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News

News Roundup 2025-01-05

Personal / Website News

Citations Galore

Happened across two new citations of my Stranger Things/synthwave essay, so I’d like to share them and invite you to take a gander at these scholars’ work:

And coming from Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern, there is a citation of Danny Rhodes’ essay:

Panthans Journal #331

The newest issue of the The National Panthans Journal has been published. This issue contains a re-print of my review of The Moon Maid: Catacombs of the Moon #2.

Paraphrased from the zine: The National Capital Panthans Journalis a monthly publication issued as a .PDF file on the Saturday before the first Sunday of each month. Contribution of articles, artwork, photos and letters are welcome. Send submissions to the editor: Laurence G. Dunn at laurencegdunn@gmail.com in a Word document for consideration.

A Hero Will Endure Paperback Relese + Discount

Vernon Press, the publisher of A Hero Will Endure: Essays at the Twentieth Anniversary of Gladiator, has just released a cheaper, paperback version of the book, just in time for Gladiator 2!

The paperback is at the much more friendly price of $57 compared to $96 for the hardcover and $107 for an electronic version. All editions of the book can be found at the Vernon Press product page.

In addition, the publisher is offering a coupon on purchases of the collection! From now until the end of January 2025, if you use code SLZM30 at check out, you’ll get 30% off the title. So, the $57 book now becomes $39.99. Nice!

ECOF 2025

In September of 2025 there will be an Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship (ECOF) event down in Willcox, AZ. This event is to celebrate the 150th birthday of Burroughs while also honoring him with a plaque in the town due to his stationing with there the 7th U.S. Calvary in the 1890s. (Note: another ERB convention was held in Willcox back in 2019 and an event recap of that can be read at ERBZine #7059).

Here is a flyer for the 2025 event:

I’ll share more information about the event as I find out more on my website updates. There currently is a fundraiser going on to raise funds for the ERB plaque, and details for that can be found in the QR code in the above graphic, or by checking out the donation page at the Sulphur Springs Valley Valley Historical Society. 3.8K of 5K has been raised already. 

Michele and I will be in attendance for this convention, so I’ve added it to the appearances section of my website as well. 

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2025.

Comic Book Review: “The Moon Maid: Catacombs of the Moon #2″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #332.

Calls for Papers/Proposals

Here are some new pop culture CFPs that have crossed my path. Links to these will also be in the CFP page on the navigation bar.

The Gore Gore Film Book

Edited by:
Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns (Universidad de Buenos Aires)
Kevin Wetmore (Loyola Marymount University)

We, the editors, are looking to put together an edited collection on gore on film and gore films. The recent success of films such as the Terrifier franchise and Smile has shown that there is a growing interest in gore films. This interest is not recent, as the gore film began in the mid-sixties, with the godfather of gore, Herschell Gordon Lewis, directing Blood Feast, a fringe hit that would bring gore to the forefront. That first success would be followed by others, each of them bloodier (The Wizard of Gore; The Gore Gore Girls) but gore would not reach mainstream cinema until the 1980s, with the rise of the slasher and its inventive murders. This new visibility would clash many times with the MPAA and feed the UK “video nasties” controversy. Magazines like Fangoria would be in charge of rescuing the gore scenes from the editing room floor, putting exploded heads on their covers.

However, gore was always frowned upon, a trashy resource to attract unsophisticated viewers. It is in our contemporary times that gore reached a novel point: mainstream recognition as another cinematographic tool to tell a story and appeal to the spectator’s sensorium. Today gore seems to have reached a certain degree of respectability.

However, it has not yet achieved critical recognition, with few studies on gore cinema within academic scholarship. This edited collection aims to begin to fill this gap by offering several chapters that conceptualize gore from different interdisciplinary perspectives, while offering close readings of gore films.

This collection will be divided into two main theoretical sections: the first will be focused to analyzing gore itself, centering on its aesthetics, its ethics, its relationship with the spectator, etc. The second section will be devoted to close readings of gore films of any period and nationality.

Contributions could include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Section I:

  • Gore and aesthetics (including color, thickness, digital blood vs. practical blood, etc.)
  • Gore and humor
  • Gore and ethics
  • Gore and theology
  • Gore and spectatorship
  • Gore and art house sensibilities
  • Gore and the body
  • Gore on video vs. gore in cinema
  • Gore and horror film magazines

Section II:

  • American slashers
  • Auteur cinema
  • Gore in mainstream horror films
  • European gore films
  • Asian gore films
  • Herschell Gordon Lewis’s films.
  • Gore in classic films

We are open to works that focus on other topics as well. Prospective authors are well to contact the editor with any questions, including potential topics not listed above. Please submit a 300-500-word abstract of your proposed chapter contribution as a Word Doc (not PDF) with a brief bio (in the same document), current position, affiliation, and complete contact information to editors Kevin Wetmore and Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns to goregorebook@yahoo.com by 28 February 2025. Full chapters of 5,000-6,000 words are likely due in October 2025. A renowned publisher has shown preliminary interest.

Please share this announcement with anyone you believe would be interested in contributing to this volume.

Note: Acceptance of a proposed abstract does not guarantee the acceptance of the full chapter

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns (PhD in Arts, PhD Candidate in History) works as Professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) – Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (Argentina)-. He teaches courses on international horror film. He is director of the research group on horror cinema “Grite” and has authored a book about Spanish horror TV series Historias para no Dormir (Universidad de Cádiz, 2020) and has edited books on Frankenstein bicentennial (Universidad de Buenos Aires), one on director James Wan (McFarland, 2021), the Italian giallo film (University of Mississippi Press, 2022), horror comics (Routledge, 2022) and Hammer horror films (Routledge, 2024). Currently editing a book on Baltic horror. He is Director of “Terror: Estudios Críticos” (Universidad de Cádiz, Spain), the first-ever horror studies series in Spain.

Kevin Wetmore (Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh) is a professor of Theatre Arts at Loyola Marymount University, teaching courses in horror cinema and horror theatre, among others. He also transforms his university library into a literary haunted house every October. He is a six-time Bram Stoker Award nominee, author of thirteen books including Eaters of the Dead: Myths and Realities of Cannibal Monsters (Reaktion, 2021) and Post-9/11 Horror in American Cinema (Continuum, 2012), and editor or co-editor of another nineteen volumes, including The Streaming of Hill House (McFarland, 2020), Theatre and the Macabre (University of Wales Press, 2022) and The Many Lives of the Purge (McFarland, 2024).

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Some fun things and shout outs from these past few weeks.

Shadows Over Main Street

I shared over on my BlueSky account (link) my copy of Shadows Over Main Street.

I got my copy autographed by a handful of contributors at one of the StokerCon events: D. Alexander Ward, Stephanie M. Wytovich, James Chambers, Lucy A. Snyder, Josh Malerman, and Lisa Morton. Scroll through the gallery above to check them out.

Biblical Pepla Haul

On New Years Eve Michele and I visited our local Zia Records to do a little shopping of used music and movies. I walked away with way too much loot, but also procured three Biblical epics on Blu-ray.

The three movies were Samson and Delilah (Cecil B. DeMille, 1949), The Robe (Henry Koster, 1953), and its sequel, Demetrius and the Gladiators (Delmer Daves, 1954). Plucking up Demetrius and the Gladiators on Blu-ray was extremely fortuitous. Twilight Time, a now defunct boutique label, released the Blu-ray edition and it is way out of print and commands absurd prices on eBay (the same fate as with their Blu-ray release of The Egyptian [Michael Curtiz, 1954]). Note: I did a write up of the Twilight Time release of Messalina (Vittorio Cottafavi, 1960) which can be read here.

Ride the Stream Podcast Episode 01

Michele and Travis Lakata have started a vidcast together called Ride the Stream. They are currently going through each episode of the cult TV series Lost. The vidcast’s debut episode just got published. The episode can be watched on the Ride the Stream’s YouTube channel or via the embedded player below.

