November 3, 1999...November 1999
(24 pgs.)
TITLE:
George MacDonald wrote Phantastes:
A Faerie Romance for Men and Women in 1905
Here is the entire
text with illustrations
To quote from the George MacDonald Society
George
MacDonald (1824-1905) was one of the most original of nineteenth century
thinkers. His writing and lecturing brought him wide recognition in his own day,
and into the company of many of the leading Victorians of the
time.
MacDonald's writing has an outstanding imaginative power, largely
influenced by the German and English Romantics. It is in the realms of fantasy
and children's literature, along with his visionary theology, that has made his
greatest contribution.
Phantastes is recognised as a seminal classic of adult
fantasy writing.
SYNOPSIS
In hospital Barbara's condition is worsening so her soul
goes to talk to the other previous Prometheas in the Immateria. Sophie and
Stacia go to the library to do some research on Promethea where Sophie reads the
life story of Charlton Sennet, author of A Faerie Romance. Sennet's inspiration
for Promethea was his servant girl Anna which ruined his marriage when his wife
discovered they were having an affair. Anna has a child but it turns out to be
only half real and she dies in childbirth leaving Sennet alone. At the library
Jack Faust makes contact with Sophie/Promethea but is interrupted by Stacia.
QUOTES
"Your mom is a vast whore. I sort of admire her..." -
Stacia, pg 4
"I am alone" - Charlton Sennet, pgs 8, 15
"Words bring me
through" - Promethea, pg 12
"It was not Anna that I loved. It was the fantasy
I spun about her" - Charlton Sennet, pg. 15
"How did it get so
dark?"
"Where did everybody go?"
"Either phrase would work nicely on a
tombstone, wouldn't it?" - Jack Faust, pg. 16
"Can't we just go into college
and do something normal?" - Sophie
"Going into college is normal?" - Stacia,
pg. 23
"I'm the only person here that being Promethea hasn't killed" -
Barbara, pg. 24
Notes and Annotations
As noted in the credits on Page 3 in this
issue pages 8-15 (the flashback to Charlton Sennets' story) are drawn by Charles Vess instead of
JHW3
Page 1 Panel 1: Claire Jordan points out
that
There's actually a medical error here. There's no good reason why
giving Barbara antibiotics should both improve her chances of keeping the graft
and increase the risk of infection: giving antibiotics would only increase her
chances of keeping the graft if it was an infection which was causing her to
lose it, in which case the antibiotics would be reducing the risk of infection.
[In the long term antibiotics can increase the risk of a fungal infection of
the skin by killing the bacteria which combat it, or excessive use of
antibiotics over a period of years can increase the risk of infection in the
general population, by breeding more resistant bugs - but neither seems to be
relevant here.]
From the context it seems clear this is a slippage of the
brain - it should have been "I'm going to have to give her
immunosuppressants...." which would, indeed, check the rejection process, whilst
grossly increasing the risk of infection.
Page 1 Panel 4:
I haven't been across to visit in a while...
Presumably after her
husbands' death Barbara lost interest in becoming Promethea.
Page 1, Panel
5: Disembodied eyes once again. Note how the edges of the panel start to go
wobbly.
Pages 2-3, top panel: This is the first time we see all 5 previous
Prometheas together. From left to right we can see Barbara [Promethea(5)]
closing the door behind her and Anna [Promethea(1)] with her back to us on pg. 2
then Grace Brannagh [Promethea(3)], floating in the air is Margaret Taylor Case
[Promethea(2)] and lying on the ground is Bill Woolcott [Promethea(4)] with little Margie
holding a rag doll behind her.
Apart from Barbara each of the Prometheas is
holding a goblet or cup.
Note the disembodied eyes and the frogs with
wings.
Page 2, Panel 1: Harebell and Meadowsweet. According to the Victorian Language of
Flowers site Harebell signifies submission or grief and Meadowsweet
signifies uselessness.
Panel 3: Sophie is still holding the pen
Barbara gave her.
Page 5, Panel 1: Les Miserable takes his name from
the famous Victor Hugo
novel. There has also been a musical
based on the book.
Page 5, Panel 2: I couldn't find anything on the
net about Pamela Andursen. All the searches I did only found Pamela Andersen.
There was a Professor Anderson in
Boston doing magic tricks in 1852. Does anyone know anything about a Pamela
Andursen?
Panels 4 and 6: Achocalypse Pops look like peas. Presumably
they are named "Achocalypse" rather than "Apocalypse" because they contain some
form of chocolate.
Free inside you can find one of the 4 horsemen of Doom.
The one depicted on the packet is obviously Death.
Page 6, Panel 2:
Nice statue on top of the library of a boy and girl standing on an open
book.
Page 6, Panel 3: Cafe Khadaffi - no doubt a reference to Mu'ammar Gadhafi
Also note that
cafe and khadaffi sound very similar.
The Hezbollah can
provide a few surprises.
Page 6, Panel 4: Our first view of Jack Faust
or rather his glamour. Here is some small information about a glamour
spell (scroll down about 6 spells).
Note the hovering platform being used
to reach the higher bookshelves.
