I prepared this graphic on PHOTOSHOP in 2004 in order for it to become a giveaway poster for PHANTACEA on the Web. Never did print it up, though.

The primary text section reads as follows:

"Three-quarters of a century ago the Egyptian Air Force photographed the Giza Plateau. That photo is now in the Cairo Museum. Just above the inset photo of the Sphinx is an obvious head.
Does it point to the entrance way to a Hidden Continent? Is that entrance way to be found through a door between the legs of the Sphinx?
It is in the PHANTACEA Mythos!"

The main reference is to a pair of long-serving, inter-connected webpages entitled: Sedon's Head: Inspiration or Destination?

© copyright Jim McPherson, 2005

Top of Page

In terms of publishing, the comic books of the late 70s came first of course. The graphic novel came out in 1990. Although I wrote a bunch of other material throughout the 80s and early 90s, mostly proposals for teleplays and short stories, some of which featured characters from the PHANTACEA Mythos, it wasn't until 1996 that I began web-publishing.

One of the first novels I serialized on the Web was: 'The War of the Apocalyptics'. I revised the serialized version in 2003; sent it out to some publishers and non-fee-charging literary agents via the Internet, and there it still languishes, on a variety of slush piles. This is the latest dustcover I've prepared for it. A different potential front cover can be found elsewhere.

Text at the top of the front cover reads:

"From the creator of the PHANTACEA Mythos comes Fallen Angel Devils, comes unrelenting Action, comes the Damnation Brigade, comes ..."

Text on the back cover reads:

"Launching 1980

"The ten members of the Damnation Brigade survived a quarter century in Limbo. Until their minds were separated from their bodies in 1955, they were the last of the Outer Earth's supranormals.

"Plague, Murder, War and Disaster, they're Apocalyptics. They're also immortal devils. Murder's pregnant. She'll give birth on the Inner Earth if D-Brig doesn't stop her."

The 'Children! It's a trick, an illusion. We're under attack!'; bit in the collage on the front cover is a direct quote from pH-5. The 'Damnation! Stop this farce!' bit on the back cover is something Cyborg Cerebrus says in pH-4.

As for the images that went into the two collages, some of them are from the comic books. Most of the rest come from photos I've snapped or postcards I've bought over the years during various Travels in my Pants. Scanned-in versions of some of them are out here on the Web somewhere and there's a note on the 1987A background image below.

The primary webpage for the revised version of this novel can be found here whereas the introductory webpage for the serialized version can be found here.

Top of Page

An earlier version of 'The Trigregos Gambit' has also previously been serialized on the Web. I revised the serialized version in 2005. If I decide to start self-publishing the PHANTACEA Mythos, I'll likely begin with this one because, although it's by far the most violent of all my novels, I can justify going anywhere on the timeline-compass for its follow-up print publication: timewise either direction sideways, timewise before, 1938,1960, or timewise after.

This is the latest dustcover I've prepared for it. Text at the top of the front cover reads:

"'For the Dead to thrive, the Living must die!' So proclaims Nergal Vetala, the Blood Queen of Hadd."

Text on the back cover reads:

"Launching 5980

"She's the lone devic vampire. For 35 years she has been unable to prevent the encroachment of the Living on her realm, the Land of the Ambulatory Dead.

"Then her soldier falls out of the sky and she's back in the pink. As in arterial. She still isn't satisfied.

"Too bad for not just her, everyone who plays a Trigregos Gambit loses."

The 'Mercy is a Capital Offense' bit on the front cover is the rest of the proclamation the Vampire Queen psychically issues to her remainingly faithful adherents once she returns to Hadd after 35 years in the Forbidden Forest of her litter sister, Kala Tal. Most of those she thereby contacts are occupied, and animated, by Vetalazurs, her strictly Spirit Being offspring by many a male devil. Vetala eats her young.

As for the images that went into the two covers, the back cover Vetala (in the moon-mirror) is from the front cover of pH-5. Ian Bateson did the colour over Verne Andru's pencils and inks. The front cover Vetala is by Ian Fry, the artist who drew the graphic novel: "Forever & 40 Days - the Genesis of PHANTACEA". It was done circa 1990. The graphic novel is still available.

With the exception of the Pictish Warrior on the front cover, which I scanned in from a postcard I bought some time ago during one of my occasional Travels in my Pants overseas (or over lots of land in the Americas). I plucked the rest of the images used from the Web.

Those who have read '4-Ever&40' might find it interesting that the crimson corona effect circling the moon-mirror and, indeed, the starry background of the entire dust cover, are both digitally dicked pictures of Supernova 1987A. Besides the fact they look so good, I plucked them because, in the PHANTACEA Mythos, Supernova 1987A was caused by the Dual Entities when they destroyed the first Weirsystem.

A mini-essay on the Pictish fellow can be found here. The primary webpage for the revised version of this novel can be found here whereas the introductory webpage for the serialized version of 'Gambit' can be found here.

Top of Page

The text at the top of the front cover reads: "Jim McPherson Tsishah's Twilight". (In case you missed it, Jim McPherson would be me.) The text at the bottom of the front cover reads: "The PHANTACEA Mythos continues with 'Wilderwitch's Babies, Part 2'. "

The text on the back cover under the Mythos logo reads as follows: "Tsishah Twilight, 47, is the Anthean Aortic of Shenon, Witch Isle. She was once possessed of a devil. Now she wears a demon. In life her demon's name was Shahiyeda. Shah's parents are long dead. Then one of them isn't and Tsishah suddenly finds herself in truly Deep Dreck!

As of this writing, Winter 2004/5, this novel is not finished. With respect to the titular character, Tsishah Twilight, in 1980, which is when it's set, she's a mother of four. One of the buggers looks to be coming in for a landing on the front cover. As for her demon, Shahiyeda, the way I have it figured she shows up on the front cover twice, as a child and as the over-skin Tsishah's wearing.

The somewhat eerie-looking head above Child-Shah on the front cover might be either her as an adult, assuming she made it that far, or her mother, who definitely did. As for the crystal skulls, they're not there purely for looks. You see, there's this character named Xibalba. He's named after the Mayan Hell. He's a Summoning Child and, well, let's just say he's aptly named.

(By the way, both Tsishah and Shahiyeda will be appearing, as not much more than toddlers, during the course of the 1938 'Heliodyssey' serials. That novel, as you will have realized if you clicked the mother of all lynx above, is called 'The Vampire Variations'. Unfortunately, although it is finished, it's almost as long as the revised version of 'The Moloch Manoeuvres'. I'm still hoping to bring 'Tsishah's Twilight' in at under 500 pages, double-spaced.)

Tsishah was mentioned by name a few times in one or more of the yet-to-be revised serials that comprise the Launch Tetralogy. If she actually made a physical appearance, which she might not have, it was only briefly. However, with Pyrame Silverstar inside her, she did get it on rather scandalously during the early stages of 'The Weirdness of Cabalarkon' web-serial, upon which part of this novel is based and most of its cast of characters also appeared.

All images were googled off the Web. The Dust Cover was thereupon designed and rendered on PHOTOSHOP by Jim McPherson, 2004.

© copyright Jim McPherson, 2005