly Glories'), "The War of the Apocalyptics" (the opening entry in the Launch 1980 story cycle), the three mini-novels, "The Death's Head Hellion", "Contagion Collectors" and "Janna Fangfingers", that comprise "The 1000 Days of Disbelief" (Book Two of 'The Thrice Cursed Godly Glories'), the trilogy's concluding novel, "Goddess Gambit", the graphic novel "Phantacea Revisited 1: The Damnation Brigade", "Nuclear Dragons"(the second, full-length entry in the Launch 1980 story cycle), plus the latest graphic novel, "Phantacea Revisited 2: Cataclysm Catalyst", and "Helios on the Moon", the culminating entry in the Launch 1980 story cycle, should be available at your favourite book stops.

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.


Covers for Feeling Theocidal and Forever and Forty DaysTwo Ian  Bateson covers of the same scene

Individual copies of "Feeling Theocidal", "The War of the Apocalyptics", the three mini-novels comprising "The Thousand Days of Disbelief" ("The Death's Head Hellion", "Contagion Collectors" and "Janna Fangfingers") and "Goddess Gambit" can be ordered from amazon.com and its affiliates, including amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk, as well as from Barnes & Noble.

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 "Feeling Theocidal", as built specifically for Adobe Reader, is available direct from the publisher. (Certified cheques or money orders only, please.) E-books on other platforms are also available. Check you favourite online bookseller for the latest list and ordering instructions for Phantacea Publications.

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.


Spring 2010

1. Featured Story
2. Introductory Remarks
3. PHANTACEA Essentials (Lynx to illustrated mini-essays)
4. Hestia Housekeeping
5. Today's Topic
6. Latest Stories and Synopses
7. Notes on Graphics
8. Sites with Loads of Graphics
9. Previous pHpubs
10. Novels in search of a paying publisher
11. Phantacea Publications available in print and digitally

Web-Publisher's Commentary

Front and Back Covers for War-Pox, artwork by Ian Bateson, 2009

"The War of the Apocalyptics"

Written by Jim McPherson

Cover by Ian Bateson, 2009

James H McPherson, Publisher

- double-click image to enlarge -

Jim McPherson's PHANTACEA Mythos

- written by Jim McPherson
- unless otherwise noted the web-design, photographs and/or scanning are by Jim McPherson
- where applicable artwork is as noted in the mouse-over text

© copyright 2010 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 |


Logo reads Featured Story, prepared on PHOTOSHOP by Jim McPherson, 2002

Dervish Furie’s scouring pad of a moustache shrank in on itself then dissipated altogether, as if he had bitten its bristles off from inside his mouth. Black skull-skin shrivelled; corrupted, blackened all the more; started to rot off and flake what little was left of Jervis Murray’s tuxedo. Barbwire goatee extended, grew coarser, more metallic and grizzled. Wasn’t a straight razor that could cut it. It was hundreds of hair-breadth razors.

His eyes fell out; were caught by his tongue and crunched by his teeth. The newly becoming even more horrible Horror swallowed them. His backbone became akin to a spear’s shaft spiking a decapitated skull; spearhead pierced through the top of it then, like a Mohawk hairstyle, knotty horns propagated, fringing his deadhead fore and aft.

What was no longer Dervish Furie, what was now an Apocalyptic, that of War, chortled, "Just like old times, eh, Disaster? Except -- where'd you get the head?"

-- from 'Advent of the Apocalyptics', the second chapter of "The War of the Apocalyptics"

Help build the buzz!

Greetings. Welcome or welcome back.


"Feeling Theocidal" and "The War of the Apocalyptics" are both available for ordering either by credit card or certified cheque and/or money orders.

To order any of the other PHANTACEA Mythos print publications that are still available, including returned copies of PHANTACEA #1, click here or here.

(If you're ordering from me, I decided not to incur the cost of trying to set up an online payment system since they seem to benefit the intermediary more so than the publisher.

(That means certified cheques or money orders only please. And that in turn means stamps, an envelope and a trip to either the bank or the post office.

(Sorry for any inconvenience.)

Next door is the usual Hestia Housekeeping subsection of 'pHpubs'.

Down below is a vastly expanded list of lynx to a number of typically idiosyncratic mini-essays and/or Character Likeness studies I've prepared over the years.

It's only sort of alphabetical but, in the absence of a PHANTACEA-specific search engine it'll have to do for now.

Most of the selections illustrate some of the peculiar perspectives I've developed while writing the PHANTACEA Mythos.

The rest are direct quotes from "The War of the Apocalyptics", "Feeling Theocidal" or its immediate sequel "The 1000 Days of Disbelief", which I hope will come out in 2010.

Contact me at jmcp@phantacea.com Feel free to ask any questions you might have regarding PHANTACEA.

I'll do my best to answer them either directly or right here in 'pHpubs'.


