Trivia / Albedo: Erma Felna EDF

General Trivia

• Steve Gallacci has drawn all the issues of the comic since day one, and most of the official side stories. The only side stories he didn't draw, excluding the ones from the Refractions magazine, are First Impressions and Scenes from a Room, both were drawn by Mike Sagara and written by Mike Curtis, with Gallacci as the editor.
• Despite both Albedo and Usagi Yojimbo had debuted in the same place, neither Gallacci nor Stan Sakai had drawn anything related from each other's works (Gallacci drawing anything about Usagi, and Sakai about Albedo). It took until December 2020 for Gallacci to draw Usagi by himself in his own FurAffinity page and another one a year later, this time featuring Usagi AND Erma in the same place.

Trivia Tropes

• Ash Can Copy: The famous #0 issue is technically a prototype of the ILR's invasion to Derzon, but without named characters (or Erma included) and a short history named Bad Rubber, a furry parody of Blade Runner.
• Blooper:
  • In the Scenes From A Room side-story, when Kanoc returns home after being a prisoner of the ILR, he mentions as his sons both Erma and Tavas, while it should being Tasak instead, being Tavas Erma's first boyfriend when she gets enlisted to the EDF years later.
  • Another blooper is during the Ish-tako sub-arc when Dr. Elaki Kalahahaii found the human corpse, since she figured the human was a female, when she did't have a way to know that because the corpse was still dressed with astronaut gear, albeit many people thought she was trying to say "shit" instead.
  • During the second arc, the Canine (coyote) officer speaking with Toki has green fur, due to Gallacci being color blind and he didn't figured out the brush he used to paint him was tainted with another color until it was too late to correct the mistake.
• Breakthrough Hit: This comic was responsable to put Gallacci in the spotlight of the Furry Fandom in the 80s and most of the 90s. This also overlaps with Sleeper Hit, as, while not being the first Furry Comic geared for an adult audience (Fritz the Cat and Omaha the Cat Dancer predates it for a couple of years), it was the very first with a more serious, adult feel, without the need of unnecessary shock imagery or sex, which helped it to become into an instant hit with the 80s audiences.
• Channel Hop: Of the publisher type: For many unexplained reasons, possibly related with Schedule Slip the author is well known, Albedo has been published by many companies on its three-decade run: First in Thoughts & Images (80s), later with Antarctic Press (later 80s until 1999), and finally with the defunct Shanda Fantasy Arts in the 2000s on only two single issues. Gallacci stated the revival of the story will be published on his own page after finishing to upload the remaining back issues of the comic there.
• Creator Backlash: Gallacci has a very specific word for anything he previously did, but he doesn't like anymore because it clashes with his personal tastes: Jumping the Shark. Unlike the normal definition of the word, he invokes that trope on himself, rather than being the fans who invoke it, regardless of any other consideration:
  • A downplayed and specific example: In the 2016 uploading of the comic Gallacci has criticized earlier elements, artwork and plot points from the story because the way how those elements are depicted clashes, or with already consistent elements from later episodes, or with Gallacci's own personal values regarding how a sci-fi story should be told, even if those elements are accepted by the fans without any problem, like per example the whole deal with the EDF's Wave-Motion Gun: From the fandom POV, it raises the stakes to apocalyptic levels, while for Word of God, that element was an Old Shame for him, regardless of the quality and he retconned it.
• Creator Breakdown: Oh boy, where to begin: Besides the already mentioned death of Gallacci's wife and low sales, the author suffered one disgrace after another, including the deaths of many of his personal friends and other family members, the closure of Shanda Fantasy Arts and even the death of his pets, causing him have a serious case of depression that still endures to this day.
  • According with Gallacci himself in two posts regarding the topic, he suffered a very literal breakdown after his wife died, which also caused to even forget to pay his taxes, since the whole process was very painful for him, and it wasn't ultil 2018 when he was able to pay them again, just when the IRS started to threat him with jail.
  • Even before his wife's death, he suffered from depression in many points of his life and during the running of the comic. This is maybe one of the reasons why some plot points are so dark at times.
