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Phantasmagoria

Year:

2020

Nationality:

Spain

Language:

Spanish

Writer:

ElTorres

Artist:

Joe Bocardo

Publisher:

Editorial Karras

Genre:

Victorian, Historical fiction, Mystery, Supernatural

Other websites:

Summary
In Victorian London, an occult lodge has released an entity, an Intruder from the Other Side, into our world. The creature possesses the brothers, forcing them to create a magical artefact: The Phantom Lens. But two wizards set out in search of it, two enemies locked in an eternal feud: Professor Hawke and Edwin Drodd. (Goodreads)
Professor Hawke's Eye of Horus (Screenshot from the author)
Jannes and Jambres inside the Egyptian temple with their master magician (Screenshot by the author)
Egyptian decoration of Professor Hawke's house (Screenshot by the author)
Egyptomania narratives or motifs
Phantasmagoria is a supernatural mystery comic set in 19th century London. The plot concerns two magicians, Professor Hawke, an aristocrat, and Edwin Drood, a convict. They are two sides of the same coin, brothers who have survived the passing of the millennia. Their existence dates back to ancient Egypt where, under the names of Jannes and Jambres, they were trained in the magical arts of Heka in the service of the magician Djadjae.
Several interesting elements can be drawn from this premise. Firstly, Edwin Drood is the name of the character in Charles Dickens' last (and unfinished) novel, while Hawke refers, as we shall see below, to the professor's connection with Horus, the hawk-headed god of Egyptian mythology. Secondly, Jannes and Jambres are the names of two Egyptian magicians in the biblical tradition (Exod 7:11, 12, 22 and 2 Tim 3:8) and thus show an intertextuality and reformulation in the comic that leads them to become magicians in Victorian England and across different eras. Thirdly, Jannes and Jambres practice two different kinds of magic: Jannes represents light magic, the sun, and is thus linked to the falcon god Horus who roams the skies of Egypt. Jambres, on the other hand, embodies the magic of Seth, the desert sand and destruction. In this way, both magics oppose each other, but on certain occasions when the two collaborate their combined forces serve to thwart the evil designs of the spectres that flood London. Finally, once again, we have the notion of Egypt as the origin point, as the first confirmation of everything that will later exist in the world, and of Egypt as a place of magic and mystery, but also of secret societies and occult brotherhoods.

Professor Hawke is therefore Jannes, and represents the magic of Horus. His greatest power manifests during the day, when the sun is visible. Its occultation during the night, correspondingly, causes the old man to languish. Assisting him, he can summon a hawk that flies over London in search of enemies. The Professor then sees what this hawk sees, represented in the comic by the eye of Horus appearing over his face at the moments when he calls upon the hawk. In addition, Hawke carries a staff with a falcon's head – the head of Horus himself – on its hilt. Jambres, or Drood, is the evil magic that brought blood and death in ancient Egypt. He is the antagonist of the story, which thus sets up a plot that pits Horus and Seth against each other (though not permanently) in a reformulation loosely inspired by the conflict between these two gods in Egyptian mythology.

On a visual level, the comic abounds in depictions of Egyptian artefacts. Hawke's house shows, above the fireplace in the main room, a stele on which two individuals are depicted in adoration of the god Horus, in addition to a sarcophagus, clearly influenced by that of Tutankhamun, a vase decorated with the eye of Horus, a canopic vase, among other artefacts.
Part of the plot, very briefly, takes place in ancient Egypt in 1272 BC in the city of Nubet, which is depicted as a riverside city whose temple stands on the heights of a cliff.

Author: Abraham I. Fernández Pichel


Other information
Fernández Pichel, A.I. 2024. When the Egyptian Gods Ruled the (Future) World: Egypt, Science Fiction and Fantasy in Modern Popular Culture, in E. Dobson, L. Olabarría (eds) Do Ancient Egyptians Dream of Elecrtric Sheep. The Reception of Ancient Egypt in Science Fiction. Aegyptiaca (in press).
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Project Manager

Abraham I. Fernández Pichel

Researchers

Abraham I. Fernández Pichel - Rogério Sousa - Eleanor Dobson - Filip Taterka - Guillermo Juberías Gracia - José das Candeias Sales
Nuno Simões Rodrigues - Samuel Fernández-Pichel - Sara Woodward - Tara Sewell-Lasater - Thomas Gamelin – Leire Olabarría
Alfonso Álvarez-Ossorio - Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier - Marc Orriols-Llonch


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