Stories and Synopses

War-Pox 2: "Advent of the Apocalyptics"


Top of Page - Top of Hestia - On to Mosaic Novels - On to Today's Topic

Hestia Housekeeping

| What's New Intro | Latest overview of a PHANTACEA print publication | Today's Topic | Elsewhere (phantacea.com, Travels Website, Serendipity Now) | Conclusion |

Top of Page - Carry on with Hestia - On to PHANTACEA Essentials - On to Today's Topic

Hestia Housekeeping amounts to the 'What's New' section of pHpubs. Consequently I always start it with a 'What's Old' link to where I put its previous update.

Now that that's done, we can get on with this edition's preview.

In one form or another, "The War of the Apocalyptics" has been around for decades now — 3 1/3 decades if you're really counting. After all, pH-1 came out in 1977 and Vayu Maelstrom, not yet aka Devil Wind, appeared on its back cover.

Most of 20 years later (in 1996, again if you're being precise), I began pH-Webworld by serializing a longer version of it alongside "The Moloch Manoeuvres" and, for awhile, "Centauri Island".

As noted in its foreword (reproduced here), it's one part of the phantacea comic book series gone not only prose but now gone printed too.

That selfsame foreword also promises much the same fate for another part of the phantacea comic book series (another web-serial as well); namely the aforementioned, Centauri Island.

First things first, though, and the first thing would be to get the next mosaic novel published. That would be "The 1000 Days of Disbelief", henceforth '1000-Daze'.

I reckoned it ready to go in 2009 but had second thoughts. Those thought resulted in War-Pox, which had been sitting in the hard drive(s) gathering digital dust since I tried shopping it around in 2003/4.

Transparent version of the panel background, prepared by JIm McPherson, 2010Having by now had third and fourth thoughts on 1000-Daze, including the possibility of extracting and publishing a couple of mini-novels edited for speed out of it, I'm hopeful it'll be out in the late fall of 2010.

All of which explains why you're starting to see quotes from it throughout pH-Webworld as well as, even though it hasn't been published yet, over on www.phantacea.com, where an ever-building list of them exists.

(NOTE: The transparent png (or ping, if you prefer) to the right, which contains elements of a cover I prepared for 1000-Daze, enlarges in a new window when it's double-clicked. It re-appears on the Serendipity Now page.)

So is there problem with the book? Well, put bluntly, in this day and age that might be it in a deadly dryad's acorn (or a nutshell, again if you prefer). Playful as it is, and not only because it's action-packed, it's not a video game.

Nor is it a comic book, as far as that goes. It contains words, many of which have more that one or two syllables. Furthermore, like Feel Theo, its main characters are devils (a word that, as per here, just means 'little gods').

And, much to my own personal mystification, there are still readers out there (not to mention potential buyers) who have difficulty accepting devils as protagonists.

Oh well, even though one forever hears that villains make the best characters -- and in my view the world isn't a particularly heroic place -- perhaps it still isn't ready for anheroic fantasy of the sort the phantacea Mythos has been providing since 1977.


As for what else is new in pH-Webworld's Spring 2010 update, well, how about something that isn't at all new, yet is, and not just in terms of pH-Webworld? By that I'm referring to the final five pages Ian Bateson prepared for phantacea Phase One #2. (The first 5 are here whereas the rest of the comments I made re that howsoever prematurely aborted project are preserved here.)

Will further say that the 'Travels in my Pants' (TIMP) web pages are not, as has been alleged, a porn site. I have nevertheless changed the lynx at the bottom of these page to read Travels.

Will further say that its main menu page is still here and that its latest entry might be entitled 'Bi-Tropical Disorder'. Then again it might also be entitled 'Domingo Demencia'. Either way, it's another riff on my 2009 trip to Costa Rica & Panama.

Not at all scandalous scads more in the way of new material -- new material specifically prepared for the PHANTACEA Mythos, I should emphasize -- can be found on www.phantacea.com.

Its main menu is here. The latest photo essays are here and here whereas the webpage entirely dedicated to 'Feel Theo', the first PHANTACEA Mythos print publication since 1990's graphic novel, is here and the one for 'War-Pox' its successor, though not its sequel, is here.

Top of Page - Top of Hestia - Restart Preview - On to Topic

As if all the above wasn't already enough, there's some new material in Serendipity Now. It mostly comes from a book I've had for a number of years but only recently took off the shelf again. Nonetheless, it is in the spirit of the page(s) in that it's real life stuff, not anything I made up.

Try out 'A different take on Demogorgon' for starters. It's akin to some of what I mentioned earlier in that it contains quotes from "The 1000 Days of Disbelief".

So do the Sprinkles section of Serendipity Now, the first entry I've made on the Faeries webpage in over a decade, and the first entries ever on the seemingly forever-promised, but only recently realized, webpage dedicated to the Utopians of Weir.

Do help build the buzz.

Top of Page - Top of Hestia - On to Topic

Feedback encouraged. Oh and, lest we forget, as always, good reading.