• Creator Recovery: Subverted: Gallacci announced he wants to resume the story from which it left off, albeit he will start first with uploading the older issues of the comic as a way to give the readers a better way to understand the ongoing plot, but at the end, he is still dealing with severe bouts of depression which prevents him from doing anything else.
• Dear Negative Reader: More than "Dear Stupid Reader" instead here: According with Gallacci, he received TONS of mails in the 80s asking him for back issues of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles^note The Mirage Studios version., despite Gallacci not having anything to do with neither their creators, nor with Mirage Studios, when the whole franchise was really hot in that era, even if technically he did exchange first issues with both Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. Rather than outright insulting the readers, he answer them with a more diplomatic approach:
  Gallacci: I can't help but wonder how many people actually bother to READ those 'zines?
• Development Hell: Where the continuation of the comic currently resides. Word of God stated the comic will continue once he finish to upload all the back issues up to the last one published in 2004, something that took him about four years (April 5th, 2016 to March 31th, 2019) meaning the comic could continue at 2020, at best.^note As Gallacci also included the Color Special (which is a single issue) and the Distant Finale (a two-issue side-story, plus The Stinger) in his homepage, when no one expect him to do, causing the uploading schedule of the second arc (composed of six issues to this date) to be delayed by few months.
• Doing It for the Art: Even if Gallacci could had become rich and famous, especially during the booming years of the independent comic book world in the 80s thanks to the success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Usagi Yojimbo and similar ones, he decided to stick on his guns and outright refusing any opportunity to exploit his property so he could still retain the creative control of it. This is one of the few cases when this trope ended up harming him at the end, a fact the author deeply regrets.
• Executive Meddling: Mostly averted, as Gallacci has worked as an indie mostly to avoid this, but the closest thing he managed to got was during the late 90s-earlier 2000s, when Shanda Fantasy Arts, his previous publisher, tried to do an unauthorized continuation of the comic (see below for details) when Gallacci himself originally planned to end the comic due to lack of interest. The whole situation forced him to continue with the comic until 2005.
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: Gallacci came with the idea of the comic in 1978, the very first issue was published in 1983 and the last published issue was published in 2005, and he's still plannning to finish the story somewhere in the future. Basically, he has expended half of his life on working in this comic in some way.
  • Albedo is a very unusual case, as its fandom has fluctuated greatly through the years since its debut, but never has gone beyond stages 3 or 4, with the fandom almost went between 6a to 6c from 2006 to 2015, no thanks to the death of Gallacci's wife who forced him to stay out of the spotlight and the notorious Fanwork Ban enforced by him and the fans for years until recently, making one of the most notorious cases when the author had a very tight leash on its own fandom mostly to avoid them from abusing his own works.
  • Actually, the whole franchise is actually at stage X, but not for the usual reasons, as most of the current fans are either old-time fans from years ago, or Gallacci's friends, with very few newbies around and this is thanks to the author uploading the whole comic in his official page. Also, just like Usagi Yojimbo, its popularity depends of the popularity from other, most popular work, in this case, from the already mentioned comic.
• Fanwork Ban: Gallacci is notorious for having a tight control over his property and banned any kind of fanart or fanfiction on the net. That ended backfiring against him later, especially after he cancelled the series, as only hardcore fans seems to remember the comic right now. There's a good reason, at least for him, for this standing: Gallacci disliked having to read lots of badly-written Star Trek fanfics, many of them full of thin-veiled excuses for shoe-horning their authors' fantasies on them, something he doesn't want to happen on his own work. Not that stopped some people to try it anyways. He recently seems to mellow out on this, as he doesn't see any problem with recent fanart. Due of this policy, there's only three known fanfics based in Albedo published outside the Refractions magazines in the net:
  • Round Robin Parody, who was written in the 90s on a Star Trek newsgroup and only the final episode survives in some sites, is a crossover with many sci-fi franchises, including for obvious reasons Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: The Original Series.
  • A Chance Encounter, a short fanfic who was published in an Albedo group in Yahoo Groups.
  • Liberi Fatalis: The Therianthrope Chronicles, a crossover fic with both Katmandu and Ace Combat.
• Flip-Flop of God:
  • Anything that deals with the Creators (humans). Even during the recent FAQ he refused to answer questions regarding this. Finally averted in 2018, when Gallacci stated that anything involving them written by other people is not considered canon.
