Artist Appreciation: Albert Robida

   

 

 

  

A Poesy

stowaway, castaway, shipwrecked, marooned, blackballed, keel-hauled...

plank-walking pirates

buccaneers, privateers, freebooters, mercenaries, freelancers, ronin, corsairs and rovers

Sinbad's Princesses & Others

Maureen O'Hara

Dorothy Lamour

Mamie Van Dorn

Kathryn Grant

Barbara Eden

Raquel Welch

Caroline Munro

Linda Harrison

Jane Seymour

Toy Line

Stranger Spaceship
Stranger Starship
Stranger Stratoship
Stranger Stiletto

Flotilla Galleon
Flotilla Phaeton
Great Gate Playset
Leap Temple Playset

Moonfolk Seeker Squad
Moonfolk Thinker Team
Moonfolk Mobile Avatar
Moonfolk Beam Cannon

Ghost Angel Tug
Ghost Angel Tender
Ghost Angel Orbiter/Probe
Ghost Angel Lander/Rover

Nemo/Robur Tsiolkovsky Sphere
Frankenstein's Ziz
Frankenstein's Behemoth
Frankenstein's Leviathan
The Traveler's Lab and Cabinet Playset
Frankenstein's Treehouse Playset
Assorted Giants Grab-Bag
The Wild Man's Lair Playset
Mentors, Helpers, Saviors, Spoilers Grab-Bag
Sword and Sandal-Planet-Blaster Big Fun Combo Pack

Locales

On Telluria:

Wulin

Southern Seas

Mu

Lemuria

Hyperborea

The Flotilla

The Great Gate

Off-World (so to speak):

Zuhura, Sister World of Mystery Love (Venus)

Zuhura, Preserve of the Lost

Neith, Temple of the Leap (moon of Venus)

Bahram, Worldwall of the Ghost Angels (Mars)

Bahram, Valley of the Mariner

Cutaway scenes on Lilith, Volund, and Selene

"Our" Earth, where Bamboo Dancer (and maybe Agent Lee) came from

NCIS meets Agents of SHIELD meets Young Justice meets Enterprise
Shaw/Anderson/Harryhausen/Corman

Spacers, Hivekith, Cloud-Hoppers, Ghost Angels and Earthlies: Five Factions of Helios-Sol the Epic Saga

Strangers (Harryhausen Stranger): rocky worlds, asteroids, planetoids, dwarf planets
Moonfolk (Harryhausen Ant-Men): satellites of both terrestial and giant planets
Zuhuran (Diana Prince comics meet Joe Kubert Tarzan): terrestials and satellites
Bahramian (Weird Science meets Asimovian Martian): rocky and other worlds
Tellurian (Verne/Wells/ERB world of postwar steampunk adventure movies): Earth

Man from UNCLE meets Wild Wild West meets Star Trek meets Kung Fu meets Star Wars
Tai Chi Zero/Hero meets Chen Zhen meets Sherlock Holmes meets Yong Chen/Wing Chun

Dudes Be Like

Victor, hero - German (lived in America for fifty years)
Alex, anti-hero - German?
Silver Arm, helper or coach? - Chinese
Golden Lion, ally or adviser? - Chinese
Inspector Yi, hired gun? - Chinese? Asian
Agent Lee, knows everything maybe - African-American
Nemo, early level boss - Iraqi? Iranian? East Indian?
Robur, early level boss - Latin?
The Rogue Tellurian, challenger endboss - Euro-American?
Kaddej Kh'arzh, Ghost Angel Champion, ditto - Euro-American in Martian makeup
Dark Stranger, semi-end boss, co-conspirator with Ant-Queen - same actor, green makeup?

One Time, Ladies

Victrix (Sibley Odenwald) - saved once, returning favor - Mediterranean/Latin
Hadazsp - dimensional dominion of dianaian daughterhood - Mediterranean/Latin
Abraxia - something more personal, perhaps - Indeterminate/Mixed
Bamboo Dancer - inventor of a time machine that went sideways first - Asian
Penelope "Pippin" Queen - a good friend at the other end, looking to help - Afro-English?
Ant-Queen of the Folk - protect the folk always, forever - Alien

Pasts, Characters, Thoughts, Ideals, Missions, Motivations

Story Queens

C. L. Moore
Leigh Brackett
Andre Norton
UKLG
Racoona Sheldon
Anne McCaffrey

Tech/Motif

Daughters: Golden clockpunk Wellsian Time Machine difference engines - hop
Ghost Angels: Remnants of a 50s EC atompunk civilization a la Krypton/Kandor - fly
Moonfolk: Rick Wright/"Jaxon" Insect Fear-meets-Zap Harryhausen ant-people - hop
Strangers: 22nd Century-esque Early Trek Wagon Train Through the Dimensions - fly
Tellurians: Unsuspecting earthly masses in 19th C. inhabited solar system - hop? fly?