Top of Page - Top of Hestia - On to Stories and Synopses - On to Mosaic Novels - On to Today's Topic -

Lynx to complete mosaic novels within the PHANTACEA Mythos whose potential covers, background information and introductory chapters are still online

| 2002: "The Moloch Manoeuvres" | 2004: "Decimation Damnation" | 2005: "The Trigregos Gambit" | 2008: "Feeling Theocidal" | 2009: "The War of the Apocalyptics" |

Top of Page - Back to Hestia - On to Topic

NOTE: Although the original PHANTACEA Essentials section remains here, updates to this feature take place here.

PHANTACEA Essentials

| Anheroic Fantasy | Apple-Kores | Beware Firstborns | The Celestial Superior | The Cretan Snake Goddess | Devic Names | 'Domus Delle Gorgoni' | The Demons of Salvador | Fecundity | Fisherwoman | Freespirit Nihila | Gloriella D'Angelo Dark | PHANTACEA Factoids | Heliosophos | Mithras's Ninth | The Moloch Sedon | Names for the Nameless | The Perfidious Polygamist | Primeval Lilith | Sedonplay | The Silverclouds | The Smiling Fiend | Thrygragos Everyman | Thrygragos Varuna Mithras | The Thrygragos Talismans | The Time-Tumbling Dual Entities | The Trigregos Talismans | The Unities of Lazareme | Utopians of Weir | The VAM Entity |

- double click on image for a larger but different image - go to linked webpage for info on both images -
  • Freespirit Nihila: Perhaps Datong Harmonia, the Unity of Balance and, initially, the lone Unity of Panharmonium; alternatively she could be Nemesis, from the tail end of the 500-year Middle Sea (Mediterranean) Goddess Culture circa 1500 BC (2500 YD); With chains and scales-of-justice earrings suggestive of Freespirit Nihila and Harmonia, the Unity of Balance, scanned in from a newspaper and adjusted on PHOTOSHOP by Jim McPherson, 2003of course she could be both, and a whole lot more; starting with 'War-Pox', Nihila appears in the Launch sequences set in 19/5980;
    (NOTE: if she's Harmony then she's the firstborn daughter of Thrygragos Lazareme and the Trigregos Sisters and, as such, the eldest female Master Deva; additional lynx re Harmony are here and here, both lynx have text from 'Feel Theo');Scan of photo taken at the Delhi National Museum by Jim McPherson in 2005; the statue is entitled 'The Flying Celestials'
  • Gloriella D'Angelo Dark: Aka Radiant Rider, Rainbow; also of other angels and a devil or three;
  • Gold-Mining for PHANTACEA Factoids;
  • Heliosophos: The recurring Male Entity; in his 1st Lifetime during the 1955 & 1960 web-serials, his 11th during the 19/5938 serials and his 100th during the 19/5980 ones; could be his 61st Lifetime doesn't end until twilight Thrygragon;
  • Mithras's Ninth: Although generally identified as Pyrame Silverstar, Cathune Bubastis and Tralalorn (Lost Lorna), Mithras doesn't believe Trala's his; he thinks she's either the Moloch Sedon's 4th generational devil child or the Devil's demonic offspring by Primeval Lilith; text comes from "Feeling Theocidal";
  • The Moloch Sedon: The skyborn, as in extraterrestrial, lone member of the first generation of devazurkind, the inspirations for the Gods and Goddesses of Mythology; his essence composes Cathonia, the Sedon Sphere; arguably the Devil Himself;
  • Names for the Nameless (or PHANTACEA as an equal opportunity Mythos): antique Illuminaries of Weir gave names to third generational devils;
  • The Perfidious Polygamist: Jordan Tethys, the Legendary 30-Year Man, who also answers to 30-Beers; text comes from "Feeling Theocidal";
  • Primeval Lilith, the Demon Queen of the Night:The immortal, chthonic or earthborn daemon The Queen of the Night (Demon Queen Lilith), terracotta from Southern Iraq circa 1800 BC, scanned-in from a postcard purchased at the British Museum in London, Englandwho must possess the birth mothers of mortal Sed-sons at the moment of their conception; without Sed-sons alive on both sides of the Whole Earth the Sedon Sphere would collapse; arguably the Devil Herself;
Top of Page - Top of Section - On to Topic - Notes on Graphics - Sites with Loads of Graphics - Novels in Search of a Paying Publisher

If only because I've already reprinted the foreword to The War of the Apocalyptics, the latest phantacea Mythos mosaic novel, I figured I better reprint the novel's afterword this time up. Reprint it, that is, as I reprinted Feel Theo's Afterword — albeit in the Anheroic Fantasy Illustrated tradition of the phantacea comic books and graphic novel.

Additionally, while it isn't a typical photo essay as such, it also gives me an opportunity to publish the remaining never-before-seen-online pages from the second issue (of a planned 15 issues) of the ill-fated phantacea Phase One project. (I published the first five last time.)

Hopefully these pages, along with a simple click to the previous set, will spur you into some serious ordering and recommending to friends.

Help build the buzz!