  • In the same way, Gallacci politely refused to answer questions regarding the influences behind Albedo, albeit he has offered some clues regarding specific plotlines and characters in random interviews and in the comic itself in the foreword of each issue, but he traditionally avoids to give straight answers.
• Fountain of Expies: Due to the impact the comic had in the Furry Fandom, it's unsurprising to see expies in some works:
  • Possibly the most notorious expy is Katherine Fela/Alleycat from Extinctioners, who is basically a younger Erma with a proper tail and another mouse girl named Data looks a bit like Toki. It does help the author (Shawntae Howard) is a big fan of Albedo as well.
  • Leahtrah Middlesmith from Katmandu is also an expy from both Erma and her mother Eda.
  • Even Gallacci himself has included expies in many of his works: The titular Zell from Zell Sworddancer is basically Erma as an human. His most recent work, the short story Alone, Together has them for both main characters: Jerom is basically a gender-bended Toki mixed with Erma's father Kanoc and Danni is basically Erma as a rabbit, complete with a very similar background.
• Furries Are Easier to Draw: Gallacci stated this in the foreword on one of the earlier issues that one of the reasons why he came out with the idea of doing furry comics (and by default, Albedo) was because he couldn't draw humans too well at first, albeit he greatly improved this much later.
• Inspiration Nod: According with Word of God, the whole saga received inspiration from literally hundred of sources, coming from Anime (Space Battleship Yamato, Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion), literature (A Very British Coup, Watership Down), films (Blade Runner) and his own military experience in the USAF. The most notorious nod of this is regarding Space Battleship Yamato^note Spoiler-covered, because the sole name of the series reveals an important plot point if you know well the plot of the series. since both series features battleship warfare and the use of a Wave-Motion Gun as a super-weapon, except the Albedo version of it the same weapon is treated as an Artifact of Doom.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Unlike its sequel, Birthright, the original was never re-issued, but Gallacci himself recently announced he's planning to upload the original series in his FurAffinity's page. It doesn't help the comics were printed in a very limited printing run, especially the very first ones, who were printed by one of Word of God's friends and were sold mostly exclusively in conventions, albeit oddly enough the third and the 8th issues were the only ones printed with a printing run beyond 5000 issues, and that's the reason why those are very easier to find them even today.
• Life Imitates Art: A fan replicated the "rotees in sauce" dinner that appear in the third issue when Erma was in Ekosiak. This is not exactly surprising, as "rotees" (also named rotini, an Italian pasta^note For the record, Gallacci is Italian-American.) is a Real Life dish.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: The comic was riginally planned as a gag comedy, but it was shifted into a much serious military drama instead.
• Missing Episode: The online version of the comic included in Gallacci's personal home page omits everything not related to Albedo done from other authors (like Usagi Yojimbo) for legal reasons and the same goes with the online version of the "Refractions" fanzine. It also omits the side-stories, with the sole exceptions of the Color Special and the Distant Finale, since they're both critically canonical for the comic, and also omits the Recap Episode from the Ish-tako arc and the epilogue from the first arc, along with the liner notes used at the end of each issue, editorials, and the fan letter sections.
• No Adaptations Allowed:
  • A very contextual example: During the 80s and 90s, Gallacci received offers for adaptating the comic into animation, but he refused all of them, mostly for both fear losing creative control, and also to prevent Erma and the rest of the cast to do glorified cameos like Usagi Yojimbo, a fact that soured his relation with Stan Sakai.^note At least according with people who know both artists personally. On the other hand, he has no problems if someone could adapt the comic into the Anime format in Japan, or at least if someone could do an adaptation by sticking on his rules, albeit he is also aware that any adaptation of Albedo into animation will be negatively compared with Zootopia. (see below for details)
  • In a way related to this trope, the fact that all comic adaptations to games have been exclusively as tabletop games means that the author has a dislike toward any adaptations to electronic interactive formats, such as video games.
• No Export for You: Since it was originally an indie comic, not to mention it originally a very small printing run, it never was officially exported outside the U.S. until 2016 when Gallacci himself decided to upload the whole comic in his personal homepage.
