“The Near Future…As It Used To Be”
What if the world of today, the early 21st Century, looked the way our predecessors thought it would, back in 1949?
What if Mars were the world imagined by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlein? And what if America’s most fun and famous couple flew to Mars in search of a missing brother and became embroiled in interplanetary intrigue, local wars, desert dangers and lost Martian civilizations?
This was the concept for The Lost Hieroglyph, the first of several “Brackett & Burroughs Adventures” set in an imaginary retro-future Solar System inspired by the great pulp science fiction stories and art of yore.
A lifetime’s affection for 20th-Century pop culture (of the sort now made huge by Comic-Con) eventually percolated into a sudden document in the late 1990′s. The concept lay dormant, with occasional proddings to see if it still breathed, until the fall of 2008.
The trials of that heady year brought the realization that life is fleeting and finite, and that glorious dreams must be attended to immediately. With that existential urgency in mind, I resurrected The Lost Hieroglyph and discovered the old art of stop-motion animation; its disciplines and traditions, its involvement with so many other crafts, and most especially, the wonderful community of its fans and practitioners.
“Adventure Never Looked This Good”
I set out to create a cute couple modeled on the great screwball couples of the 20th Century: Dashiell Hammett’s “Nick and Nora Charles;” Howard Hawks’ screwball comedies and his Bogie/Bacall pairings; Indiana Jones and his female sidekicks; even the TV silliness of Hart to Hart. I wanted to give them classic American back-stories — farm kid made good and debutante tomboy, baseball player and mystery writer.
Pretty soon, Ray and Ceel began speaking to me in their own voices. Like any good pair of heroes, they have complementary powers: Ray’s a crack shot and throws the fastest pitch on the planet, while Ceel is an Olympic medalist in fencing and horsemanship. Expect gunfights, swordplay and daredevil riding, and of course, plenty of snappy dialogue!
“Rocket” Ray Brackett made history with his legendary no-hitter in the last game of the 1999 World Series between the Giants and the Cubs (hey, this is alternate history) His 110-mile-an-hour fastball is still the fastest pitch on record. His sports prowess led to a brief career in Hollywood, first in The Longest Inning, then in Biff Blaster, Ace of the Spaceways. The first soared, the last flopped, and Ray soon tired of the Business. He met Ceel Burroughs during the MidPacifica caper and they married soon after. Since then Ray has found himself in one adventure after another, often involving his and Ceel’s extensive circle of friends. Ray’s younger brother Mike is a distinguished archaeologist. Their late father was also a Major League ballplayer. Ray often taps his friend Stanley G. Weinbaum’s engineering skills for custom gear and weapons.
Catherine Louise “Ceel” Burroughs has never cared for her first name; it’s hard to live up to her amazing grandmother Kate. She publishes her best-selling “Kit Kipling” mystery novels under the name “C. L. Burroughs”, but everyone calls her “Ceel” (rhymes with “seal”). At her debut she made waves by honoring both her late father “Hap” Burroughs, the legendary rocket pilot, and her stepfather Fritz Leiber*, the famous author and literary agent. (She danced with an android version of “Hap” as well as with Fritz!) Her mother Margaux, the celebrated movie star, saw that Ceel was educated at private schools and Stanford; she excelled in fencing and horsemanship as well as literature, leading to Olympic medals in epeé and steeplechase.
Exotic Places, Familiar Faces
Heroes require suitable stages upon which to act, and the settings and characters of The Lost Hieroglyph are as rich and resonant as I can make them.
Earth and Mars are depicted as exotic worlds of mystery and adventure, and the technology and style of 1949 shape this fictional 2009. There are an awful lot of inside jokes in The Lost Hieroglyph, ranging from cameo appearances by famous sci-fi authors and Hollywood actors, to entire shots that echo classic films, comics and literature.
Notes
Like the first cut made for Comic-Con 2009 (not screened but shown around), this cut has missing shots. A complete version of Episode One is forthcoming. Meanwhile, if you like this sort of thing, check out D.B. Grady’s Red Planet Noir, and read news about Disney/Pixar’s forthcoming John Carter of Mars!
*Fritz Leiber appears courtesy Dr. Justin Leiber & Richard Curtiss.
Ceel Burroughs’ likeness features components © Integrity Toys, and are used with permission.
The Lost Hieroglyph and “The Brackett & Burroughs Adventures” are ™ & © Steve Weintz.
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