The War of the Apocalyptics – Author’s Afterword

I’m sure every writer of fantasy sometimes wonders if he didn’t make the whole thing up; if perhaps there is some measure of truth in what he’s written. I’m no different. That said, I feel obliged to add that some of the things I’ve come across since I first started writing the PHANTACEA Mythos cross the bounds of wonderment and enter the realm of the truly spooky.

I cited a series of examples of just that in the afterword to "Feeling Theocidal". There, to fay-say some, I remarked upon some sites with sights anyone with PHANTACEA-skewed eyeballs could see while meandering through a relatively few blocks of Mexico City.

(A photo essay revisiting that Afterword, one complete with my own photographs as well as supplementary lynx to Internet references, can be viewed here.)

As nifty as they are, though, none of them really compares to what I spotted that day in the Cairo Museum of Egyptian Antiquities.

========

Sedon's Head: Inspiration or Destination?

Growing up I was accounted as having a fertile imagination. My Greek grandfather told me I had a fabulous 'phantacea', a word that simply meant imagination in his native tongue. As a teenager in the late Sixties I was regularly described as having my head in the clouds.

It got so bad I was often accused of being lost in my own headworld. Whereupon I had this inspiration: Wouldn't it be interesting if there were an actual Headworld, a place where not just me but anyone who knew how could go? That in mind I drew one up. It looked very much like the image on the left in this logo variation (also in the blue logo on the back cover the print version of War-Pox).

Alternate logo for Phantacea 2011

Double-click for a topical cutout from the phantacea graphic novel of 1990, artwork by Ian Fry

This Headworld had to have a name and, not wanting to be exclusive, I could not very well call it Jim's Headworld. So, for reasons that are still somewhat of a mystery to me, I called it Sedon's Head instead.  A number of years later, in the mid Seventies, I decided to put out my own comic book series. I called it PHANTACEA and wrote and published six issues before I ran out of patience as much as money.

Pass forward to the mid-Eighties. Around that time I sold an enormous quantity of back issues. Which of course meant I could publish more comic books. This secondary output culminated in a graphic novel, "Forever and Forty Days - The Genesis of PHANTACEA", whereupon I promptly ran out of money again. The ultimate villain in the graphic novel was this Sedon fellow. As you might have realized by now, or will as soon as you read the preview of 1000-Daze, he’s the Devil.

Inverted version of the map of Sedon's Head, prepared by Jim McPherson and Tim Hammell circa 1978Not being a complete idiot I decided I would not be self-publishing any more comic books or, especially, any more graphic novels. I still had all these characters, though, and had been afflicted with the writing bug since long before I came up with Sedon's Head.

(Double-click inverted map to open a separate window with an enlarged version of the standard map of Sedon's Head, of which plenty more here.)

Along comes the Worldwide Web and, after learning hypertext markup language (HTML), mostly from a book, I launched PHANTACEA on the Web in 1996. (I upgraded that to the PHANTACEA Mythos Online’ sometime in the mid-to-late 20-Naughts but nowadays refer to it almost exclusively as pH-Webworld even though it finally got its own URL in 2011: www.phantacea.info).

About that time (1996) I took to travelling farther afield during my vacations. On Crete, which claims a civilization as old as the First Dynasty of Egypt, I made what I considered a couple of intriguing and, to my mind, serendipitous discoveries.

(BTW, tradition moderately more so than legend has Ancient Egypt's first king as Menes. According to even less reliable, but much more famous, mythological sources, Crete's founder had much the same name: Minos, he of the Minotaur and the Knossos Labyrinthe. Which naturally encourages some contrarians to speculate they're the same person — a refugee from Atlantis, no doubt.)

The first of my discoveries was a hamlet or village township I drove through, but didn't know existed until I spotted the road sign, that had strong links to its Etocretan past — Etocretan (sometimes also Eteocretan – True Cretans) being the correct name for those selfsame contemporaries of early-on Pharaonic Egyptians.

Alexander III by Benjamin West, scanned in from a postcard bought in Edinburgh in 2003 then adjusted by Jim McPherson on PHOTOSHOP, 2007(Shots of some nearby tholoi ghost or guest houses for the gods are here.)

The name of that hamlet was Ziros; this fully twenty years and more after I came up with, because Harry's rings look like big zeroes, the family name for the first two Ringleaders: father Angelo and son Dr Aristotle 'Harry' Zeross.

(Double-click the long-serving image representative of Rings 2 in order to open a separate window containing one of Verne Andru's many renditions of Harry from pH-4. There's plenty more re that Rings, who's referred to in War-Pox as Kid Ringo, here.)

The second was a cave where all sorts of Bronze Age Etocretan (circa 2000 BC) artifacts were found. I had never heard of it before either. And what was its name, you might ask and I might answer? The Sedoni Cave. Intriguingly, the other autochthonous (indigenous or native) people of Crete are referred to historically as the Cydonians (Sedonians?).

