Success! Combing through his archives, Robert has unexpectedly uncovered several yellowing manuscripts from his own proto-Muser days, including a veritable trove of peasant art from the mysterious floating island of Prussiania. Read on…
(Robert’s annotations are below each image.)
This clearly represents some dreadful conqueror out of ancient Prussianian history, standing triumphant on the piled-up bodies of his human and armadillo foes and flanked by stylized trees. He might be part armadillo himself, or perhaps he is just wearing armadillo-carapace armor. Or is that a cape? I’m afraid his name is lost to memory, unless some contemporary notes turn up in the archives. Could he be the legendary Metamucil?
This one does have notes, titled Recent Peasant Work Uncovered in Hemophilia. Row One is identified as follows: “Two armadillo officials point the way to a begging pariah [peasant] in Bacterian (prob.) mud-fields. Overhead floats a zeppelin while a mud-digger digs in the background.” Row Two is a satire on Prussianian court life. Nobles pick one another’s pockets, but the King’s pocket is padlocked. At right, two peasant servants carry in the Armadillo Vizier, clearly a personage of some importance.
This is a scene from everyday life. Peasants capture and cook a sea turtle for a nobleman, who rejects it. They cast it back into the sea. It’s clearly a commentary on the futility of life for the average Prussianian.
Now we get a glimpse of Prussianian religion. The accompanying notes describe this picture as follows: “Cloud-gatherer Voltus [god of lightning, storms, and electricity] (with male and female plug and socket in hands), earth-mother Athea sitting on the flat world, and sweating [sun god] Solarcaine. They here depict the well-known myth of the courtship of Athea: Solarcaine offers the sun-bowl to Athea, who indignantly scorns his advances and runs to Voltus.”
This depicts the Prussianian conception of the afterlife. In the top row, the mud-digging peasant sweats under the yoke of the haughty king and the cruel whip-wielding strawboss. At right, he dies and descends (head first) into the underworld. In the second row, an anthropomorphic armadillo-headed god resembling the Egyptian Anubis judges his soul by flipping a coin and sends it to its next life (row 3). It’s clearly a commentary on the futility, etc.
This has nothing to do with Prussiania. It’s a Peanuts spoof that reflects my obsession with the Lord of the Rings. Note that I signed it in both Elvish Tengwar characters and Dwarvish Angerthas runes.
Back to Prussiania and the piece de resistance: a map! I was hoping something like this would turn up. It shows just part of the island; I don’t remember how much more there was. It must be a fairly early map; later on, Malaria and Diphtheria were combined into Phantasmagoria. Later still, the nobility got fed up with the king and fled to a nearby (non-floating) archipelago — but that’s a different story.
There’s more…
Nice. Love the Peanuts spoof.
Oo, yay! More Prussianian stuff!
Absolutely love the Snoopy stuff, and everything else is really cool as well.
It would be cool if we could get some of this stuff on a T-shirt, or something, in the Muery Loves Company. Like some part of the Sea Turtle not-quite-epic, or the Armadillo Vizier. Or maybe the map. Any of them would be cool, though.
On that subject, I really should get around to actually buying something from the Musery Loves Company, instead of just making my wish list several times over. *sigh*
And I still need to donate the twenty-five dollars to NaNoWriMo that I promised myself I would if I won…
And while I’m at it, buy those video games.
I’m bad at keeping promises to myself. >.<
Hmm… Armadillos seem like the HPBs of Prussiania…
I like the sea turtle one the best, but they’re all awesome!
The map is awesome, but why “Westinghouse”?
I’m not sure where “Westinghouse” came from. It was probably one of my friend Joe’s contributions. Joe was into electricity and general mad science. In Prussiania, he was high priest of the god Voltus in addition to being a feudal lord.
Yeah, I was wondering about “Westinghouse”, too. Maybe one of you had a fridge or heater made by them and just read the name off it.
You probably can’t see it here, but the capital city of Westinghouse is called “Sylvania.”
Ooh…cool!
Oh man…this was wonderful, and just reminds me that I have to get started on my own Prussiania stuff. Teh map is real pay dirt, if we ever do the RRR for it the long and tragic tale of how Diphtheria and Malaria combined must be a part. I see them as being sworn enemies for a very long time before they combined…and even afterwords the old enmity still causes problems. (Of course. It’s not Prussiania without problems.)
The art style looks vaguely Mayan. I like it.
And the Peanuts spoof is hilarious.
This is awesome. I keep a world I created a few years ago in a folder in my sock drawer, but it isn’t nearly as funny as yours.
There’s more?
*drools*
I tried to draw my own version of the Sea Turtle Catching, but it didn’t get very far. I’m not great at drawing.
Anyway, I did two versions of the first scene, one I thought was acceptable, but really small, one that was larger, and nowhere near as good.
I just noticed another detail in the second drawing. See the mud cart at top right? All Prussianian vehicles had triangular wheels. (We figured that wheels started out that way and progressed to square, pentagonal, etc., before becoming round. Prussiania was still stuck in the first stage of development.)
The Snoopy spoof is awesome! Do a google search for “xkcd single ladies” it’s this funny Sauron thing, no swearing or anything. Just click on the first result. Oh, man, you did a great job. You should write political cartoons for Newsweek or Time or maybe put one cartoon per issue in “Muse”.
Curse you, Eowyn! SCREEEECH! I remember that part from the book and the scene in the movies. The movies were some of my favorite ever. Great acting, amazing cast and I didn’t hear a single line that deviated from the quotes of the story. Beautiful.
Sweet.
I have finished my (very very) rough drawings of Prussianian zeppelins; now I need someplace to send them. I started them before you posted these, so my zeppelins look a bit different–like some cross between a football and a fish.
(14) FF: The Prussianian artwork is highly stylized; actual Prussianian zeppelins might have looked as unlike the depictions as trees do. (In fact, my friends and I kept changing our designs, as some of them were clearly physically impossible — a limitation that bothered some of us more than others.) I look forward to seeing yours.
Just out of curiosity, Robert, could Prussiania capsize?
I wouldn’t think so.
Yaay, I finally emailed my zeppelin pictures to you! Or at least to webmaster@musefanpage.com.
I think I forgot to put my name on it, so the email with the subject heading ‘Prussianian zeppelins’ is mine, OK?
FF: Thanks! We almost never check the “webmaster” address, because it gets tons of spam. But I’ve rescued your message (along with some others, embarrassingly old), and we’ll post the zeppelins as soon as we get a chance.