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History:
Jack
Kirby:
I said to
Jack, This,
to me, had
to represent
"God's
Waiting Room."
I mean, if
such a thing
really existed
physically,
what would
it look like?
I had persistent
visions of
the "jutting
out walkways
where gods
takes a meeting
with a levitating
Brahma in
the center
of his Chambers,
hundreds of
feet up.....
" I told
Jack, "so
you sit down
on a chair
in the Chamber's
Alcove of
your name,
press a button
and it whooshes
you out to
the center
of a great
building space
except nothing
is below you
or around
you and you
are just a
few feet away
from Brahma,
who's displeasure
can end your
life... "
So
Brahma levitates
on his electronic
Naga Throne,
2-300 feet
up in the
air. Gods
who take a
"Heavenly
Meeting"
sit on on
their own
chairs which
telescope
out from statues
and columns
along the
chamber's
walls, like
spokes of
a wheel but
suspended
in mid-air.
I
had to work
hard to come
up with all
the concepts
which Roger
Zelazny only
alluded to
but which
didn't exist
in the novel.
With both
Brahma Chamber
Exterior and
Interior drawings,
I literally
had to invent,
in the broadest
mental brushstrokes,
buildings
which were
alive with
their own
consciousness
yet would
dramatize
the full nature
of the Beings
who built
them. It couldn't
be weird,
it had to
be real. Once
"built"in
my mind thus,
I could take
the nascent
visions to
Jack who truly
acted as my
mage and master
coconspirator
in the final
development
of the designs
we now have.
Thusly did
Jack and I
interact,
as father
and son, as
developer
and designer,
continually
changing places
as master
and student,
and, ultimately,
as partners
in exploration:
Lord
of Light:
In the
Novel, there
is nothing
called the
Royal Chambers
of Brahma
- Interior
or Exterior.
There does
exist a meeting
of Brahma
and the rest
of the Gods
and I thought,
well, these
guys just
don't meet
in a bar!
So I got the
idea of the
pomp and circumstance
of Brahma's
Chambers!
Additionally,
in the novel,
Brahma does
allude to
his Pavilion
of Joys as
the ultimate
pleasure palace
to take Kali
and explore
her charms,
in exchange
for extending
Sam's life.
But Brahma
-- and all
the rest of
the Gods,
have had to
live somewhere
fantastic!
So I came
up with this
stuff and
brought it
all to Jack.
Science
Fiction Land:
The Interior
building find
Brahma levitating,
as above.
A great big
statue. We
enter a building
and look up
to see the
wonder fo
what the hell
is going on
up there,
between the
Gods up there
-- and us--
down here,
puny mortals!
The Exterior
building of
the Royal
Chambers is
capped by
a great light
source which
will beckon
for miles.
A cantilevered
multicolored
artificial
Garden
of Joys rings
around the
building,
where visitors
will run into
Godlike Androids
playing music.
One cannot
imagine the
kind of horror
engineers
displayed
when I demanded
from them
their own
architectural
renderings
of this
drawing!
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