30/08/2009

Necronauts - final version


Happier with this - simpler, murkier and hopefully creepier.

8 comments:

  1. One would have to assume that it is Houdini who has donned the diving sui for a plunge into the depths (who else would have the nerve?) leaving poor ACC and Charles Fort to man the pumps.

    I think this version works better - it gives the image room to breath and keeps everything else to a minimum. It feels more like the kind of thing they'd run in 2000AD these days.

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  2. Thanks Emps! Yeah, had some input from the missus (who is a far more talented artist) on the layout and such.

    I haven't really thought out the scenario, but was kinda thinking the 'nauts might have one or two new recruits for this. But who? Have to do some research - this could turn into a pitch for zarjaz!

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  3. I have given the idea of a Necronaut sequel a bit of thought and it is a tricky beast as Gordon Rennie did such a great job bringing those characters together. You'd either want to use them again or move it a few decades further on and pick another odd group of characters. There are no real equivalents but a quick bit of brainstorming suggests:

    *An elderly Fort and Aleister Crowley (possibly linking it to Montauk - close to New York, Fort returned to the Bronx in 1926, and ties into the Montauk Project) set in the late 1920s/early 1930s. If you want an author then go for Abraham Merritt. This would open the door for an adventure in the tunnels beneath the earth.*
    *A late 1940s/early 1950s tale bringing in Jack Parsons (I'm still not shaking my Jack Parsons obsession, despite writing about him twice factually) and... Jacques Cousteau. A sci-fi author would have to be Robert Heinlein - a friend of Parsons and a Navy man.**

    You could even cast them as a kind of real-life version of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with lines of transmission going from Fort - Crowley - Parsons (who ran the OTO in the US). I wonder if you could do a prequel... Hmmmm.

    Anyway Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained is an easier one to do a sequel for as Lenkov drops a number of mystery/monster hunting threads in there and while I didn't enjoy the story as much as Necronauts (but then that is always going to be tricky) but it did have a lot of potential.

    I did come up with an idea for a Charles Fort Tale of Terror-style story involving his burnt notes and the two destroyed novels X and Y. I should dust off my notes and take a peek at that.

    * Necronauts: The New Generation
    ** Necronauts: Deep Sea Three

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  4. Emperor, I love your ideas - I think we should team up and approach the futurequake press guys with a pitch along these lines...

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  5. Wellll that was just a quick brainstorm and we'd need to thrash out a story. However, the Montauk story is shaping up - I just checked and Merritt was in Long Island at the time so it puts him in the right place at the right time. Also this is gold: "He maintained an estate in Hollis Park Gardens on Long Island, where he accumulated collections of weapons, carvings, and primitive masks from his travels, as well as a library of occult literature that reportedly exceeded 5000 volumes." There is a factoid floating around my brain abou Crowley being passed through a ring of stone and travelling to Montauk that would help. Also, as it predates the Montauk Project it'll have to draw on the earlier goodies but there is enough of that:

    --
    An old book dated 1911 and entitled 'Historic Long Island' contains a photograph of the 'Pyramids of Montauk,' the plate shows three pyramids or mounds about 20 feet high. The significance of this finding is compounded by the esoteric tradition which recognises Montauk as a planetary energy point that is linked with Mars and Egypt, and with the fact that the chief of the remaining Montauk Tribe carries the family name of Pharaoh.

    Legend also connects Montauk to Atlantis and this is geologically born out by the fact that the structure of the earth at Montauk is very different from the rest of Long Island "it is very much like an extended mountain that reaches above the sea. Some say that it is a remnant of ancient Atlantis that didn't sink and that the Montauk Indians are derived from the ancient Atlantians. The royal family name of Pharaoh is very suggestive of this particular theory."

    http://www.lightnet.co.uk/frontier/montauk.htm
    --

    Crowley wrote about Atlantis:
    http://www.skepticfiles.org/mys5/atlantis.htm

    Also I just started with Jacques Cousteau and pulled out anyone else who was at the front of my mind so it is a bit random (although random is good) and there may be others banging around who might work so I'll keep an eye out.

    I think the key will be hitting a similar theme to Necronauts: goings on link into their research and then possibly inspire future ideas.

    Anyway that is just me thinking aloud and I'll do some digging to see what else turns up and slots into this. I'll let it simmer away and see what comes of it. If that sparks any ideas then let me know.

    At the moment the ideas suggest an opening where Crowley arrives magically from Sicily, at the same time Charles Fort visits Merritt's Long Island home researching the Montuk Pyramids and the two decide to take a jaunt up there.

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  6. Alrighty, the trick with these kinds of secret histories is to let the biographies speak for themselves. So I've got a date pencilled in: September 1930.

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  7. Intriguing, I'll look that up anon. Been researching some of your links, all very interesting stuff and lots I haven't read before. Thanks for that.

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  8. Alrighty I have emailed you some (rambling) thoughts and the story outline is looking pretty solid. Exciting times.

    Also congratulations on getting into a medal position on the competition with this (as well as being artistically excellent it is also a great idea that the people clearly want to see). A win can't be far off.

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