Pulp Gods

ERB
REH
HPL
CAS
OAK
PKD/Harlan Ellison/Bradbury/Sheckley/Asimov/Clarke/Lieber/MM
Dunsany
Machen
Bierce
Poe
Thoreau/Emerson/Spinoza/Laozi

Blake
Morris
Walter Crane
Howard Pyle et al
Burne-Jones
Kay Nielsen
Alex Raymond
Hal Foster
Roy Krenkel
Al Williams
Wally Wood
Frazetta
Toth
Risso

Alexi "Alex" von Frankenstein AKA the Traveler

Alex Frankenstein, Victor's perfect double, ages more slowly than Victor, and now appears much younger. Although Victor is a hundred years old, secret regenerative and life extension techniques make him appear around fifty. Although he created Alex several decades ago, Alex still looks like Victor did then, as if he is in his thirties.

The long and short of the tale is that it's an Evil Twin/Buddy Picture/Road Movie setup, and that Alex is the Time Traveler, who has ambitions of being the First Emperor of the Solar Realm, Alexander of Telluria, Victor the First, K'zar of Helios-Sol, Savior of Bahram, Protector of Zuhura, Vanquisher of the Conspiracy. He thinks Victor's fascination with monsters is dangerous, but useful to him in his scheme to defeat the other four Peoples of the Yellow Star: the Daughters, the Ghost Angels, the Moonfolk and the Strangers.

Life Extension Theory

Sinbad, traveler to both Lemuria and Hyperborea, learns of the secrets of longevity from Melanthius. In his later lives as Ahmed of Deryabar, Dakkar of the Rocket Lords, and Nemo of Temple Mer, these secrets serve him well. In the late 1860s he seeks out the fabled Robur, for he has plans to learn of his flying machines and his knowledge of aeronautics, rocketry, submarines, lost continents and sunken cities.

Pedro de Vargas first discovers the hidden mysteries of the Moonfolk in a deep underground city in a cavern system stretching for thousands of miles under the new colonies in North and Central America. These shocking truths have sustained him, in a later chapter of his life, impersonating a fabled freebooter, and then later a coastal corsair, at war with all the world, yet always in search of an ever-elusive peace. In the late 1860s he seeks the rumored Nemo, for he has learned much of aeronautics, of rocketry, of life extension theory, of apergy, of levity, of gravitronics and beamed energy, yet still he thirsts for a key to the mysteries, a solution to the question of the Moonfolk, an algorithm to unravel the enigma of the Strangers, a weapon against the schemes of both Venus and Mars.

Victor von Frankenstein, builds not one, but several re-aminated golems, learning each time, until finally he creates a double of himself, equal in every way. When he eventually quarrels with this double, who goes off to find Victor's previous "efforts", Victor is forced to create another helper, and so creates a companion who he hopes will be more companionable. After so many attempts to make men into gods, he begins to find (and then combine) the remains of demi-god-like life forms of the Deep Beyond, from Farther Space and Distant Aeons. When he re-animates these ancient, arcane, eldritch, ineffable, unexplained, inexplicable, unholy horrors from the great depths and the mind-numbing void, all hell literally breaks loose upon a world already rent asunder by an arms race hurtling headlong through time, space, endless realities, and uncounted dimensions.

Alexi von Frankenstein - Victor's younger double - is an even looser cannon, with an even bigger pie-in-the-sky pipe dream of interplanetary intrigue and extrasolar imperialism.

Early in 1870, on his one-hundredth birthday, while living in China (studying Taoist and Buddhist life-extension techniques), and building his monsters, Alex - Victor's "son" (double/twin/brother) - comes to visit him.

He has found both Nemo and Robur, and something far more dangerous, and sinister.

Sinbad movies, Fairbanks/Flynn/Power/Price/Rathbone-era swashbucklers, Verne/Wells/ERB postwar steampunk adventure cinema, Harryhausen puppets, Tsuburaya rubber suits, Shaw Bros. wuxia, Roth/Mead/Anderson vehicles, Hammer Frankenstein, EC/Warren/Epic/Omni/Heavy Metal sci-fantasy horror gonzo exotica a la Joe Kubert and Jack Davis in a Sunday funnies turned Ralph Bakshi midnight movie turned Wood/Williamson eight-pager in the back of a center mag from a triple pack off the spinner rack.