In the Bible you can read the story of Sodom (Sedon?) and Gomorrah, the twin cities that were apparently destroyed around the same time, circa 2000 BC. I'm reliably informed that in the Jewish Talmud there's a story about King Solomon, who reigned around 1000 BC, and another king, that of the Elementals. His name is Ashmedai (Asmodeus) but his brand of Elementals went by a suggestive term: the Shedds or Sheddim.A shot of a Shedd, artwork by J Augustus Knapp, taken from Web

I looked up this story in a book called "Ancient Israel: Myths and Legends". Therein the Shedds are called ‘Shedim’. Therein also they are referred to as demons. Indeed, I've been given to understand that the word itself ('shed' in the singular) is Hebrew for demon.

Throughout PHANTACEA the Moloch Sedon (nicknamed Sed by the Legendarian and some of his fellow Lazaremists, amongst the fearless few who know of him) is just as commonly addressed as the Demon King. Apparently, hmm, a couple of other alternate spellings of his name are Sidonay and Sydonai.

(I took the accompanying image of the Shedd off the web. However, I scanned in the b/w double-click from my 1994 copy of "The Secret Teachings of All Ages" by Manly P Hall, 1901-1990. I know the artwork is by J Augustus Knapp, 1853-1938, but in my copy it's not in colour, hence the double-click. As for Hall's magnum opus, I'd like to say I read it while growing up but, hey, while a now long-lost edition was around the the house, unlike Playboy I just looked at the pictures.)

In Lebanon you can find one of the Whole Earth's earliest still extant cities. It's called Sidon (supposedly after a grandson of Noah, phantacea's Xuthros Hor, who appeared on the cover of the graphic novel).

In Egypt, in a place the Greeks called Heliopolis, or Sun City, its Pharaonic rulers practiced some sort of fertility-affirmation ritual called the Sed Ceremony. Since the Bible called that Sun City 'On', I wondered if the city was actually called 'Sed-On'. Starting to get where I'm going? There's more of course. Much more as it happens. Frontcover of 4Ever40Days

(Sooth said, over the years I've built up quite a collection of precisely this sort of peculiarity. An ever-enlarging webpage entitled Serendipity and phantacea contains 15 years worth, and counting, of just a few of them.)

For instance, Lebanon was once known as Phoenicia. In its Cedar Mountains, where parts of the pre-Biblical Gilgamesh Saga took place, stands one of the oldest man- or god-made structures in the world. It's called the Trilithon and it's situated in a place known as Baalbek to the locals. The Romans, and the Greeks before them, may not have called it Sedon City but they did call it Heliopolis.

Curiously, besides the Sed Ceremony, Egyptian Heliopolis is reputed to be the birthplace of the famous sunbird or phoenix. It dies in its own flames only to rise anew out of its own ashes. And where do you think the name Phoenicia came from? Could it be from the Phoenix Sunbird? Isn't a matter of could is it.

Ever heard the Greek myth of Zeus, who was born on Crete, and Europa? In it, he takes the form of a white bull and carts Europa, from whence came the name for the continent of Europe, from her birthplace to his birthplace. Thereafter they co-founded the Cretan-Grecian civilization together.

And where was this Europa from? Phoenicia, as it happens. And who was her brother, he who came looking for her? His name was Cadmus and, according to standard mythology, he brought our alphabet to Europe, hence phonetics.

Collage prepared by Jim McPherson circa 2001, featuring the Egyptian Sphinxinx

For more on Phantacea and its connections to Egyptian traditions click here, here and here

I named one of my major characters, the time-tumbling Male Entity born Kadmon Heliopolis, after that Cadmus and that Heliopolis, the one in Lebanon. PHANTACEA’s version of the Biblical Adam appeared in War-Pox’s predecessor novel, “Feeling Theocidal”. As first noted in the graphic novel, which I published in 1990, for a variety of reasons I named him Alorus Ptah.

In both Feel Theo and 4-Ever & 40, I suggested that this Ptah was actually the Male Entity in his 61st lifetime. What I didn’t know in the Sixties, Seventies or Eighties, when I was formulating as well as formalizing my private mythology, but learned before I wrote ‘Feel Theo’, was that Adam Kadmon is a phrase found in the Kabbalah meaning ‘Primordial or Primal Man’.

So, just to review, in the late Sixties I call my Headworld after Sedon, a name I came up with out of the proverbial (as distinct from primordial) blue. I make him into the Devil and he becomes the main antagonist in what I now think of as 'The PHANTACEA Mythos'. I thereafter began coming across all these bizarre synchronicities; ones that, thus far on our serendipitous little journey, have led us from Phoenix to Phoenicia to phonetics and back again.Aerial Shot of Giza Plateau taken in the 20s or 30s

Believe me, it only gets weirder. How weird? Try this on, Trilithon!

BLOW UP OF THE AREA ON THE WALL MAP OF THE GIZEH PLATEAU THAT LOOKS LIKE A HEAD, TAKEN BY JIM MCPHERSON, YEAR 2000I envisioned Sedon's Head as a place, a hidden continent, in effect the Inner Earth to our Outer Earth. Anyone who knew how could go there. One of the ways to go to this Hidden Headworld is supposed to be through the to-me-obvious doorway situated between the legs of the Egyptian Sphinx. It sits on the Giza Plateau, not far from the modern day Cairo suburb of – you guessed it – Heliopolis.