• Referenced by...:
  • In Star Trek: The Next Generation's episode Cospiracy, Erma, Toki, Arrat, and even Gallacci, the author himself, are mentioned by name in the Command Order by their full names.
  • in the NES game Nightshade (1992), Erma and Toki are mentioned if you check out the crowbar at the beginning of the game, being this an extended reference about the infamous "Erma with a crowbar" joke.
• Schedule Slip: To put it simple, Gallacci is legendary in the fandom for rarely working with established schedules and this is one of the main causes why the comic is a long runner in an artificial way, since the story is barely on its climax, but the author took almost half of his life to even reach that point. The main reason of those slips, by Word of God, is due to very justified Real Life problems Gallacci have, since he has other jobs besides being an artist, not to mention the death of his wife, friends and family took a toll on his mental health and forced him to take a temporal break and only recently he resumed to draw again.
• Sequel Gap:
  • Well, not exactly sequel, but more accurately Story Arc Gap instead: The first arc was published intermentently from 1983 to 1992 and the second one from 1997 with a giant break until 2005 with only four issues: Two from Antarctic Press and the last two from Shanda Fantasy Arts. It doesn't include the SFA's side-stories published between the end of the AP's period and the beginning of the SFA's one in the 2000s.
  • Assuming there's no other delays, the upcoming continuation of the second arc will be this, since it was stopped in 2004, 14 years after the comic was Cut Short.
• Technology Marches On: Mostly averted. Since the plot in-universe has taken place over a period of six years, while on the other hand the comic has been in intermittent publication for over 30 years, within which the technology used within history is more or less equal to that used in real life, with some exceptions, Gallacci has never had the need to change or eliminate elements that might be outdated or out of place, since doing so would have caused a Plot Hole.
• Tribute to Fido: Enchawah's Frieda, Lees and Dru are named and designed after dogs owned by Gallacci's friends, complete with last names as well.
• Trolling Creator: Not as exaggerated as other examples, but Gallacci is notorious for outright trolling or confusing his fans by giving contradicting information regarding important future plot points of the story, being the most notorious one the fate of Erma's family after the ILR attack on their homeworld. When a fan asked him about that, his answer was basically they could be already dead, except they don't know that yet. How serious was Gallacci on that answer is still unknown at this date. And let's not talk about the Bizarro Episode mentioned below...
• What Could Have Been:
  • In the case you didn't get the rant the author does in the first issue of the Shanda Fantasy Arts version of the comic at the end of it in 2004, here's the whole story: SFA originally planned to write a crossover between Albedo with Katmandu, one of their main franchises, who was also planned as a Grand Finale of sorts for both comics, without Steve Gallacci's permission.^note That crossover planned to do the following: Solving all the remaining loose ties regarding with the Creators, giving Tavas Ikalik the punishment he deserved for letting the ILR bomb Erma's homeworld and killing her boyfriend, giving Erma another lover, who was an human being and creating another, unrelated enemy, named the Zorion Empire, an empire made of human cyborgs who are using the technology from the Creators from the past, who are trying to conquest both the ILR, Enchawah, EDF and the Katmandu's home planet. Needless to say, Gallacci was pissed off of this, since the whole idea clashed with many aspects of the established canon,^note Just to beginners, the ILR was planned to be depicted in that story in a even worse light than in canon, basically as a bunch of genocidal psychos. The ending of that story planned to finish with Erma and that human lover having a son between them, something impossible biogically and just plane stated in stone in canon. but rather than sue them, he decided to continuing to comic after a long hiatus, and included a short rant comic as a big Take That! against SFA and also against anybody who tries to mess with the canon of the comic by other means.
  • Also, according with an interview he did in the 80s and also in the prototype issue, Gallacci planned to include Mobile Suit-like giant robots, but decided no to include them due to being too unrealistic for the setting. Oddly enough, the prototype mecha looked like a furry-shaped version of the original RX-78-2 Gundam.