Page 7, Panel 2: Jack Faust's glamour seen once again.br> Panel
3: A Faerie Romance not only appears to be the title of Charlton Sennet's
poem but also of his biography subtitled The Life and Works of Charlton
Sennet.
Page 8 Panel 2: The style of a different artist is apparent as soon as
you turn the page. Behind Sennet a spinning wheel is in obvious disrepair and
cobwebs and all those pages on the floor show that the broom has not been used
for quite a while. The impish fairies around him appear to be a musical band
tormenting him as he drinks to cure his loneliness.
Page 9 Panel 1:
The yellow and blue imps are now literally in his hair
Panel 5: Nice
picture on the frame on the wall.
Page 10 Panels 2-4: We have already
read the Promethea part of this poem back in issue 1 in the Promethea Puzzle but
it's also nice to see it in handwritten script here as well.
Panel 3:
Promethea(1) is visible just over the Queen's shoulder.
Page 11, Panel
1: June 7th, 1779. The only event I could find that occured on this day was
the death of William
Warburton. Can anyone find anything else of importance that occured on this
day?
Page 12 Panel 1: Promethea(1) now appears in her full glory
combined with the mortal Anna.
Page 13 Panel 1: Note the sun and
various stages of the moon appearing above the lovers denoting the passage of
time.
Panel 3: The dour looking coachman and Sennet's wife on the
carriage remind me of some of Eddie Campbells' images in From Hell.
Page
14 Panel 1: A rather beautiful image of a terrible death. Note the eye in
the triangle and the upside down view of Anna's head within a circle. Two other
magical eyes perpendicular to her nose complement her real eyes which are open
although she lies dead or dying.
Panel 2: The half real baby seems to
be mostly composed of 2 dimensional triangles. Perhaps a nod to Edwin Abbot's
Flatland which Moore has cited in some of his other works.
Panel 3: The smoke and the triangles vanish leaving
Sennet alone with Anna's corpse.
Page 15: Panel 2 harks back to the
first image in this section Page 8 Panel 1 as we see a bottle and cup from
Charlton's point of view as he sits alone at his table.
Panel 4: A
very nice final panel completes Charles Vess' work on Promethea. The sunlike
circle with wings and an ankh underneath and an eye at its' centre looks
familiar but I can't place it.
Page 17, Panels 1-2: Jack Faust in his
glamorous mode sings the opening lines to this song. If you can
play guitar here are the
chords.
Panel 2: In case you were wondering the gluteus is 'any
one of 3 muscles of the buttocks'.
Panels 3 and 5: Note the various
rings on Faust's fingers and compare them to the rings worn by Alan Moore in Issue
15.
Pages 18-19: Sophie and Jack's glamor sit in a trance whilst
their better selves are seen hovering above them. The Sun in the middle
separates the two complementary pages.
Page 19 Panel 4: Part of Issue
1 Page 3 Panel 3 is repeated within the flashback image.
Page 20, Panel
5: I don't know if libraries in America are very lenient but most libraries
I know of wouldn't allow anyone to eat inside the library itself.
Page 21,
Panel 2: Another hovering craft overhead and it also looks like the chairs
are hovering above the ground without legs.
Page 21, Panel 4: Does
anyone know what ATL stands for apart from Accelerated Testing Laboratories and
Association (for) Tropical Lepidoptera?
Both of which I found on the Acronym Database.
Maybe it
stands for American Technology for Libraries or something similar.
There
really is a Promethea Moth
(scientific name Callosamia Promethea) but there is no actual Promethea Myth
(unless you count the one Alan Moore has written) although there is a PrometheUS myth. Basically
Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give to man and as a punishment the goods
chained him to a rock where an Eagle would pick out and eat his liver which
would grow back overnight so that the eagle could go on eating his liver
eternally. The ancient greeks seemed to have a thing for eternal punishment. See
also Sisyphus
and Tantalus.
Page
22, Panel 1 : For Set's sake. Here's some information about Set and here's a wall plaque of
him.
Page 22, Panel 5 : We will learn the French lesbian writers' name
in the next issue.
The Black Metal Band Hecate Enthroned have their own
website
Promethea-The Darkest Mask of Surreality can be found on their
1995 album Upon Promethean Shores.
Page 23 Panel 2: Claire
Jordan points out that
Jack's reference to the beanstalk kingdom refers
back to something that happened in Little Margie in Mystic Magic Land -
according to The Promethea Puzzle, Jack was running the beanstalk kingdom as a
tyranny and had to be heaved out. Either Jack Faust is really a story like
Promethea who has managed to become real, or he has lived so much in the astral
that he became part of Promethea's story in the Immateria and lived in it.
Jack and
the Beanstalk.
In this panel especially Jack Faust remind me of the actor
who told Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard it was Time to die in Blade
Runner.
Panel 6: The large statue seen in the background reminds me of
some of the statues seen in Top Ten.
Page 24 Panel 7: Looks like a
Grecian statue from around the time of the Trojan War on top of a stick
surrounded by circular barbed wire.
Claire Jordan points out that
the
helmet on a stick is Margaret-as-Promethea's helmet