I already know this because I'm writing and publishing PHANTACEA on the Web. I'm also doing research. As part of that research I sojourn to Egypt in late September, early October 2000. (Just in time for the al-Aqsa Intifada to begin, but that’s another story for the websites.) On a wall in one of the Old Kingdom rooms of the Cairo Museum is a huge blown-up photo taken by the Egyptian air force sometime in the late Twenties or early Thirties.

And what’s that there, in what is now, and was in the 20s or 30s, a parking lot? Looks very much like a head, doesn't it? Remind you of any head in particular? Does me. Hence the other head in blue logo on the back cover of this book.

(NOTE: The original version of this article was written in 2002. A photo essay, it resides within the PHANTACEA Mythos online here.)

********


That'll do for now. Until the next time, be pHantacizing you.

Oh, and in case you haven't done so already, here's a friendly reminder:

"Feeling Theocidal" and "The War of the Apocalyptics" are both available for ordering either by credit card or certified cheque and/or money orders.

Kindly order both immediately!

Top of Page - Top of Section - Down to the Phase One Feature - Down Farther to Notes on Graphics - Sites with Loads of Graphics - Novels in Search of a Paying Publisher - Bottom of Page Lynx

PHANTACEA Phase One #2

Cover plus the never-before-published final five pages of 'Demon Land - Saint Densification'

Artwork by Ian Bateson, circa 1985/6

First Five pages start here

- double-click in order to open a window with a larger image -

Cover for Phase One 2, artwork by Ian Bateson, 1985/6

Ian Bateson's original cover for phantacea Phase One #2, albeit in black and white; prepared in 1985/6, he redid it for the mosaic novel based on this story among many others; "The War of the Apocalyptics" can now be ordered in a variety of ways

Note on Graphic

Much to Devil Wind's disgust, Demon Land's back, artwork by Ian Bateson, 1985/6

Nothing's easy, as Devil Wind (Vayu Maelstrom) quickly discovers; not for devils, not in the air out here. Demon Land (Antaeor Thanatos) hasn't gone anywhere. He has, however, seemingly acquired some extra eyeballs

Note on Graphic

Demon Land pins Devil Wind's feet to the ground, arrives on Damnation Isle, artwork by Ian Bateson, 1985/6

Devil Wind doesn't have time to wonder where Demon Land is getting the extra eyes and, with them, all the extra strength he needs to keep the Byronic's feet pinned to the ground. He has no idea that, in 1955, Damnation Island was the site of the last battle in the Outer Earth's 17-year Secret War of Supranormals

Note on Graphic

Neither of the devils notice Gloriel D'Angelo take to the air behind them, artwork by Ian Bateson, 1985/6

As the third and the fourth generational devils continue to go at each other, neither notices Gloriel take to the sky, flying on her radiant rainbow.

(Be so good as to note the <<Siblangsh!>> sibilance, as it may shortly prove highly significant)

Note on Graphic

Demon Land finally disintegrates, to be replaced by 1955's last of the supranormals, artwork by Ian Bateson, 1985/6

So much for Demon Land. Astonishingly, he quickly becomes the least of Devil Wind's difficulties.

The <<Siblangsh!>> from the last page? As per this page, there may yet prove to be a pretty good reason for it.

Note on Graphic

Devil Wind seeks to flee the newly christened Damnation Brigade, artwork by Ian Bateson, 1985/6

So, why did no one ever find any corpses on Damnation Isle after the last battle in the 17-year Secret War of Supranormals? Might as well ask why Devil Wind is suddenly faced with the newly named, now 10-strong ...

... Damnation Brigade

(Complete with all their eyeballs!)

Note on Graphic
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Notes on Graphics:

  1. The full cover for "The War of the Apocalyptics", artwork by Ian Bateson, 2009; double-click the image in the masthead for an enlarged version of it;
  2. The mouse-over behind the graphic reads: "Much to Devil Wind's disgust, Demon Land's back, artwork by Ian Bateson, 1985/6". return to image;
  3. The mouse-over behind the graphic reads: "Demon Land pins Devil Wind's feet to the ground, arrives on Damnation Isle, artwork by Ian Bateson, 1985/6"; return to image;
  4. The mouse-over behind the graphic reads: "Neither of the devils notice Gloriel D'Angelo take to the air behind them, artwork by Ian Bateson, 1985/6"; return to image;
  5. The mouse-over behind the graphic reads: "Demon Land finally disintegrates, to be replaced by 1955's last of the supranormals, artwork by Ian Bateson, 1985/6"; return to image;
  6. The mouse-over behind the graphic reads: "Devil Wind seeks to flee the newly christened Damnation Brigade, artwork by Ian Bateson, 1985/6"; return to image;
  7. The page and cell backgrounds on this page are as per here
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Sites with Loads of Graphics:

Google.ca supplies what amounts to a pH-Webworld web gallery. Just go to http://www.google.ca/, hit the images link and type in PHANTACEA. Pasting into the address area of your browser the following Url might work as well: http://images.google.ca/images?q=phantacea&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&start=100&sa=N&filter=0

PHANTACEA on the Web is chock-a-block with visuals. Good places to ogle artwork from the comic books and graphic novel are One to Six, 'Twenty-Five Years Plus' and what began as 'The Genesis of PHANTACEA' web-page. Most of the other graphics are scans I did of my own photographs or material I put together using PHOTOSHOP. All the essays are loaded with images. Try out the framed version of the Main Menu. You won't go anywhere else but, then again, you won't get lost either.

