Gather in your brush all of heaven and earth and you shall never tire
— Yamaoka Tesshu

Created by Robert Elsmore, a multidisciplinary storyteller, illustrator, and world-builder (plus actor), the Middlemarch Universe is a sprawling mythos that spans prehistory to the far future, where dinosaurs share the stage with time travelers, vampire industrialists, and golden-age superheroes. Blending pulp, myth, horror, satire, and speculative fiction, Robert breathes new life into forgotten public domain icons and original creations with equal parts reverence and irreverence. His work fuses bold visuals, cinematic narratives to build a universe where history folds, timelines rupture, and every relic has a pulse.

Robert’s creative lineage draws from a rich and varied pantheon of artistic “parents” and inspirations: the wonder and whimsy of Jim Henson and Walt Disney; the poetic melancholy of Leonard Cohen and David Bowie; the mythic grandeur of J.R.R. Tolkien and the brushwork of Arthur Rackham and Norman Rockwell. His storytelling is shaped by the bold voices of Stan Lee, Chris Claremont, and Jack Whyte; the naturalist spirit of Gerald Durrell; and the philosophical depth of Marcus Aurelius and Sir Richard Burton. From the battlefield prose of Bernard Cornwell to the haunted introspection of Joseph Conrad, from the cinematic eye of Annie Leibovitz and Lee Miller to the comic absurdity of Flight of the Conchords, The Lonely Island, and yes—even Garth Marenghi—his work blends the epic and the intimate, the serious and the silly, the ancient and the hypermodern. Somewhere between a Rackham sketch and a Larry Elmore fantasy cover, between a Holst crescendo and an Enya echo, you’ll find the heart of Famebright Studio.