Ride the Stream can be followed on Bluesky.

Cowgirls and Synthesizers

One of my favorite electro-pop bands is Hyperbubble. I’ve been a super fan of theirs since buying a copy of Candy Apple Daydreams from A Different Drum way back in the late 2000s.

Hyperbubble put together a documentary about the making of their Western Ware album, and their exploration of country and cowgirl/boy (pop toy) aesthetics. The documentary is called Cowgirls and Synthesizers and more information about it can be found at the Hyperbubble website.

I am super chuffed to discover I am listed in the Thank You section in the credits!

Categories
News

News Roundup 2024-12-22

Personal / Website News

Review: Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore

One more article up here at the website before 2024 ends and I am going out talking to what I believe is the video game of the year: Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore.

I had pre-ordered this game from Limited Run thinking it would be a fun little CD-i Zelda curio, but it turned out to be a fantastic adventure/Metroidvania that I could not put the controller down (I beat the game across all difficulties in just a few days). I loved this game and I hope you check out my write up about it here.

Fan2Fan Podcast Appearances

The cool kids at the Fan2Fan Podcast have dropped two episodes that I am a guest on.

First there is the episode “Nick Diak Recommends“.

Nick Diak's Movie Recommendations – Fan2Fan Podcast

And then there is an episode of me reminiscing about Scarecrow Video in Seattle back in the 2000s.

Scarecrow Video with Nick Diak – Fan2Fan Podcast

These episodes can be streamed via the links above, or the embedded players, or through your favorite Podcast App. Check them out!

Sincere appreciation to the Fan2Fan crew for having me on their podcast.

Vilioti Noir

Sincerely chuffed to find myself name dropped in the new book Vilioti Noir: Interviews with the World’s Greatest Neo-Noir Creatives. What an honour!

The book is the brain child of Lady Medusa and Jimmy Vargas. I’ve reviewed Vargas’ fiction in an issue of Exotica Moderne, and I’ve reviewed Medusa/Vargas’ prior collaboration, Vilioti Vintage, right here at my website. Give it a read!

I don’t think Vilioti Noir is out in the wild for purchase yet, but when it is, it will probably be found at the Vilioti Press website.

Citation News

The New Peplum has been cited in Ronald Blankenborg’s essay “The Wide Canvas of human Drama: Fantasizing Antiquity Through Graphic Novel” in the open source/access journal Thersites.

The essay can be read here – check it out!

McFarland Holiday Sale

Did you miss out on McFarland’s Black Friday sale of 35% off books? Well, worry not for the publisher is still doing an online sale, though at 20% off instead of 35% off. Still a great deal! During check out, use code HOLIDAY24 to get 20% off your order.

If you want to support me, consider buying a copy of The New Peplum or Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern:

The New Peplum

New Peplum McFarland Page

Horror Literature McFarland Page

If you want to support Michele, consider buying James Bond and Popular Culture and Horror in Space: Critical Essays (I have essays in both):

James Bond McFarland Page

Horror in Space McFarland Page

If you’re interested in another book that I have an essay in, consider The Many Lives of the Twilight Zone and Uncovering Stranger Things:

Twilight Zone Product Page

Uncovering Stranger Things McFarland Page

A Hero Will Endure Paperback Relese + Discount

Vernon Press, the publisher of A Hero Will Endure: Essays at the Twentieth Anniversary of Gladiator, has just released a cheaper, paperback version of the book, just in time for Gladiator 2!

The paperback is at the much more friendly price of $57 compared to $96 for the hardcover and $107 for an electronic version. All editions of the book can be found at the Vernon Press product page.

In addition, the publisher is offering a coupon on purchases of the collection! From now until the end of January 2025, if you use code SLZM30 at check out, you’ll get 30% off the title. So, the $57 book now becomes $39.99. Nice!

ECOF 2025

In September of 2025 there will be an Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship (ECOF) event down in Willcox, AZ. This event is to celebrate the 150th birthday of Burroughs while also honoring him with a plaque in the town due to his stationing with there the 7th U.S. Calvary in the 1890s. (Note: another ERB convention was held in Willcox back in 2019 and an event recap of that can be read at ERBZine #7059).

Here is a flyer for the 2025 event:

I’ll share more information about the event as I find out more on my website updates. There currently is a fundraiser going on to raise funds for the ERB plaque, and details for that can be found in the QR code in the above graphic, or by checking out the donation page at the Sulphur Springs Valley Valley Historical Society. 3.8K of 5K has been raised already. 

Michele and I will be in attendance for this convention, so I’ve added it to the appearances section of my website as well. 

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2024.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#1″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #326.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#2″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #327.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#3″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #328.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus / Warlord of Mars #1″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #329.

“Wondercon 2019 Coverage: Tarzan, John Carter, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.: What’s New?” reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #330.

Comic Book Review: “The Moon Maid: Catacombs of the Moon #1″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #331.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Some fun things and shout outs from these past few weeks. I shared a lot of autographed swag on Bluesky, so I’m going to reshare them here.

Forgotten Realms Campaign Boxset

Last year I shared the tale of how my Local Comic Book Store back in Federal Way had Jeff Grubb as a customer and did a meet-n-greet and signing event with him. I shared that Grubb has signed one of my Forgotten Realms modules, “Endless Armies”. That recap can be read here.

Grubb signed lots of other stuff from Michele and I. One of the other items he signed was my Forgotten Realms campaign boxset. Check that bad boy out! And I still have everything in it too!

Space Truckers DVD

Someone on Bluesky did a post that shared their adoration of the Stuart Gordon movie Space Truckers, which afforded me the perfect opportunity to share my autographed copy of the film.

I’ve shared my autographed copy of RobotJox before (link here), but I never talked about how we met Gordon (RIP). He was a guest at a Monsterpalooza event in the LA Area, and here is a picture of all of us. He will be missed!

Cherry 2000 DVD

The 80s gave us lots of cyberpunk films, from Bladerunner to Akira to Max Headroom. Cherry 2000 is, I feel, a forgotten film of 80s cyberpunk. I have a copy of the DVD signed by cult actor Tim Thomerson and Connie Woods.

Connie Woods was in an episode of the original run of Twin Peaks. I met her at Twin Peaks reunion at a Hollywood Collector’s show where she signed my DVD:

Italian Sexy Comedy

A book from the collection, here is Italian Sexy Comedy. This book is 99% pictures from Italian sex-comedy films, so stockings everywhere. I love it.

But, I also love it in that its shore foreword is pretty informative in talking about how Italian horror films faved the way for the sex comedies. This actually become a big point in my masters thesis back in the day.

My book is also signed by starlet Barbara Bouchet!

Victoria Vetri Autographs

A couple months ago I sent off my Blu-ray sleeves of When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth and Kings of the Sun to Hammer Glamour lady Victoria Vetri, and I just got them back. Check them out!

And:

Since one film is a spear and fang movie and the other a Mesoamerican Historic Epic, Michele and I will probably wind up talking about them on a vidcast next year.

The Children of Gla’aki

Finally, one more sharing of autographed loot from the archives, is my copy of The Children of Gla’aki.

My copy is signed by the legendary Ramsey Campbell:

And the prolific Tim Waggoner:

If folks recall, Michele and I rebooted the HP Lovecast Podcast talking about stories from this book. That episode can be streamed at this link, the embedded player below, or through your podcast app of preference.