New Rough Outline

Victor's Monologue

Sibley's Challenge

Victor & Alex Meet

Treehouse Attacked?

To Mu & Lemuria!

To Hyperborea & the Inner World!

The Flotilla, Neith & Zuhura

My Monster Is Bigger

Mindless Moonfolk & Mercenary Strangers

Mars Needs Love?

So, Not-So-Mindless, Then?

So, Why Strangers?

First Emperor of Telluria and the Solar Realm!?

Not First After All

Betrayals Within Betrayals Within Betrayals

My Beautiful Friend

Backstory

After Victor had made and lost his first creature, he decided to try again.

Unlike the Ushers or say, Dracula, Victor was not the last of the line.

Frankenstein was and is a common name in Germany, and in Central Europe in general.

The Frankensteins come from an old and respected family.

Blood relations number in the relative thousands.

And in Europe during the mid-Eighteenth Century, many died in the prime of life.

War, suicide, sickness, infirmity, murder, hanging, plague, disease, famine, starvation.

Victor traveled constantly, studied genealogy, and kept scrupulous records.

He maintained an inventory of treasured family heirlooms.

And one day Victor built himself the best lab assistant he possibly could make.

One day Victor built... himself. A twin. A brother. A son. An... Other.

Made of Frankensteins. A true Frankenstein. The perfect double. Mister Alibi.

The son he'd never had. The partner always denied him. The perfect co-conspirator.

Until it all went wrong...

Like Father, Like Son

"I thought you'd be proud of me, Father."

"Proud of you?"

"First Solar Emperor, Victor the First."

"You're Victor the Third."

I'm Actor Troy McClure...

Stunning Sensational Steampunk Space/Spy Suspense 7th-Sense-B-Unit-Mation: In the Land of the People That Time Forgot at the Earth's Core, the Warlords of Atlantis Rocket to the Moon!!!!!

Characters Who May Know the Big Picture

Pulling the Strings:

The Ant-Queen
The Hooded Stranger

Most/All Of It:

The Promethean/Traveler
Bamboo Dancer
Empress Hadazsp

Some/Most Of It:

The High-King, War-Wizard of Mars
The Wild Man
Abraxia, Commander of the Flotilla

A Glimmer:

Nemo/Dakkar/Roberts/Sinbad
Robur/de Varga
Mad Monk Drunk Monkey

The Big Picture is the fact that this is one of the few dimensions where more than one planet of our solar system is inhabitable. In this one dimension, not only Earth, but also Venus are Mars are habitable planets.

The only catch seems to be that its existence seems to be hidden from outside this dimension, and anyone who travels here cannot escape, and return from this unique dimension. The Promethean was originally from this dimension but has traveled widely beyond it. He has created a blockade on anyone leaving this dimension, and is trapping inter-dimensional travelers here.

Bamboo Dancer is one such traveler, from "our" dimension, who began traveling in time several years ago, and only recently discovered the Time Machine's uses as a Distance Annihilator and Dimensional Abrogator. She remains trapped in Telluria, seeking a way home.

Inhabited Solar System

Peoples:

Zuhurans (Human?)

Tellurians (Earthlings)

Bahramians (Giant Angels)

Moonfolk (Ant-Men)

Strangers (Green Men)

Planets:

Volund (inside orbit of Mercury)

Merkur (Mercury)

Zuhura & Neith (Venus and her moon)

Telluria, Selene & Lilith (Earth and her moons)

Bahram & His Sons (Mars and its moons)

The Belt (Asteroids)

Jove (Jupiter and system)

Zurvan (Saturn ditto)

Ouranos (Uranus ditto)
Oceanus (Neptune ditto)

Metis (Trans-Neptunian gas giant or super-Earth)

Populations:

Volund: Strangers; Moonfolk
Merkur: Strangers; Moonfolk
Zuhura: Zuhurans
Neith: Zuhurans
Telluria: Tellurians, Zuhurans
Selene: Moonfolk
Lilith: Moonfolk, Strangers, Zuhurans
Bahram: Bahramians
Phobos/Deimos: Moonfolk
The Belt: Moonfolk; Strangers
Beyond: Moonfolk; Strangers

Transportation:

Zuhuran - Time Machine used as Distance Annihilator (hop)
Tellurian - Rudimentary Space Travel (Nemo-Robur Tsiolkovsky Spheres) (fly?)
Bahramian - Rudimentary Space Travel (von Braunian nuclear rocket armada) (fly?)
Moonfolkish - Time Machine used as Dimensional Gateway (hop)
Strangerways - Advanced Space Travel, Taboo Against Time Travel (fly!)

Artist Appreciation: Edmund Dulac