Transkindred

Transkindred

trans•kin•drid

–noun

1. a person appearing or attempting to be a member of another race, nationality, ethnic group, or culture different from the one they were born in.

–adjective Also, trans•kin•dred

2. being, pertaining to, or characteristic of a transkindred or transkindreders: a transkindred themed story. Transkindered

Alright, I made this word up to describe a type of story and images I like to create and play with.

Stories of transformations have always fascinated me, and one such are people becoming another nationality or race.

Frankly while fiction about people changing sex, or becoming animals are, if not common, at least more prevalent than ones with this theme.

And that's understandable, after all race is a touche subject in America. Therefore the few examples in the mainstream, are few and far between.

Let me tell you my origin story in regard to this matter.

I grew up in the South in the 60s, the early part of the 60s, in a state where the Klan was a real, if low-key power to reckon with, my parents (both passed on now) were a father who was a red-headed Scotsman, and a mother who was half-Anglo, half Creek Indian, but could have passed as a full blooded Native.

If this lead to much contention I as a child, I was oblivious to it, however I do remember one time.

It was around 1967, I'm sure you've heard of the fun times going on in the South at the time, I was in the first grade and my mother had taken me to a little thing they were having at my grade school given by the PTA, fund raising I guess, silly little games, booths and what not.

To get in you had to pay a dime or something and go past these people registering parents to join the PTA, my mother showing an interest in doing so, the principle at the time then said in a very loud voice (pretend the voice I am using here is three times louder) “I don't know we let `derogatory racial slur deleted ' in here!” he said rearing back in his wooden school chair seemingly pretty sure he had just let loose with quite the witty bon mot and looking around the table at the others for his praise, the smiles of a few gave it, others did not, my mother had words with him.

To paraphrase the Tommy Lee Jones character from Captain America: The First Avenger, they had a conversation and it was one he did not enjoy, at least one of the teachers got on to him as well. He shut up, my mother joined the PTA. He left by the time I was in the second grade, replaced oddly enough by the man who gave me my first hair-cut... but I digress.

So, getting back to where I started, this lead me to think about a lot of things later, but being a child that at the time who, again borrowing from Pop Culture, more resembled Butters from South Park than Tom Sawyer, Ope or Bart Simpson, I was given over to new thoughts.

I was aware of my somewhat mixed heritage, and here I was being said to be a member of a third, “hmm” I wondered “what would it be like to be part of another group?”

That's about as deep as it got at the time, but there it was.

I still wonder about it in my own way.

So I made up the word transkindred.

You're welcome.

Some pictures I've made with this theme.

"Batman & Robin...The Mummy Crime Fighters!"

Back in the late 50s to mid 60s at DC comics Batman, Lois Lane, The Flash, Superman and Jimmy Olsen seemed be in a contest to see who could go though both the most transformations in number, and the most bizarre.

However they weren't the only ones, a lot of others, such as Rip Hunter and Mark Merlin, all the way to the whole Justice League of America a couple of times, also went though a change or two, or five, in the DC universe at the time it was almost like the flu or jury duty, hang around long enough and you have to deal with it at least once.

People make fun of it today (heck there were people making fun of then) but it had its reasons. The Comic Code Authority ruled with a heavy hand back then, and if you can't be endangered by, or engage in violence, other than a ray gun zap or a punch in the face, conflict in an action / adventure / fantasy filled media like the Superhero Comic genre becomes a bit of a problem. So who can blame them for putting Lois and Batman though so many changes that their DNA must have had stretch marks?

One of the more famous (notorious?) images from that era comes from Detective Comic # 320, cover date October 1963. A version of it was even used in the resent Brave & the Bold series on The Cartoon Network. They however changed it to involving King Tut from the old TV series.

The original story has Bruce and Dick returning from a vacation from being the Dynamic Duo, as they are driving though the wooded outskirts surrounding Gotham City they happen on a crashed space ship, investigating they discover that the pilot was a “strange robot” (normal robots almost never getting the job) that has had its head split open in the crash.

It is at that opportune moment that a green globe on a pole situated over the control panel decides to explode, escaping the ship Bruce and Dick are unharmed, but for some reason the orb has turned them both a bright green.

Knowing they have to stay under the radar they of course get right back to the Bat Cave and use all that Bat stuff to find out what is going on... No... don't be silly, they drive right into downtown Gotham, being seen by dozens of people, and then head for a doctor, where they find out that nothing is wrong with them, other than being green. (I want a second opinion, call Dr. Kermit! Call Dr. House!)

Getting back to where they should have headed in the first place, the Bat Cave, and knowing that now everyone has at least heard about the green Bruce and Dick, they try to hide the green with make-up, but it runs off as soon as they put it own, so much for it not having any effect on them!

Batman then decides they can wear rubber masks under their regular masks, but Robin points out that his arms and legs would still stick out so they can't do that (its called flesh colored pantyhose Robin, get to know it).