Ep 26 – The Children of Gla'aki – H. P. Lovecast Podcast

Categories
Essays Peplum

Game of the Year: Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore

Non-PC videogaming during the 90s was predominately dominated by three companies: Nintendo (Super Nintendo, N64, and the Gameboy), Sega (Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast), and, in the latter half of the decade, Sony (Playstation). It was an era of innovation (graphics and online capabilities), experimentation (FMV and system add-ons), and transition (12 bit to 32 to 64, cartridges to CDs), and these three companies trailblazed the gaming Wild West. Of course, other companies would throw their hats into the ring to partake in the Console Wars, though most would fail miserably: Atari with the Jaguar, 3DO Company with the 3DO, and Philips with the CD-i (SNK’s Neo-Geo is an outlier console). These consoles failed for just reasons (lack of gaming libraries, hard to develop for, poor performance), but remain a curious aspect of gaming history, though practically inaccessible to revisit with retrogaming in mind. Emulation of these systems is difficult and out of reach of a typical gamer, hardware is expensive and prone to break, and console exclusive titles do not see releases.

That is until the past few years in which failed console games have started to be resurrected with re-releases. Atari 50, released in 2022, is a museum/compilation hybrid release that contained nine Atari Jaguar titles, providing the first opportunity in thirty years to play these games. In 2024 Limited Run Games re-released the maligned 1993 3DO game Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties, allowing gamers to experience one of the worst video game titles in existence. 

Cover art for Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore.

Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore, also released by Limited Run Games in 2024, is title born out of these resurrected titles. Back in 1993, Philips released two Legend of Zelda games on its CD-i console: Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon (the same year the Super Mario Bros. movie was released [Nintendo seemed to be a bit more laissez-faire with their properties back them]). The two Zelda games became notorious for their poor quality, horrible controls, and most famously, their cartoon cutscenes. Someone looked at these two Zelda games and said, “But what if they were remade – but made good?” The end result is Arzette, and it is an AMAZING game.

Released across all major gaming platforms, Arzette is a fantasy adventure game with some light Metroidvania elements, an homage to the two aforementioned Zelda games, and a love letter to a different style of retrogaming that has not been accessible for some time. 

The river level in Arzette. The colorful backgrounds done in an drawn/painted style are like this for every level.

The first thing players will notice about Arzette is its art style and animation. The narrated intro to Arzette is done in a colour-pencil, storybook style. The game proper shies away from the pixel art that has dominated retrogaming and instead embraces a painted aesthetic, which gives each level a unique look. The enemies are also done in a similar style, at times giving them the appearance of vaporwave artwork. The cutscenes of the game are straight poorly animated cartoon style as used the in CD-i Zelda games, and almost reminiscent of rudimentary Flash animation during the format’s heyday. All of this gives Arzette a distinct and unique charm. It does not look like any other game out there right now, while at the same time evoking the imagery of early 90s non-pixel gaming. 

Cutscene of Arzette and the Ice Lady. The animation is crude and the style purposely campy and low budget.

The music of Arzette, composed by Jake Silverman, is an absolute banger and compliments the game’s visual aesthetics. The score is firmly in the realm of fantasy, but it almost has a pirate, tropical vibe to it at times (it would not be out of place in a Shantae game at all). It is upbeat and carries the feeling of exploration. Even the tracks for more sinister looking levels (such as the volcano level) and boss fights sound positive instead of aggressive and menacing. This is a whimsical game and the soundtrack underscores this. 

One of the many criticisms of the original CD-i Zelda games were its controls and gameplay, such as requiring the character to duck in order to access the inventory or having to stab gems with the character’s weapon in order to collect them. Arzette pokes fun at these restrictions without breaking the gameplay. For example, gems and other items can be walked over to be collected (as is standard in 99.99% of these types of games), but in order to talk to another character, they need to be “attacked” with the sword. The sword is (per the story) enchanted in such a way that bad people get damaged while good people do not. As for the ducking to access the menu, Arzette offers a difficulty option that brings in some of these Zelda aspects, such as the duck-menu, into the game. 

On the subject of difficulty, Arzette is an extremely forgiving. The easier settings provide unlimited level continues with enemies spawning health regenerating items. Harder difficulties take away the level continues and health item generation and even bring in the aforementioned Zelda broken gameplay aspects. However, the levels in Arzette are fairly small, broken into even smaller sections. Dying on a screen only sets the player back to the beginning of that screen, so major progress is never lost. This makes Arzette quite accessible to younger or newer gamers, but it does perhaps come at the cost of being almost too easy, even on higher difficulties, for seasoned gamers. Once all of the game’s powerups are collected, Arzette becomes extremely overpowered, regardless of difficulty. 

World map screen for Arzette. Level selection at the bottom, level progress at the top.

As each level is in bite-sized chunks, they invite multiple replays for exploration to find hidden collectables. As with other Metroidvania style games, many areas of Arzette are initially inaccessible until later in the game when a specific item (double jump shoes or a different colour magic shot for example) is procured. A handy menu on the world map indicates progress of each level’s collectables and the system menu indicates game completion percentage. In this regard, Arzette provides quality of life mechanics that were absent in older games, and still sometimes missing in present day titles.

If there is a fault with Arzette it is with its story and characters. The story of Arzette is fairly standard sword and sorcery fare: the evil Daimur (a stand-in for Zelda’s main antagonist Ganon) who was defeated and imprisoned many years ago is set free. He and his band of cronies (which include a horseman and a business suit wearing dragon) set out to conquer the land of Faramore while shrouding it in darkness. Princess Arzette sets out to relight the beacons to bring light back to the kingdom and then defeat Daimur again. This is not George R. R. Martin levels of storytelling, but it is serviceable, and certainly expandable if Arzette sequels are realized.

Arzette and Maki in the bakery.

The characters of Arzette, save the titular character herself, are one dimensional. The majority of characters simply appear during a cutscene, a fetch quest is given/completed, and they scamper off to become dialogue repeating NPCs. This is unfortunate because the world of Arzette looks like it contains some interesting characters (an ogre who likes to garden, a bourgeois frog, a clumsy but well-meaning guard, etc.) that could really take advantage of the game’s camp-style cutscenes. These are missed opportunities to really flesh out the side characters, expand on the world building, and have more of the game’s fun cutscenes. Thankfully, Arzette the character has some great character building: coping with the death of her King father and being the only competent one in the kingdom to stand against Daimur in battle. She also is a problem solver as she develops an alternative way to deal with Daimur than how he has been dealt with in the past. The game also drops hints that Arzette may be a non-heterosexual character, such as her agreeing to a date with the Maki the Baker and her blushing at the physical advances of the Ice Lady. Though the game does not fully commit to this representation, the overall character of Arzette is multifaceted and as far from a stock heroine as seen in games past.

Arzette has been released digitally across all the major gaming consoles, making it readily procurable by almost anyone (in stark contrast to the Zelda CD-i games that command large prices on eBay). In addition to this, Limited Run Games did physical releases of the game for the different platforms, and its collector’s edition incarnation is fully stacked with swag. 

Outside slip case of the Collector’s Edition.

The game comes packaged in the iconic big-box format, evocative of PC game packaging of the 90s. 

Inside box.

The game proper comes with both a standard case as well as a jewel case akin to how CD-i games were packaged back in the day.

Xbox version with clip case, and a CD case with a sleeve.

There is also a soundtrack, a poster map, and a titanic tome of art, lore, background images and information and more. 

Art book, poster, and soundtrack.

There is also a pin of Arzette and a display of Mortar, the pompadour-sporting merchant, though a display of Arzette proper would have been preferred.

Pin and stand.

Overall, Arzette is a fantastic game. The gameplay is a solid adventure/platformer/Metroidvania with a variety of collectibles. The art style is genius, both as an homage to a gaming style that has not been explored in decades but also stands on its own right. The music and the overall presentation of the game is singular and whimsical. The main protagonist has the makings of becoming an iconic videogame character. If Arzette is the result of taking two broken games and turning them into something successful and fun, it would be incredible to see if Arzette can be built upon even more via a sequel title (which, post credits, do hint at).

Categories
News

News Roundup 2024-12-01

Personal / Website News

Book Review of Orphan Road

Brand new book review is up here at the website.

This is a little outside my comfort zone as I’m no expert on crime fiction, but I took a dive into Andrew Nette’s novel Orphan Road and enjoyed it. Check out the review proper here.

