Henry Covert's Flicker Street: Augustine Amberson/ Doctor Animus: New Art, Older Character [But New to FLICKER STREET]

Augustine Amberson is a character that I plan to introduce in the modern day - of my current story arcs - for the first time in the arc I've planned after "Ellinger", called "The Neologues", or simply "Neologues" [haven't decided yet]. "Ellinger" encapsulates the years 2010-2014 on the world of FLICKER STREET, while "Neologues" will begin immediately after, New Years 2015, and run until possibly the end of 2020. I may revise the end date as things evolve.

In any case, "Neologues" will introduce brand new characters, but also backstory characters that have possibly only been alluded to in main arcs, or depicted in flashback, and most certainly appear on my FS genealogical trees. Augustine is one such backstory character; his mother, Ingeborg Finn, is another. Within the document in progress, FLICKER STREET: THE TRUTH, these characters will be woven into the revised and expanded FS backstory of FLICKER STREET, revealing the true events [in-universe to FS] behind the narrative called FLICKER STREET: THE BIRTH by Thaddeus Davant [which can be read in full on this site].

Amberson, like a number of other characters I've used in recent plots, is an "imported" character from other works I've created and developed to varying degrees, in the long hiatus between full-time storytelling set in the Flicker Street universe. This hiatus lasted from roughly 2002 to 2014, though some FS work was done, intermittently, between 2006 and 2008, albeit under the aegis of the Comicbook Artists Guild [CAG], rather than all by myself. My editors in the guild that I submitted proposals and pitches set in the FS continuity either didn't know [because I didn't tell tell them, like Mark Mazz] or didn't really mind [like Shawnti Therrien].

My intensive period woodshedding for CAG [c. 2006-2009] was more or less concurrent with a deep involvement in writing speculative essays for, and heavily promoting, fandom devoted to Philip Jose Farmer and his Wold Newton Family concept. and Philip Jose Farmer fandom from c. 2004-2011. In 2006, I submitted a serious story proposal and pitch package to Marvel Comics in the final days of their open submissions program. It was tentatively called 'Defenders Inc'.

To considerably shorten the story for now, that was a very instructive experience, very eye-opening about how Marvel deals with such matters. In 2011, my first comic book story was published by CAG. This was more or less the end of the era described two paragraphs back.

By 2012, I had retooled the material I came up with for Defenders Inc for my ex-wife's website. I pastiched all the characters and altered some aspects of the plot and characters for legal reason. I called this rebranded work CONCLAVES. Augustine Amberson was a prominent CONCLAVES character, originally based on a character I intended to use in more of a supporting role in the Marvel proposal. And now, I've found the perfect final home for the character, and, through synchronicity and open channeling, he fits perfectly in the narrative woven thus far. And that's about it for now. Working on a formal bio for Augustine to eventually attach to the art. For now though, here is a faux Wikipedia entry I concocted about Steve Anderson, a FS character who's an enigmatic comic book creator. Steve also may or not also be an 'alter ego'/ faux identity of Augustine Amberson. The graphics for the character will follow the entry.

Enjoy,

Henry

from Wikipedia:

STEVEN A. “STEVE” ANDERSON is an American writer of novels, essays and comic book stories. He is best known for his work with Creation Comics in the early to mid 190s and again in the late 1980s; his work with Creation's chief competitor, American Pulp Periodicals from the mid 190s to late 1980s, and his work for various independent [“indie” comic book publishers from the 1980s onward such as Atlantic, Lunar, and 2^nd Seed.

His style is distinguished by deep characterization; tight continuity with the fictitious “universe” he is working; and various literary and mystical allusions, as well as a strong psychedelic influence in his earlier work.

from the same wiki entry:

Controversy

Anderson was often candid about his experimentation with marijuana and LSD throughout his initial tenure at Creation Comics. Several of his stories allegedly outraged Creation editors and its publisher, Scrivener Beattie, but still managed to find their way into print, with few alterations to accommodate the Comics Code of Authority.

Anderson has been described as a “hermit”, a “hermetic”, a “radical”, even a “mystic” at times. He has rarely attended comic conventions over the years, but when he is a guest there, he is described as gregarious and affable towards his fans when engaged by them, and makes it a point to be accessible to them and not aloof as many in the field are often described.

But outside of these venues, he has maintained a highly private personal life, often reclusive and a bit inscrutable to the press. Rumors have persisted that there was far more to Anderson's life than writing. He mailed the majority of his scripts to his artists and let them take it from there and shoulder the responsibility of getting finished pages to the Creation office in New Jersey, which Beattie has jokingly referred to as “The Nerve Center” of Creation Comics.

The conclusion arrived at by essayist/ “literary anthropologist” Jan-Michael Eichhorn was that Anderson, in fact, Anderson's own personal favorite character to write, Doctor Animus aka Augustine Amberson. Eichhorn's supposition has been that Amberson was in fact a real, living being and Anderson's scripts were quasi-autobiographical and highly fictionalized versions of events in his real life.

The core proposal of “Literary Anthropology” [a term coined by Dr. Petty John Coogle] is that the adventure and genre stories found in popular culture, media, entertainment, literature, and even folk tales and mythology, are all accounts drawn from events that have really transpired over the centuries but have been passed off as fiction in order to foster disinformation that would lead astray those who may care to determine the veracity of Coogle's Supposition, as it came to be called.

The promulgators of these theories have often claimed that the Late Dr. Anton Gamble's controversial non-fiction text Distortions - one of America's best sellers in the late 1960s through the 1970s – put forth assertions that should naturally lead to acceptance of Coogle's Suppositions. Coogle's aforementioned colleague, Eichhorn, has claimed that Anderson/ Amberson could have been a test subject in Trans-Morphic Somatic trials of the 1950s and 1960s – experiments which were seemingly shut down and made illegal by several heads of state.

Gamble coined the term “Trans-Somatic Distortions” in his book, and often referred to it by its initials, T.S.D., which Gamble deliberately coined as a pun on LSD and experiments conducted with in the same time frame as the Somatics work. The subjects of these trials, after allegedly being genetically mutated in various ways [mild to extreme depending on the subject's physiology], are referred to as 'Somatics', 'Recombinants', or 'Transmutes'.