The Caped Crusader, as usual, has just the right harebrained scheme to fix things, he being sort of like a competent Willy Coyote during that era of the character's history (I've always suspected that Acme was a subsidy of Wayne Tech.)

Calling Commissioner Gordon as Bruce, Batman tells him about the crashed space ship that turned them green. By the time he and the police arrive Batman and Robin are there ahead of them where they are seen to be glowing a bright yellow, warning them to stay back as they or the ship might be dangerous Batman and Robin drive off. Of course the glow is really provided by “The special lighting effects... which we built into our belts... did the trick BATMAN!” Yeah, right robin, but to do it you did have to remove the refrigerator and the cyclotron, and Batman does love to nosh on some cold chicken while on a stake-out.

It now having been established that Batman & Robin are radioactive... and glowing, the crooks in Gotham, knowing the cops of said city are about as useful as a paper-mâché battleship, head out on a crime spree.

Eddie Crow and two of his goons are soon absconding with dollar festooned yellow bags in one hand and guns in the other. Much to their chagrin however a pair of mummies sporting the masks, capes and belts of the Dynamic Duo come swinging down from a roof and make short work of them.

More crime busting ensues courtesy of the mummy man-hunters . However Vicki Vale suspects that all this not as it seems, and suspects what the truth is.

After more daring do, such as on finding Batman hanging above molten steel with only one hand and under a crook's raised foot, Robin scares him off by taking off his head bandages and charging forward, his head aglow (again with the lighting effects that Rick Baker would really like to get hold of) eventually however they show up and save some people from a burning building... without being dressed like mummies!

Putting two and duo together Vicki heads out of Wayne Manor, sure she will find Bruce and Dick no longer green.

And yet their they set, still with their own green selves, oh well, better luck next time Vicki.

Of course the alien green has worn off, as well as its anti-make-up properties, So as Bruce and Dick they just put on green make-up to hide they are not Batman and Robin, oh the i-RO-ny!

Dumb Vicki Vale.

The alien ship, having served it's purpose as a plot engine having been forgotten we are to assume it is still somewhere moldering away in the woods outside Gotham City.

The second story in that issue involves John Jones, Manhunter (sic) from Mars, and Zook, his mentally challenged side-kick from another dimension, looking for a stolen gold statuette of an eagle. He doesn't even shape shift ONCE! Ehhh.

Citadel of Fear by Francis Stevens

Francis Stevens (Gertrude Barrows Bennett) was a grand writer, becoming a writer at the start of the last century because her explorer husband had died on an expedition and she needed money to take care of her daughter and ailing mother, she had no aspirations to making a living as one, and in fact stopped as soon as her financial woes were over.

Writing what has come to be called Dark Fantasy, and she the mother of same, she used themes that, while often cliché today, were original, or if not original differently used by her.

An example being her The Heads of Cerberus, in which she created the first Parallel Universe story, also both H. P. Lovecraft and A. Merritt had high praise for her, so that has to tell you something.

My point being she was both creative and innovative.

I bring her up here because of her 1918 story Citadel of Fear.

Its in this tale that I think, along with her great talent, we also find some of her major flaws.

First off I personally think that she could have really used a good editor.

Starting out as a lost world story I really wanted to found out more about this world with its glowing rivers, semi-intelligent bog-hounds, and strange people, and yet just as things really start to become their most fascinating things are abruptly ended and its 15 year later with one of the main protagonists and our point of view back in America, with the story changing from being a lost world adventure to being a Gothic Mystery / Monster story!

At first I was a bit put off by this and thought that there had been a mistake and chapters from the wrong book had been mixed, but then we find that yes this is one of the heroes from the first half of the story.

However, while not as well written as the first part, I was soon just as interested in the murky goings-on's involving mysterious monsters in the night, and what seems to be a perhaps mad scientist.

Unfortunately it also seems that at some point Ms. Bennett grew tired of the tale and left more than half a dozen mysteries unresolved, before ending it with an abruptness that left me going WHAT! That's it? Who stole the last chapter? Give it here!

Ah Well

But why post here with the theme of this Blog?


SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

Big reveal below

Well, it seems there are, though its not very clear that this is what is happening, more than a few amazing transformations.

It seems that more than just one of the two American adventures featured at the start of the story return.

Along with the big Irish lug from who's point of view we see thing from, the little conniving weasel we thought had been left behind to die after having an evil god or living statue or... I don't know, some damn thing, look into his soul and liking what it sees has, been taught by this cosmic supreme nastiness how to turn people into white apes, thinking slime hounds, creepy half-wit servant guys and giant glowing snakes, or worms, or... well, did I say the whole things is kind of murky? Well it is.

So there you have it, and despite my grousing it still is an interesting read, not great, but worth it for it's uniqueness.

And as it is now in the public domain if you have an electronic reader you can find it for free at the Gutenberg Project, Manybooks, or Amazon and even have it delivered via whispernet.

And if, after you read it, and you feel the need to write those last two or three final chapters tell me about it.