Interview at BoldJourney

Your’s truly got interviewed at BoldJourney.

Give it a read here. And while you’re at it, check out the interview with Philippe Gerber as well!

Danse Macabre Blu-ray

Artus Films have just released Antonio Margheriti’s Castle of Blood, under the Danse Macabre title, in a luxurious UHD Blu-ray boxset.

The boxset has 3 discs, postcards, pins and buttons, and a near 100 page booklet. The final page of the booklet contains a snippet from my master’s thesis on Castle of Blood!

Super chuffed to have some of my scholarship appear as part of a physical release of a movie I adore. The boxset can be purchased at the Danse Macabre product page at the Artus Films website.

H. P. Lovecast Podcast

Brand new episode of H. P. Lovecast Podcast is now online!

In this episode we take a look at issue 1 of the comic book Flesh Eaters by Philippe Gerber, Orville Thurstan, with art by Okiko. The episode can be streamed at the HP Lovecast Buzzsprout, via the embedded player below, or through your podcast app of preference.

Ep 62 – Philippe Gerber and Orville Thurstan's Flesh Eaters Comic – H. P. Lovecast Podcast

We have one more podcast for 2024 that we are planning to do. Nothing says X-mas time like angels, so we will be watching and talking about the 1995 film The Prophecy. Stay tuned!

The Best Horror of the Year Vol 16

Every year Ellen Datlow puts out a recap book called The Best Horror of the Year where she recounts notable releases and reprints some of the best stories and poetry.

Volume 16 just dropped and I’m chuffed to find out I’m mentioned in the book regarding my essay in the cosmic horror issue of Weird Tales. I’m super flattered!

This is actually the second time I’ve been mentioned in one of these books. A few years ago both Michele and I were mentioned in The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 13 regarding the collection we edited, Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical Essays.

Here is the text from that edition:

Both volumes can be ordered from Amazon – here is the link to #13 and here is the link to #16.

Panthans Journal #331

The newest issue of the The National Panthans Journal has been published. This issue contains a re-print of my review of The Moon Maid: Catacombs of the Moon #1.

Paraphrased from the zine: The National Capital Panthans Journalis a monthly publication issued as a .PDF file on the Saturday before the first Sunday of each month. Contribution of articles, artwork, photos and letters are welcome. Send submissions to the editor: Laurence G. Dunn at laurencegdunn@gmail.com in a Word document for consideration.

McFarland Holiday Sale

My publisher, McFarland, is having a Holiday sale on all of their tiles! From November 15th to December 2nd, if you use code “HOLIDAY24” during checkout, you’ll get a 35% discount.

If you want to support me, consider buying a copy of The New Peplum or Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern:

The New Peplum
Cover art for The New Peplum

McFarland Purchase link

Normal price: 39.99
35% = 13.99
Price after coupon: 25.99

McFarland Purchase Link

Normal Price: 29.95
35% = 10.48
Price after coupon: 19.47

If you want to support Michele, consider buying James Bond and Popular Culture and Horror in Space: Critical Essays (I have essays in both):

McFarland Purchase Link

Normal Price: 29.95
35% = 10.48
Price after coupon: 19.47

McFarland Purchase Link

Normal Price: 29.95
35% = 10.48
Price after coupon: 19.47

If you’re interested in another book that I have an essay in, consider The Many Lives of the Twilight Zone and Uncovering Stranger Things:

McFarland Purchase Link

Normal Price: 29.95
35% = 10.48
Price after coupon: 19.47

McFarland Purchase Link

Normal Price: 19.99
35% = 6.99
Price after coupon: 12.99

A Hero Will Endure Paperback Relese + Discount

Vernon Press, the publisher of A Hero Will Endure: Essays at the Twentieth Anniversary of Gladiator, has just released a cheaper, paperback version of the book, just in time for Gladiator 2!

The paperback is at the much more friendly price of $57 compared to $96 for the hardcover and $107 for an electronic version. All editions of the book can be found at the Vernon Press product page.

In addition, the publisher is offering a coupon on purchases of the collection! From now until the end of January 2025, if you use code SLZM30 at check out, you’ll get 30% off the title. So, the $57 book now becomes $39.99. Nice!

ECOF 2025

In September of 2025 there will be an Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship (ECOF) event down in Willcox, AZ. This event is to celebrate the 150th birthday of Burroughs while also honoring him with a plaque in the town due to his stationing with there the 7th U.S. Calvary in the 1890s. (Note: another ERB convention was held in Willcox back in 2019 and an event recap of that can be read at ERBZine #7059).

Here is a flyer for the 2025 event:

I’ll share more information about the event as I find out more on my website updates. There currently is a fundraiser going on to raise funds for the ERB plaque, and details for that can be found in the QR code in the above graphic, or by checking out the donation page at the Sulphur Springs Valley Valley Historical Society. 3.8K of 5K has been raised already. 

Michele and I will be in attendance for this convention, so I’ve added it to the appearances section of my website as well. 

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2024.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#1″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #326.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#2″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #327.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#3″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #328.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus / Warlord of Mars #1″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #329.

“Wondercon 2019 Coverage: Tarzan, John Carter, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.: What’s New?” reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #330.

Comic Book Review: “The Moon Maid: Catacombs of the Moon #1″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #331.

Calls for Papers/Proposals

Here are some new pop culture CFPs that have crossed my path. Links to these will also be in the CFP page on the navigation bar.

Play and the Gothic

[Note: I = Simon Bacon]

I have a speculative CFP on “Play and the Gothic” to encompass any kind of gaming, boardgames, role-playing games, toys, construction games (Lego etc), dolls, collective or individual games across mediums, history and cultures that can be read in terms of play, playful, interactive, immersive, virtual, problem solving, psychological, well-being, materiality.

Their role in fictional fictional and non-fictive spaces, as the focus and instigators of narrative, their relation to the ludicrous gothic, their ability to gothicise spaces, or how they become gothicised via their use or environment.

This can equally involve the relationship between gaming/games/toys to certain kinds of gothic; happy gothic; regional gothic; ecogothic; folk gothic; children’s gothic; female gothic; religious gothic; gothic monsters (vampires/werewolves/ghosts/etc); the weird; cosmic gothic.

If interested send abstracts/ideas to me by Jan 31, 2025 at: baconetti@gmail.com

(Final essays of 6-7,000 words would potentially be needed mid 2026)

Monstrous Consumption:
The Diets of Monsters and Monstrous Diets in the Popular Imagination

Another Simon Bacon CFP:

If we are what we eat, what things do we eat to make us monsters And what things do monsters eat to make them so monstrous?

This can be read as broad as you like, and across history and cultures and in any media (games, comics, music, performance, literature, film, TV).

Possible areas could be, but in no way limited to:

  • magic foods that transform people into monsters
  • diets/foods that make other cultures/peoples monstrous
  • additives/secret ingredients with monstrous effects
  • diets/foods specific to monsters
  • the role of cannibalism and/or forbidden foods
  • toxins/poisons/drugs
  • shrooms/mezcal and hallucinogenic foods
  • allergies and intolerances
  • transgressive foods/diets
  • supernatural and/or magical foods
  • foods that are alive
  • food/diets in rituals/religious practices and the transgression of those
  • role of vegetarianism and veganism

The call is going really well, but don’t let that put you off if you have an idea.