  • Gallacci was toying with the idea of an animated adaptation for years (both American or Japanese-made), but he changed his mind, partly because he wanted to avoid Adaptation Decay and also because he wanted to retain creative control, and that without going into the point any potential animated project involving Albedo will probably be negatively compared with Zootopia, despite Albedo predates Zootopia by three decades.^note Even with this, Gallacci doesn't hold any grudge against Disney, and he even draws many Zootopia fanart as well. He did even suggested the voice cast: Gallacci suggested Patrick Stewart as the voice of Itzak Arrat^note Keep in mind he suggested this at the end of the 80s, when Stewart was younger and when he was still playing Capt. Picard in the peak of the show's popularity. and for the titular heroine, his suggested voice actresses were Claudia Christian (aka Susan Ivanova) and Rula Lenska (aka Styles). There's also suggestions for a Japanese VA for Erma in the case of a hypothetical Japanese dub or an anime adaptation, being Yu Shimamura (aka Annie Leonhart, Haruka Haruno/Cure Flora and Aida Surugan) a choice for voicing her in Japanese.
  • Dr. Elaki Kalahahaii was planned to have a bigger role in the following planned issue, if Gallacci's wife hadn't died and forced him to put the story on hiatus: after very possibly the EDF failed to kill her with a bomb in her lab, they planned to send assassins to get rid of her for good, except she fights back by killing one of them with a literal boot to the head while being naked. By Word of God, that scene possibly will not going to be included in the revival, because it was possibly very out of character for her, albeit at September 2018 Gallacci explained he is planning yo include the unfinished draft of that issue after he finish with the uploading of the remaining back issues of the comic.
  • Regarding that unpublished issue, this cover was planned to be used, and according with Gallacci, the ILR fleet led by Barlahan attacked that EDF planet led by a Canine (Pomeranian) governor and her family.
  • The whole story was planned to be more cartoony and less serious like his previous work Astro Duck when the author was in the USAF, but after designing the setting, he quickly changed his mind.
  • Shawntae Howard, the author of Extinctioners and one the former artists behind Katmandu, originally planned to draw a story set in the Albedo universe, and he did even some pics of Erma as a way to get a hold on her design, but the plans fell through due to a mix of both Gallacci having to put a hold on the comic as a result of his wife having cancer, and dying later on, and also due to some public backlash against him, due to the fanservice-driven nature of his artwork, which was perceived as clashing with the serious tone of the narrative, despite Gallacci himself giving his blessing about his art.
• Word of Gay: Gallacci confirmed that Toki is bisexual, at least for Erma, from her very debut, but it wasn't until 2016 when he finally revealed her sexuality.
• Word of God: Oh boy, if you though Masaki Kajishima, the creator of Tenchi Muyo!, was bad on this, Gallacci managed to outdo him: Basically, all the information regarding how the Albedo universe works, outside of what is already published in the comic on-story, normally can be found from the following sources:
  • From the liner notes that came at the beginning and at the end of the comic.
  • From the Refractions anthology, a trilogy of hard-to-find magazines, which includes lots of information about the story of the setting, about the Creators, and some info about Erma's childhood.
  • From Usernet newsgroups previous to the existence of the WWW in the 80s.
  • From both Gallacci's DeviantArt and FurAffinity's personal pages. And his own personal site as well.
  • From side-stories published in other anthologies besides Albedo.
  • From very obscure interviews Gallacci did in the past in many magazines and websites.
  • From info Gallacci himself gave in conventions. One very obscure but important trivia he mentioned in a con regarding one of the characters not mentioned anywhere (In this case, it involves Col. Onni Hitzok) is the fact he's already married, and Dea, his actual girlfriend, is his concubine.
• Working Title: Originally, while the name Albedo remained, the subtitle was originally Albedo: Funny Animal Magazine and later as Albedo: Anthropomorphic Action, before sticking to Albedo Anthropomorphics for the whole anthology.
• Write What You Know: Most of the author's trademark way to explain most of the technology used in the setting, use of military lingo and other details came from Gallacci's own experience in the USAF, from the fact he hails from a family of mechanics and also being a repentless nerd as well.
• Write Who You Know: By Word of God's admission, most of the characters and some of their respective personalities are based in both real people and even pets. Erma and her father are based in Gallacci himself, up to both Erma and Word of God dislike being pitied, most of the Capt. Arrat's crew members are named after the author's late pets of his friends, plus many others.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: In a recent FAQ in his FurAffinity's page, Gallacci admitted most of the plot was written this way, albeit he already had a vague outline about how the story will develop.

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