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Latest List of Lynx to some previous Web-Publisher's Commentaries

| Winter 2009/10 | Summer 2009 | Spring 2008 | Autumn 2007 | Summer 2007 | Winter 2006/7 | Summer 2006 | Winter 2005/6 | Summer 2005 | Winter 2004/5 | Summer 2004| Spring 2004 | Autumn 2003 | Summer 2003 | Autumn 2002 | Summer 2002 | Autumn 2001 | Spring-Summer 2001 | Winter 2000/1 | February 1999 | November 1998 | August 1998 | Samplings from other Not So Recent Commentaries | June-March '97 | February '97-July '96 |

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The background image for this page is an intentionally blurry version of Ian Bateson's front cover for "The War of the Apocalyptics", as adjusted by Jim McPherson, 2009; the setting is Damnation Isle in the Aleutians; the characters depicted are Demon Land (Antaeor Thanatos) and Devil Wind (Vayu Maelstrom); the cover is a variation of one prepared by Ian Bateson for PHANTACEA Phase One #2 circa 1986; there's more re the Phase One project here. The cell backgrounds here and here are described here. The Feel Theo background behind this note, as well as the variation seen here, is described here. The other D-Brig Background is from the Damnation Brigade graphic novel, which tells some of the same story as the War-Pox novel. Its cover is by Ian Bateson, albeit not coloured until 2012. Chris Chuckry also contributed to the the finished work. More here.

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Phantacea Publications in Print

- The 'Launch 1980' story cycle - 'The Thrice-Cursed Godly Glories' Fantasy Trilogy - The '1000 Days' Mini-Novels - The phantacea Graphic Novels -

The 'Launch 1980' Story Cycle

The War of the Apocalyptics

Front cover of War Pox, artwork by Ian Bateson, 2009

Published in 2009; main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here;

Nuclear Dragons

Nuclear Dragons front cover, artwork by Ian Bateson, 2013

Published in 2013; main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here;

Helios on the Moon

Front cover for Helios on the Moon, artwork by Ricardo Sandoval, 2014

Published in 2014; main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here;

The 'Launch 1980' story cycle comprises three complete, multi-character mosaic novels, "The War of the Apocalyptics", "Nuclear Dragons" and "Helios on the Moon", as well as parts of two others, "Janna Fangfingers" and "Goddess Gambit". Together they represent creator/writer Jim McPherson's long running, but now concluded, project to novelize the Phantacea comic book series.

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'The Thrice-Cursed Godly Glories' Epic Fantasy

Feeling Theocidal

Front Cover for Feel Theo, artwork by Verne Andru, 2008

Published in 2008; main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here

The 1000 Days of Disbelief

Front cover of The Thousand Days of Disbelief, collage prepared by Jim McPherson, 2010

Published as three mini-novels, 2010/11; main webpage is here; ordering lynx for individual mini-novels are here

Goddess Gambit

Front cover for Goddess Gambit by Verne Andru, 2012

Published in 2012; main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here

Circa the Year of Dome 2000, Anvil the Artificer, a then otherwise unnamed, highborn Lazaremist later called Tvasitar Smithmonger, dedicated the first three devic talismans, or power foci, that he forged out of molten Brainrock to the Trigregos Sisters.

The long lost, possibly even dead, simultaneous mothers of devakind hated their offspring for abandoning them on the far-off planetary Utopia of New Weir. Not surprisingly, their fearsome talismans could be used to kill Master Devas (devils).

For most of twenty-five hundred years, they belonged to the recurring deviant, Chrysaor Attis, time after time proven a devaslayer. On Thrygragon, Mithramas Day 4376 YD, he turned them over to his Great God of a half-father, Thrygragos Varuna Mithras, to use against his two brothers, Unmoving Byron and Little Star Lazareme, in hopes of usurping their adherents and claiming them as his own.

Hundreds of years later, these selfsame thrice-cursed Godly Glories helped turn the devil-worshippers of Sedon's Head against their seemingly immortal, if not necessarily undying gods. Now, five hundred years after the 1000 Days of Disbelief, they've been relocated.

The highest born, surviving devic goddesses want them for themselves; want to thereby become incarnations of the Trigregos Sisters on the Hidden Continent. An Outer Earthling, one who has literally fallen out of the sky after the launching of the Cosmic Express, gets to them first ...