Consuming Identity: Cannibalism and the Beyond Human Subject

Connectedly….there has been a lot of interest within this around Cannibalism with the possibility of a separate collection solely on this. So if you have any left field ideas to do with cannibalism in regards to:

  • Historical cases
  • Philosophy
  • Theology and religion
  • fantasy and science fiction (alien cannibals)
  • indigenous and cross-cultural examples
  • cannibalism and eco-criticism/environmentalism
  • cannibalism and decolonisation

Deadline for receiving abstracts is 31st December 2024, with final essays due early to mid-2026. If you have thoughts, abstracts, or relevant essays looking for a home…drop me a message at: baconetti@gmail.com

Panel: Airborne Gothic

ASLE 2025 Panel Organized by the Society for the Study of American Gothic

July 8-11, 2025

University of Maryland, College Park

This panel sets out to consider how gothic is carried and transmitted through air. Airborne gothic takes many forms: stories told around campfires; plague and Covid narratives; texts featuring ominous flying creatures (birds, bats, and bugs!); radiation/nuclear gothic; propagandistic talk about windmills as killing machines; airplanes or spacecraft as gothic sites; the winds and wutherings that course through so many gothic stories; and more. How do gothic texts evoke unrest, turbulence, undeadness, and/or trauma by way of airborne vectors? How does airborne gothic both thwart and encourage collective atmospheres?

Please send one-paragraph abstracts and short bios to Jennifer Schell (jschell5@alaska.edu) and Eric Anderson (eandersd@gmu.edu) by December 20, 2024.

TV Matters (Intellect Books)

Editor: Sabrina Mittermeier
 
TV Matters is a new series of short monographs (40,000 to 50,000 words) on television series, analysing their production history, cultural context, main themes, as well as fandom and audience reception. The focus is on shows that both have critical acclaim (as reflected by awards, media reviews), but more importantly, are genuinely ‘popular’. That means they have had a robust viewership and ideally an active fandom (watercooler discussions on- and offline, as well as fan production such as fic, art, vids etc.) and/or an unusual reception history (cases of bans, censorship or similar).
As the intended audience for this book series extends beyond academia, we expect an engaging/accessible writing style. This however does not mean less academic ‘rigour’ – authors should thoroughly research production history (incl. where possible through interviews with creators or archival research), include a solid textual analysis of main themes and should show familiarity with concepts and theories of fan and audience studies.

The aim of this book series is to engage with TV shows that were and are truly popular rather than just part of a canon of ‘quality TV’ or ‘cult TV’. The scope includes scripted/fictional programming, both live action as well as animation, but also reality TV, casting shows and documentary formats, if they fill the criteria. If it mattered to people, it qualifies!

This crucially also means shows outside of a Eurocentric lens of media production – K-Drama, Telenovelas, any popular TV in its respective cultural contexts, but also productions that crossed border lines and were adapted transnationally. In case of particularly long-running shows such as soaps or procedurals, or non-scripted content, ongoing series are also open to consideration.
To illustrate examples, series that tentative authors have already been approached about include Bridgerton(2020–), Game of Thrones (2011–2019), Ted Lasso (2020–2023), Ducktales (1987–1990), Star Trek: Voyager(1995–2001) and the Eurovision Song Contest.

At this point, we are open to any proposals on series meeting the criteria, but are especially looking for someone interested in writing on Supernatural (2005–2020), Friends (1994–2004), Buffy the Vampire Slayer(1997–2003), Grey’s Anatomy (2005–), Doctor Who (1963–), the CSI, NCIS, Law & Order franchises or long-running reality TV and transnational competition formats such as Survivor, Big Brother or Strictly Come Dancing. If this sounds like you please approach us!

As a first step, just send a short (!) pitch (500 words max), including what series you’d want to write on and why you think it matters, to the series editor Sabrina Mittermeier (Sabrina.Mittermeier@uni-kassel.de). If deemed a good fit, we move on to a more formal proposal. We expect the series to launch in 2026.

Gothic Crossroads

A conference exploring and celebrating the multi and interdisciplinary crossings of Gothic and Horror Studies.

Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, 25th-27th June, 2025

Plenary Speakers: Prof Rosario Arias (University of Malaga, Spain), Dr. Maisha Wester (Global Professor, University of Sheffield, UK)

Physical crossroads have long been sites where the human, divine and demonic were felt to converge and potent sites for magical, religious encounters, rituals of transformation, binding of undesirable spirits, siting of gallows and links to ancient cosmology. This conference also considers the crossroads as a space where the boundaries between differing spheres are negotiable, asking what it means to walk in the interdisciplinary pathways and cross currents of the Gothic.

The crossroad is a geographical location and ancient symbol closely associated with folklore where two or more realms touch. It is historically and imaginatively connected with travellers and travelling, strange encounters, omens, choice and indecision, danger, suicide, criminality, apocalypse and renewal, guilt and judgement, punishment, ritual and ceremony, lovers’ meetings, hanging, summoning, access to Gods, devil dealing, casting out and death. The choice between paths can also lead to repercussions and consequences of “the wrong path”, “the path not taken” and “straying from the path”.

This conference invites creative and scholarly consideration of any aspect of these areas or any other creative/critical spin on themes of crossing/crossover/cross currents, travelling, intersection, interception, (con)junction, incursion, deviation and transitioning in any/all aspects of cultural production as it relates to Gothic and horror.

It also proposes the crossing as a metaphor for presenting and thinking on the interdisciplinary work of the Gothic and the intersectional/transnational spaces where the gothic is engaged and approached. Thus, we are particularly interested in “paths less travelled” and contributions from scholars and ECRs working in the intersections where the cultural work of Gothic and horror studies crosses boundaries and spheres, engaging with fields and disciplines beyond the traditional, and where new “crossings” can be discovered. This includes, but is not limited to: Gothic and horror in gaming, architecture and heritage, creative writing and practice, comics and graphic novels, scriptwriting, theatre, music, geography, plant studies and environmentalism, anthropology, libraries and archives, sociology and social studies, broadcasting, publishing, media and graphic design. We are sure there are more, so feel free to surprise us with your wanders, crossings, and encounters!

Please submit a 250-word abstract for 15-minute presentations by 28th February 2025 to Dr Emma Liggins and Dr Eleanor Beal at gothic@mmu.ac.uk

For all submissions, be sure to include your name, a short (50-word) biographical sketch, institutional affiliation (if any), and contact details. Please send your submission as an attachment (as opposed to a link to a server such as Googledocs).

Submissions for panels should be sent as a single submission with three to four 250-word abstracts, a brief statement of the theme of the panel and the information above about each of the presenters.

Submissions for workshops should indicate the length of the workshop (max. 45 minutes).

If accepted to deliver a paper or workshop, a number of travel bursaries up to £100 are available for selected international and UK postgraduates on application.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Some fun things and shout outs from these past few weeks.

New John 3:16 Track

Philippe Gerber, who does the theme music to the H. P. Lovecast Podcast, has cut a new track on Bandcamp under his John 3:16 moniker.

It’s called “Terror” and it can be streamed/purchased here. Check it out!

Ancient Aliens Autograph

Arrived in the mail just before Thanksgiving was our copy of Ancient Aliens season 2 on DVD, but autographed by series guest Tim R. Swartz.

I posted the DVD sleeve to him and he was gracious to sign it, though my name is missing an “S”. I’m not saying it’s aliens that took it, but….

Categories
Essays

Crimes under the Crux: Andrew Nette’s Orphan Road

Fifty years ago, the Great Bookie Robbery occurred in Melbourne, Australia when a gang of well-prepared robbers made off with millions from a bookmaker that was never recovered. While the large sum of missing monies was well known, what was not as known was a secret stash of diamonds that were absconded with, their purported fate even more mysterious.

Five decades later, Gary Chance, a former soldier of the Australian army who served in Afghanistan, now turned criminal, finds himself in a botched robbery of a cult. Though the operation is a bust, he gains a new partner, Eva McCulloch, another criminal who had eyes on the cult’s hidden fortune.

Both searching for that one last job to put their respective criminal lives behind them, Chance and Eva accept a mission from Vera Leigh, an aging socialite/madame/S&M dungeon owner who needs monies to fight ruthless property developers. The new job: track down the mythical diamonds from the Great Bookie Robbery from ages past. With only sparse clues at their disposal, the duo accepts the gig, which will take them to the United States and different cities in southeast Australia, while also being pursued by former accomplices, cult members, criminals, and a retired police officer who all have eyes on the diamonds themselves.

