Artists Bruce Rosenbaum and Ben Cowden earned film credits recently for prop design on the PBS documentary The Lie Detector: A Truly Unbelievable Story. This ambitious historical account of real-life inventors, marketers, law enforcement professionals, and snake oil salesmen traces the interconnected lives of John Larson, William Marston and Leonarde Keeler. 

In this classic science fiction tale, the protagonist has his futuristic electricity-powered submarine almost destroyed by a giant squid. What if Capt. Nemo created a mechanical “octopus” Kraken that he could pilot to attack and defeat his actual, biological nemesis?