The recent blast of Rifts related Bundles of Holding had me not only spending a bit of money (with 5 bundles one was bound to get me!) but also got me thinking about the lack of a sort of "Appendix N" documented for the game. In fact, so far as I can find on the internet, its creator has never really discussed his influences, though apparently he has said it grew out an earlier version called Boomers focused on the mecha pilots later called "Glitter Boys." The former name was abandoned when someone told him the term was used in Bubblegum Crisis (which rules that anime out as an influence).
So, I want to look back at the media prior to August of 1990 and think about the things that seem like plausible influences on Rifts. Obviously, I have no way of knowing whether any of these things actual were, but they'll be at least somewhat educated guesses, using what is known of Siembieda's interests.
I'm going to stick to things with multiple points of applicability. Firestarter, for instance, might be an inspiration for the burster (or might not), but that's really the only Rifts-relevant point.
Film/Television
Planet of the Apes series (starts in 1968). Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) seems the most relevant as a post-apocalypse with evolved animals and psychic mutants.
Damnation Alley (1977) - post-apocalyptic with a team with a cool vehicle.
Star Wars trilogy (starts in 1977) - An evil empire with a toyetic flair, a lot of aliens; knights with energy swords.
Thundarr the Barbarian (1980) - post-apocalypse with super-science and sorcery; the sunsword.
Blade Runner (1982) - future city aesthetic, artificial humans.
The Terminator (1984) - robot, travel between "worlds" (or in this case, times)
Robotech (1985) - Mecha, aliens.
Akira (1988) - Dystopia with psychic powers, "city rats", and a future urban landscape. The manga Akira also started its American publication this year.
Comics
"War of the Worlds" (Killraven) (starts in 1973 in Amazing Adventures v2 #30) - Post-apocalyptic world conquered by aliens, features freedom fighters and mutants.
Deathlok saga (begins in Astonishing Tales #25 in 1974) - A government cyborg in a post-apocalyptic future, based in the Midwest.
Judge Dredd (in
2000AD from 1977) - future in a megacity in a dystopian future with psychics, robots, and mutants. Most
Rifts-relevant is arc may be "
The Cursed Earth" in 1978.
Dreadstar (1982) - A space opera team of sort of superheroes but not officially featuring a guy with a psychic sword, a psychic, a cybernetic wizard, and a cat man battle an evil empire.
Grimjack (1984) - features a pan-dimensional city where magic and technology co-exist.
Scout (1985) - Takes place in a dystopian future; a lot of guns, some mystic monsters, a few mechs.
Appleseed (1988, in English) - cyberpunk, mecha, cyborgs.
I am reliably told that there are a number of anime and manga whose designs seem to have influenced greatly Rifts artists. I haven't repeated those here because I'm not sure what influence they had on Seimbeida, and I personally am not familiar enough with them to do more than repeat what I've heard.
4 comments:
This is awesome. I feel like Justice Machine was probably in the mix, given Messner-Loebs early input and the thematically crowded superhuman future. Probably some direct Space Battleship Yamato hangover from the Mechanoid books . . . dying planets, diabolical opposition, desperate fleets, not quite the Battlestar Galactica vibe although now that I mention it they are basically cylons complete with unnecessarily complicated backstory.
The question of *which* mecha influences the proposed "boomers" drew on is probably best left for real experts! Are they gundamlike, grandizerlike, johnny sokkolike, . . . ?
Given that Siembieda did some work in the Justice Machine comic, that's a good bet. Mechanoids in general is a gap in my knowledge of him, so a review of those earliest publications would likely be fruitful.
Kamandi is in the mix for comics too - and was certainly influenced by Planet of the Apes itself. In both cases you can see the influences more clearly in the TMNT/After the Bomb books, but it still comes through in Rifts. Kamandi is particularly gonzo in the same way as Rifts, as a look at Kirby's famous world map for the setting shows.
Definitely. Leaving it off was an oversight. Also, Vampire Hunter D.
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