Andrew Nette’s Orphan Road is an Australian crime novel, though with a greater emphasis on the adventure aspects of the criminal underworld rather than the criminal element proper. The protagonists of Orphan Road are “good” criminals in that their adversaries are all unsavory characters themselves, be it a ruthless developer, White Nationalists, a greedy former police officer, and so on, making the morals depicted in the novel black and white, rather than the grey area that is found in more noir-ish crime stories.

The lead protagonist, Chance, is incredibly fun to follow. He is akin to a Jack Reacher-style character: former military, nomadic, off the grid, cunning, finding themselves in the middle of bigger criminal schemes, and extremely proficient at bedding the ladies. The big difference between the two characters is that Reacher is far more noble and near invulnerable compared to Chance, while Chance is a much more grounded character and less of a Gary Stu. 

The adventure/mystery of Chance trying to track down diamonds, for all purposes lost to history, it fairly exciting, especially considering the roadblocks and dead ends he and his cohorts encounter. There is a tiny bit of globetrotting, fisticuffs, and gunplay, but the forefront is the mystery. Nette crafts a new mystery (the diamonds) and anchors it to a real-world event (the robbery), which gives the story credibility and buy in from the reader. This does cause a small problem: how does one graft this new mystery when decades have passed and most historic players are long dead and leads dried up. How can in-world amateur sleuths and professionals alike fail to find the diamonds, but Chance is able to get a new trail? The clue is fairly lackluster, a newspaper clipping that, in theory, anyone else would have access to, but its serviceable to get the heroes on their adventure. 

The strongest component of Orphan Road does arise from Nette trying to work within these real world confines of lapsed time inherent in old cold cases, and that is its critique on the past and nostalgia. The majority of players in Orphan Road are fairly old, in their 70s and 80s, having served in Vietnam, or East Coast American Mafia of the 80s, or lived through other events. The Melbourne that Chance remembers has been demolished and gentrified, which is supposed to be the ultimate fate of Leigh’s establishment. Leigh, herself, tries to retcon the past by positing it was a time when criminals had class, code, and honour. Chance is quick to point out this rose-coloured view of old school crime, and even confirms it firsthand when he encounters the American mafia, still holding onto their old ways as if in a Scorcese film. Everything in Chance’s mission is old: the archive of files and photos around the diamond caper, the Ford Falcon that is driven, the Luger that is the sidearm, the ruins of burnt down buildings, and even the cult at the beginning of the novel, who worship the lost continent of Atlantis. While there are many adversaries in Orphan Road, the spectre of the past is the prominent one. 

The weakest component, on the other hand, is the end of Orphan Road. Not so much the end-end proper, which does nicely wrap up all loose ends of Chance’s adventure – diamonds and all, but it is the in between the book’s climax and then end revelation. After the climax, the adventure resolution is still not within hand, so the book changes its focus from a time-is-of-the-essence thriller to a leisurely explore around and let a large passage of time elapse pace, which kills the momentum. This is unfortunate because everything up to this point is a real page turner, coupled with heightened stakes as Nette is unafraid to kill off a pivotal characters. 

There is a passion from Nette on display in Orphan Road, and this is no doubt due to his love of the pulp genre, police procedurals, and gritty crime cinema, all of which he has written essays and commentaries about. With Orphan Road, Nette is able to seize a historic robbery, make it even more interesting, and throw in characters like Chance that are easy to become invested in, while at the same time not resorting to the tried-and-true method of pulling rabbits out of the pop culture reference hat. Orphan Road is anchored historically, despite being contemporary, and it succeeds extremely well. 

For more information on Orphan Road and Andrew Nette, check out these links:

Categories
News

News Roundup 2024-11-17

Personal / Website News

Scandalous Swords: Interview with J. Manfred Weichsel

A new interview article is up here at the website!

I interviewed J. Manfred Weichsel, editor of the sword and sorcery anthology Sword & Scandal.

Check it out here!

McFarland Holiday Sale

My publisher, McFarland books, is having a Holiday sale on all of their tiles! From November 15th to December 2nd, if you use code “HOLIDAY24” during checkout, you’ll get a 35% discount.

If you want to support me, consider buying a copy of The New Peplum or Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern:

The New Peplum
Cover art for The New Peplum

McFarland Purchase link

Normal price: 39.99
35% = 13.99
Price after coupon: 25.99

McFarland Purchase Link

Normal Price: 29.95
35% = 10.48
Price after coupon: 19.47

If you want to support Michele, consider buying James Bond and Popular Culture and Horror in Space: Critical Essays (I have essays in both):

McFarland Purchase Link

Normal Price: 29.95
35% = 10.48
Price after coupon: 19.47

McFarland Purchase Link

Normal Price: 29.95
35% = 10.48
Price after coupon: 19.47

If you’re interested in another book that I have an essay in, consider The Many Lives of the Twilight Zone and Uncovering Stranger Things:

McFarland Purchase Link

Normal Price: 29.95
35% = 10.48
Price after coupon: 19.47

McFarland Purchase Link

Normal Price: 19.99
35% = 6.99
Price after coupon: 12.99

A Hero Will Endure Paperback Relese + Discount

Vernon Press, the publisher of A Hero Will Endure: Essays at the Twentieth Anniversary of Gladiator, has just released a cheaper, paperback version of the book, just in time for Gladiator 2!

The paperback is at the much more friendly price of $57 compared to $96 for the hardcover and $107 for an electronic version. All editions of the book can be found at the Vernon Press product page.

In addition, the publisher is offering a coupon on purchases of the collection! From now until the end of January 2025, if you use code SLZM30 at check out, you’ll get 30% off the title. So, the $57 book now becomes $39.99. Nice!

ECOF 2025

In September of 2025 there will be an Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship (ECOF) event down in Willcox, AZ. This event is to celebrate the 150th birthday of Burroughs while also honoring him with a plaque in the town due to his stationing with there the 7th U.S. Calvary in the 1890s. (Note: another ERB convention was held in Willcox back in 2019 and an event recap of that can be read at ERBZine #7059).

Here is a flyer for the 2025 event:

I’ll share more information about the event as I find out more on my website updates. There currently is a fundraiser going on to raise funds for the ERB plaque, and details for that can be found in the QR code in the above graphic, or by checking out the donation page at the Sulphur Springs Valley Valley Historical Society. 3.8K of 5K has been raised already. 

Michele and I will be in attendance for this convention, so I’ve added it to the appearances section of my website as well. 

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2024.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#1″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #326.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#2″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #327.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#3″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #328.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus / Warlord of Mars #1″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #329.

“Wondercon 2019 Coverage: Tarzan, John Carter, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.: What’s New?” reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #330.

Calls for Papers/Proposals

Here are some new pop culture CFPs that have crossed my paths. Links to these will also be in the CFP page on the navigation bar.

Contemporary Indigenous Horror

Deadline for Abstracts: May 30, 2025

Contact: nborwein@uwo.ca

Edited by Dr. Naomi Simone Borwein and Dr. Krista Collier-Jarvis

Building on discussions in the edited volume, Global Indigenous Horror (University Press of Mississippi, 2025), this is a call for chapter proposal submissions focused on the topic of Contemporary Indigenous Horror. Beautiful, luminous and resonant moments of horror exist in the work of writers like Shane Hawk, Kim Scott, Tiffany Morris, Waubgeshig Rice, or Ambelin Kwaymullina. But Indigenous horror tales thrive in many narrative or storying forms—from fiction, plays, and music, to graphic novels, art installations, or experimental films fortified by sonic and oral manifestations.