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The '1000 Days' Mini-Novels

The Death's Head Hellion

- Sedonplay -

Front cover for The Death's Head Hellion, collage prepared by Jim McPherson, 2010

Published in 2010; main web presence is here; Character Companion starts here; ordering lynx are here;

Contagion Collectors

- Sedon Plague -

Front cover for Contagion Collectors, collage prepared by Jim McPherson, 2010

Published in 2010; main web presence is here; Character Companion starts here; ordering lynx are here;

Janna Fangfingers

- Sedon Purge -

Front cover for Janna Fangfingers, collage prepared by Jim McPherson, 2011

Published in 2011; two storylines recounted side-by-side, the titular one narrated by the Legendarian in 5980, the other indirectly leading into the 'Launch 1980' story cycle; main web presence is here; Character Companion starts here; ordering lynx are here;

In the Year of the Dome 4825, Morgan Abyss, the Melusine Master of the Utopian Weirdom of Cabalarkon, seizes control of Primeval Lilith, the ageless, seemingly unkillable Demon Queen of the Night. The eldritch earthborn is the real half-mother of the invariably mortal Sed-sons but, once she has hold of her, aka Lethal Lily, Master Morgan proceeds to trap the Moloch Sedon Himself.

In the midst of the bitter, century-long expansion of the Lathakran Empire, the Hidden Headworld's three tribes of devil-gods are forced to unite in an effort to release their All-Father. Unfortunately for them, they're initially unaware Master Morg, the Death's Head Hellion herself, has also got hold of the Trigregos Talismans, devic power foci that can actually kill devils, and Sedon's thought-father Cabalarkon, the Undying Utopian she'll happily slay if they dare attack her Weirdom.

Utopians from Weir have never given up seeking to wipe devils off not just the face of the Inner Earth, but off the planet itself. Their techno and biomages, under the direction of the Weirdom of Cabalarkon's extremely long-lived High Illuminary, Quoits Tethys, have determined there is only one sure way to do that -- namely, to infect the devils' Inner Earth worshippers with fatal plagues brought in from the Outer Earth.

Come All-Death Day there are more Dead Things Walking than Living Beings Talking. Believe it or not, that's the good news.

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phantacea Graphic Novels

Forever and Forty Days

- The Genesis of Phantacea -

Front cover of Forever and Forty Days; artwork by Ian Fry and Ian Bateson, ca 1990

Published in 1990; main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here

The Damnation Brigade

- Phantacea Revisited 1 -

Front cover of The Damnation Brigade, artwork by Ian Bateson, retouching by Chris Chuckry 2012

Published in 2013; main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here

Cataclysm Catalyst

- Phantacea Revisited 2 -

Front cover for Cataclysm Catalyst, artwork by Verne Andru, 2013

Published in 2014, main webpage is here; ordering lynx are here

Kadmon Heliopolis had one life. It ended in October 1968. The Male Entity has had many lives. In his fifth, he and his female counterpart, often known as Miracle Memory, engendered more so than created the Moloch Sedon. They believe him to be the Devil Incarnate. They've been attempting to kill him ever since. Too bad it's invariably he, Heliosophos (Helios called Sophos the Wise), who gets killed instead.

On the then still Whole Earth circa the Year 4000 BCE, one of their descendants, Xuthros Hor, the tenth patriarch of Golden Age Humanity, puts into action a thought-foolproof, albeit mass murderous, plan to succeed where the Dual Entities have always failed. He unleashes the Genesea. The Devil takes a bath.

Fifty-nine hundred and eighty years later, New Century Enterprises launches the Cosmic Express from Centauri Island. It never reaches Outer Space; not all of it anyhow. As a stunning consequence of its apparent destruction, ten extraordinary supranormals are reunited, bodies, souls and minds, after a quarter century in what they've come to consider Limbo. They name themselves the Damnation Brigade. And so it appears they are -- if perhaps not so much damned as doomed.

At least one person survives the launching of the Cosmic Express. He literally falls out of the sky -- on the Hidden Continent of Sedon's Head. An old lady saves him. Except this old lady lives in a golden pagoda, rides vultures and has a third eye. She also doesn't stay old long. He becomes her willing soldier, acquires the three Sacred Objects and goes on a rampage, against his own people, those that live.

Meanwhile, Centauri Island, the launch site of the Cosmic Express, comes under attack from Hell's Horsemen. Only it's not horses they ride. It's Atomic Firedrakes!

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Webpage last updated: Spring 2015

There 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-booksSun-moon-kissing logo first seen on back cover of Helios on the Moon, 2015; photo by Jim McPherson, 2014

Downloadable order form for additional PHANTACEA Mythos Print Publications

Current Web-Publisher's Commentary

Jim McPherson's Worldwide Email Address -- jmcp@phantacea.com

PHANTACEA: The Web Serials

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Website last updated: Autumn 2015

Written by: Jim McPherson -- jmcp@phantacea.com
© copyright Jim McPherson (www.phantacea.com)
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The Wonderful Weather Wizard of Oz's 2011 Travels Site: http://members.shaw.ca/jmcp_oz11/index.htm

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