Delivering the 10 Commandments of 'Ibis Head People Planet!'
Chapter 2 in our ongoing serial introducing a new webcomic.
See chapter 1 in the origin story of “Ibis Head People Planet!” here.
Richard King sat at his desk in his writing room and library at 8:34 am on Monday, July 28 anxious that he needed to go and start the day's hunt for an article on antisemitism to write.
And then he paused for a moment. He had intended to invoke Thoth so that he could receive the list of rules for this “Ibis Head People Planet” web comic, which are apparently the actual laws of this other dimension which he had now been granted access to viewing and channeling into existence through AI and Substack.
Somewhat annoyed, Richard held aloft the brass ankh and asked "Thoth, I invoke thee, can we get this over with quickly, please?”
The Ibis head god didn't even bother to appear, his words just started flowing into Richard's mind, as though he were listening to him on headphones.
"So first of, all, go and find that Corpus Hermetica, I think it's out by your work desk in the living room, because you have written in the genre before of just channeling me. So if you study it then that will make it easier to do this again."
Richard shrugs and sticks out his bottom lip; that seems to make sense to him, so he runs out, and looks on his shelf. It's not there. But he sees The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic by Alan Moore and Steve Moore (no relation) so he picks that up, then recalls that The Way of Hermes: New Translations of the Corpus Hermetica and Te Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Aslcepus is over to the right of his altar in the kitchen. He runs and grabs both before dashing back to his Freewrite typewriter in the library since he is really starting to feel the crunch now.
"OK,” he says "All set." Then he pops the tan book with a photo of a hieroglyph of Thoth with a golden sun and horns over his head, a thinner than usual blue beak with matching blue headdress, chipped, and orange, tan skin, also chipping below the chest and at the right hand.
Richard puts on Lady Gaga's "Abracadabra" in hope to really get the magick flowing.
"OK, we're all set now, get down! Rock it out!"
And suddenly Thoth manifests behind Richard in his hiergophly but as cartoon form and starts dancing to the Gaga slapping bop, but then it shifts to “Freedom of the Night” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor on Google music.
"Oh what is this crap?”
Thoth stops. “Give me something with some beat, let's get going. Music is my domain too you'll recall. It's all energy and communication and power and magick spells."
“Alright. Any requests?" Richard thinks
"No, you pick. Whatever you pick will actually be my pick but then at least you will think it is your pick."
"Oh, screw you," Richard things, recalling the frustrating suggestion that he and all humans are just puppets doing what the languaGE GOD DICTATES. SCREW YOU ALL HA HA HA HA I AM IN CHARGE OF YOUR WORDS.
OK.
Richard reaches up and looks at his coffee, sees nothing and sighs.
He looks again at the clock on his phone anxiously, then recalling he should just look at the analog clock on the Freewrite, even knowing that it appears to be a couple minutes behind.
That's OK. Does it really matter that much? It's the substitute editor on and he'll probably have something for him to write on or he can get one quickly.
So let's hurry up and get the 10 Commandments please? Richard thinks to Thoth. What are the basic constraints by which you want this Substack Comic to operate so that people can know what to expect?
Thoth starts popping up quickly to the beat as "Hello" by Dragonette starts, as the previous lame song had concluded before Richard could switch to something else.
"See, the illusion of choice!" Thoth squeals as he bops up and down
"I just came to say ‘hello!’ Hello!" The lyrics chirp. "Hello, oh Hell!"
Richard said, “All right, so let's get the rules, I have to get to work. There are antisemites to expose.”
"Certainly!" Thoth stands tall above Richard, towering behind him, looking down at the keyboard.
Richard cranes his neck upwards and locks his eyes onto one of the Joshua trees and the pale blue skies, three power lines across the street and a magnolia—or is it white lotus?— yes white lotus tall bush, perhaps 20 or maybe 15 feet tall, no 20.
So here we go:
Everyone and all animals have ibis heads.
The timeline concludes on Dec. 31, 2000. There will be no direct references to 21st century culture or technology.
The planet is essentially a utopia. This is the way station where souls stop by when deciding what they want to do with their next life, if they want to reincarnate as someone else, or stay hanging out here in Ibis Head People Planet, or go and reunify with God. Your choice, including on what the next life will be. Free will and fate are unified because you have the free will to fate your life before it happens.
"Hey!" Richard says. "Let's not get off track. I have to get to work, remember."
“Sure, sure,” Thoth says. “But get this Kylie Minogue off, get me something badass, some Trent Reznor ‘Hand That Feeds,’ damn it.”
Richard obediently followed instructions. "OK, number 3 and let's hold off on the theological digressions, OK? We get it. Utopia and pleasant stuff. Let's continue.”
He pulls up his empty coffee cup for a third time, annoyed, then grips the neck of the little Pixar-style desk lamp, turning it on to try and get some illumination.
The visual style will perpetually evolve from the mediums and arts of all visual culture from the start of cave drawings to the beginnings of CGI with the animated movies of 2000 at the latest. Hey what movies were those? Best animated films in 2000?
Richard signs. He doesn't have time for this.
"Will you bite the hand that feeds you?" Reznor asks.
"OK, understood," Richard says. "But can we stop at 5 and then do the remaining 5 tomorrow or later today or something?"
"Yes, that's fair, it's almost 9:00 now, I understand, you can't be any later." Thoth says as Rob Zombie's “Dead City Radio” starts.
So last point, what is the most important thing next for people to get and for me to use to limit myself about the way this series will work?
"Well wait, what are the 2000s movies?” Thoth asks “So you know the limits of the visual style, you can then do them in that visual style…”
OK, so here's Rule #5:
The power will be in invoking the nostalgia for all of late 1900s culture, particularly the ‘60s-’90s. So for the end of CGI style you can use:
Richard annoyed, picks up his phone, pulls up Chat GPT, and the "Thoth's Playhouse" GPT he has started training to create these cartoons according to the rules being dictated by Thoth. Those named, with the title "The Swan Songs of Animation, Year 2000”
Dinosaur (Disney)
Chicken Run (Aardman/Dreamworks)
Emperor's New Groove (Disney)
The Road to El Dorado (Dreamworks)
Titan AI (Fox Animation)
Richard felt surprised. He pulls up the phone again and says into the text to speech "Jeez, I thought there was gonna be more. So like since Toy Story, between Toy Story and end fo 2000, what animated CGI movies are there?
Answer: Antz, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Dinosaur, Chicken Run (has some CGI), Sinbad,
“So basically,” Richard says to Thoth. “I should not even bother with art that looks computer generated. Just about everything should be traditional animation and back as well as visual aesthetics from periods. Right?”
"Damn right! Now you can go and get to work and we will write the rest later!"
Richard was glad to have made some progress but a bit unnerved at the prospect of being given the laws of a new religion in between freelance writing gigs. Now which flavor of K-cup would he do next when writing his article on hate groups for the day?