In response to the forthcoming inaugural essay collection, Global Indigenous Horror (2025), Judith Leggatt states, “Global Indigenous Horror is a timely and welcome addition to the growing field of Indigenous Horror studies.” Over the past decade, there has been a (re)surgence in Indigenous works focusing on tales of horror, such as Anoka: A Collection of Indigenous Horror (2011; Hawk); Ajjiit: Dark Dreams of the Ancient Arctic (2011; Tinsley and Qitsualik); Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Anthology Collection (2023; Hawk and Van Alst Jr.); Whistle at Night and They Will Come: Indigenous Horror Stories (2023; Soop); Midnight Storm, Moonless Sky: Indigenous Horror Stories (2022; Soop); Taaqtumi: An Anthology of Arctic Horror Stories (2019), Moosebumpz: Scary Stories from the Rez, and The Land Has Spoken—Tales of Indigenous Horror (2024; Hawk and Rogers), and Zegaajimo: Indigenous Horror Fiction (2024; Akiwenzie and Adler), just to name a few.

Responding to the widening gap between Indigenous horror and academic responses to it, editors Naomi Simone Borwein and Krista Collier-Jarvis solicit contributions for Contemporary Indigenous Horror. Shane Hawk broadly defines horror as that which “prioritizes the fear factor, often using graphic depictions of violence, monstrous beings, or otherworldly threats to achieve its effect. The ultimate purpose of horror is to confront the reader with their deepest fears, creating an experience that is visceral and unsettling.” When taken up by Indigenous storytellers, horror often engages with a colonial past that has never really passed, and as such, it haunts contemporary Indigenous peoples and communities. Indigenous horror thus often blends traditional stories as well as Indigenous ways of knowing and being with contemporary issues. In many cases, Indigenous horror is about our lived experiences, not as the victim of ongoing coloniality, but as resistance. According to Elizabeth Edwards and Brenna Duperron, “Indigeneity is a resistance — in the usual sense of opposition, repudiation, and refusal to comply […but also] resistant to assimilation. Indigeneity is the lived and embodied experience of peoples who have participated in that resistance” (94). In many other cases, Indigenous horror is about what Scott Gordon calls “colonial whiplash,” where “white people who haven’t turned into zombies [or other monsters] are at the mercy of the oppressed”—their Indigenous saviours. And in other cases, what Indigenous horror is has yet to be revealed.

Chapters (6,000-8,000 words including bibliography) may examine modern, contemporary representations of Indigenous Horror from a variety of perspectives. With a focus on analysis of current horror (narrative) production by self-identifying artists, writers, and other creators, some areas of consideration include, but are not limited to:

  • the future of Indigenous Horror;
  • Indigenous futurisms;
  • Indigenous futurism in relation to Afrofuturism;
  • the post-apocalyptic;
  • after the Anthropocene (or other labels);
  • pre-contact/post-contact;
  • Indigenous “monsters”;
  • Indigenous identity/identities;
  • unsettling, activism;
  • love, reciprocity, and horror;
  • Indigenous horror and visual, digital, or textual sovereignty;
  • mixed media, experimental media;
  • virtual, embodied, extended, or augmented reality;
  • multisensory installation and the horror experience;
  • ecological discourses and horror manifestations in relation to speculative narratives;
  • interrogation of “rewilding” and alternatives;
  • decolonization of Indigenous stereotypes in mainstream Horror and their counterparts in Indigenous narratives;
  • authentic Indigenous horror images, visions, “metaphors” or “motifs”;
  • social media and h/Horror in relation to fiction marketization;
  • sonic landscapes of horror;
  • systems of Indigenous horror that move between fiction, film, music, and other media;
  • NDN and Horror media;
  • inter-tribal horror/Horror and trans-Indigeneity or pan-Indigeneity;
  • exploration of various land-based, place-based, sky-based, star-based, or water-based horrors in narratives by Indigenous creators;
  • blood, heredity, categorization, and holocaust/genocide narratives;
  • reconciliation;
  • virtue signalling, horror, media cultures and spaces;
  • metacommentary;
  • analysis of Indigenous Gothic and Horror;
  • Indigenous Horror fiction and ways of knowing;
  • reading (and teaching) Indigenous horror fiction;
  • horror systems as epistemologies;
  • Indigenous Horror fiction and scholarship;
  • and more.

This follow-up collection seeks contributions from self-identified Indigenous scholars in any stage of their academic journey. We also encourage submissions from allies to the community. To acknowledge the various ways in which Indigenous scholarship may emerge, we welcome both traditional as well as more exploratory approaches, including submissions of proposals for non-fiction works by self-identified Indigenous storytellers reflecting on the process of writing, or otherwise producing, horror.

Please send a 250-word abstract and a 100-word bio to editors Naomi Simone Borwein (nborwein@uwo.ca) and Krista Collier-Jarvis (Krista.Collier-Jarvis@msvu.ca) by May 30, 2025. Accepted chapters will be due June 30, 2026.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Some fun things and shout outs from these past few weeks.

Gladiator 2 Cinemark Popcorn Bucket

Collectable popcorn buckets are becoming a big thing now. Gladiator 2 has one, of course. Thankfully this bucket could be ordered online instead of actually going to a Cinemark theater. So, of course I ordered a bucket:

Sword and Sandal Blu-rays

Coinciding with the release of Gladiator 2 in November, there’s been a handful of older pepla getting new releases on UHD/Blu-ray. In mid November three came in the mail: Steelbook edition of the original Gladiator (2000), a new cut of Caligula (1979), and a new edition of Hercules Returns (1993).

Rest in Peplum Tony Todd

Tony Todd, horror actor extraordinaire best known for his portrayal as Candyman, passed away. He starred in a handful of pepla: Xena (1995-2001), Hercules (1995-1999), Beastmaster 3 (1996), and Minotaur (2006).

Michele and I had the honor to meet him way back in 2008 at a horror con in SeaTac. He autographed my Criterion Collection edition of The Rock (1996):

When Candyman 2021 came out I did an article on bands that sample dialogue from the original Candyman (1992). Do check out that article to see some innovative ways that Todd lives on via textual sampling.

Art of Michele Brittany

Michele has started a Facebook Page devoted to her crafting and art. If you want to check out her projects or purchase some of her journals, give the page a like and follow!

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61565895377463

Categories
Interview Peplum

Scandalous Swords: Interview with J. Manfred Weichsel

The peak years of the 60s Italian peplum cycle and the 80s sword and sorcery cycle have many films with transgressive, subversive, erotic, or excessively violent content. The Italian wave of pepla presented overt sexuality with their portrayal of vamps, belly dancers, shirtless strongmen, harems, and sexual seductions. With lax attitudes of what could be portrayed in media, the 80s wave of barbarian films upped with violence with overt gore, but also turned retrospective with more meta and parodic content.

Iconoclastic writer J. Manfred Weichsel seeks to tap into these eras of subversiveness with his new edited anthology, Sword & Scandal. The volume contains twelve short stories of sword and sorcery that is on, as the title suggests, the scandalous side. In this interview Weichsel talks about his newest endeavor and the future where he wants to take the scandal formula with other genres. 

Book cover provided courtesy of J. Manfred Weichsel.

What is your relationship with the sword & sandal and sword & sorcery genres? What got you into them? What are some of your favourite texts from these genres?

I’ve been reading sword & sorcery for as long as I’ve been reading books. I’ve probably read all the same stories everybody has; Conan, Fafhrd and the Grey Mauser, Kane, and stuff like that.

As for sword & sandal movies, a friend from college who first got me into world cinema, Evan A. Baker, showed me the Mario Bava Hercules movie in the late 90’s, but I didn’t do a deep dive into the Italian peplum stuff until very recently.  

I’m a regular contributor to Cirsova Magazine. The publisher was doing an anthology called The Mighty Sons of Hercules, that was an homage to the old peplum movies. I was invited to contribute, so of course I did a thorough study of the genre in preparation for writing my story. And that’s how I got into it. I think my favorite one I’ve seen so far is Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules.

The Calydonian Boar Hunt by J. Manfred Weichsel

You’ve dabbled with the sword and sandal genre before with “Maciste in the Land of the Snakes” (from the aforementioned The Mighty Sons of Hercules anthology) and your short novel The Calydonian Boar Hunt. What was the genesis of how this story came about? What was the primary goal you wanted to accomplish with this specific book?

The Calydonian Boar Hunt is actually set during the bronze age, before there was hard metal to make swords with. I know it looks like the guy is holding a sword on the cover, but it’s supposed to be a stone knife!

The book is based on the eponymous Greek myth. I became interested in The Calydonian Boar Hunt years earlier, after seeing the famous Peter Paul Rubens painting at the Getty Museum in LA illustrating a scene from the story. Years and years after first seeing the painting, I was sitting at home during the pandemic, deciding what to write next, and I realized it was the perfect time to do a deep dive into Greek mythology. I remembered the painting and the impact it had on me and began to research the myth.

The Calydonian Boar Hunt takes place shortly after the story told in the film Jason and the Argonauts, and features many of the same characters. It’s the generation before the Trojan War, and many of the Calydonian hunters also either appear in the Trojan War as older versions of themselves, or are the parents of major figures in that story. It’s a very central myth in the Greek canon, so it gave me a lot to work with.

Of course, my books are comedies, so my retelling of the myth may be a little different in tone from what modern readers are used to. Well, many of the original Greek myths, such as the Argonautica of Rhodes, were comedies too, so my retelling is also closer in spirit to the original than many modern readers might suspect.

The Calydonian Boar Hunt by Peter Paul Rubens. Public Domain image provided by The Getty Museum.

The Kickstarter for Sword & Scandal hinted it was looking for transgressive peplum-inspired stories, but the final collection is less sword & sandal and more sword & sorcery. Based on the types of submissions you were getting for the project, was there a commonality you noticed? Something like you didn’t receive as many peplum stories as sword & sorcery (that one genre is more popular than the other)? Or maybe you received a decent amount of stories from both genres but that the sword & sandal stories tended to be lacking in those transgressive elements that you were looking for when compared to sword and sorcery? Or something else?

Of the twelve stories in the anthology, most can be described as falling into various subgenres of sword & sorcery. For example, “Kai-zur the Godless” by David Carter is a pretty pure barbarian story. But “Windblades” by C. L. Werner is a samurai tale, and a really violent one too, like a 70’s Toei movie. And “Flesh and Ink” by Rebecca Buchanon has a really unique premise. It’s about a female assassin whose tattoos leap off her body and kill her victims. 

There are also a few folk tales in the mix. For example, “The Baron with a Thousand Cats” by Gary Every is a retelling of an Italian tale about a groom who must save his bride from suffering prima notte with a grotesque baron. And “The Harem of Al’Azeri” by Jasiah Witkofsky is set in the Arabian world in 1,001 Nights. There’s even a weird tale the anthology in “Vermina’s Creature,” by Bitter Karella. 

I really only received two submissions that read like peplum movies, and while both were great, they shared the same problem, which was that I was looking for stories that placed their focus on sex, and these stories placed their focus on the violence. So, they were good, but they weren’t great fits for the anthology.

Sword & Scandal is overt in its want to feature stories heavy on sex, nudity, and violence. Aside from these facets, there other means to push genre boundaries to their limits. What are other transgressive and avant garde elements featured in Sword and Scandal?

The most subversive element you can put into fiction nowadays is humor. If you look at old books and movies, even if they weren’t comedies, they still had humorous elements, such as, for example, irony. But nowadays, humor is so absent from popular entertainment that audiences don’t know what to do when they encounter it. And because they don’t know what to do, they become frustrated, and respond by getting angry at the book or movie for frustrating them. This had led to a pervasive idea in our culture that if something is funny, that must mean it’s bad.  

I want to help society get beyond this prejudice. This shouldn’t be terribly hard a task. It’s such an ingrained part of human nature, that it should be obvious what you are supposed to do when you encounter humor. You’re supposed to laugh! So, I actively looked for stories that were funny, in order to reintroduce humor into popular entertainment.

One of the funnier stories in Sword & Scandal is “Abduction from the Seraglio” by David J. West. This is about a sellsword who is hired by a man to rescue his girl from a harem, but… well… I don’t want to give the punchline away. Another funny story is “Shaven Beards” by Ross Baxter. This one is full of rude British humor!

Were there any specific stories in Sword & Scandal that blew you out of the water because you had never read anything as uncompromising/perverted/graphic/etc. before?

Every single story in Sword & Scandal was one that, the moment I read it, I knew I needed it in the anthology. Many of the stories contain graphic sex, but not all of them. That wasn’t a prerequisite. A few were chosen not because they have sexual content, but because they have sexual themes. I was looking for stories that were dangerous in some way, and I think that describes all the tales in the book, whether they are graphic or not.

But, to answer your question, the sex scenes in “The Gateway of Pleasure” by Jim Lee are insane, like, really hardcore. This is a story where a knight rescues a damsel in distress, and she rewards him with a blow job and a lot of sex. “The Snow Princess” by Pip Pinkerton is, in part, an outrageous porn parody of Disney’s Frozen, with a great scene where the girls use magic to create an Ice Golem and then have sex with it. There’s lot of lesbian sex in this one too. And “He Who Sows” by Austin Worley is about two female thieves who break into a temple to steal the stone phallus from a fertility God, only to become enchanted by it and start playing with it.

In 80s sword & sorcery cinema terms, on a scale of Deathstalker I (for sex and nudity) to Deathstalker II (for irreverent humour), how would you situate Sword and Scandal?

I love both the Deathstalker movies for different reasons. Jim Wynorski has a few movies like Deathstalker II, where they were sequels to bigger budget movies, but instead of going for a cheap cash grab like other directors in such situations would, he created really unique movies that, while they don’t have much to do with the original, are a lot of fun. 976-EVIL II is probably my favorite out of these. 

As for your question, there is a lot of sex and a lot of irreverent humor in Sword & Scandal. Enough to satisfy fans of either film. 

Sword & Scandal was financed via a successful Kickstarter campaign. What were some of the obstacles you encountered while running the Kickstarter? Will crowdfunding be a model you will use go forward for other entries in your Scandal series?

I got the idea to use Kickstarter because Cirsova used it to raise money for The Mighty Sons of Hercules, a book I mentioned above. I made sure to play an active role in the Kickstarter, both to help that anthology happen, but also to learn about fundraising so I could run my own campaign one day.

Kickstarter was great because it allowed me to do so much more than I would have been able to otherwise. I mean, without Kickstarter, I wouldn’t have been able to offer payment to the writers or have interior illustrations! I would have just written the book myself like I normally do, which was my actual backup plan had the campaign failed. So, I will definitely use Kickstarter for any future anthologies I do, including my next one, Jungle Scandals.

My process was a little different from Cirsova’s. He asked the writers to write stories up front, and then used the table of contents in his fundraising campaign as he raised the money to pay us. I ran the Kickstarter first and then had an open call for submissions. I like doing it this way because it gives me the greatest flexibility in choosing the stories that are best for the anthology.

Author photo provided courtesy of J. Manfred Weichsel.

Your contribution to Sword and Scandal, “Confessions of a Wicked Harpastum Player,” was the result of one of the Kickstarter perks where the pledger could design their own story. That pledger, Alexander Joyner, wanted “a tale with a female protagonist, about women’s soccer, with torture and lesbians.” That is quite the order – how did you go about tackling this compared to stories you pen yourself?

Well, instead of soccer, I used Harpastum, which is an ancient ancestor of modern soccer. Then I added a lot of sword & sorcery elements, such as having them play the game with a severed head instead of a ball. I came up with a sexy plot involving torture and lesbians, and voila. 

Overall, writing it was a fun experience. I often start outlining a story with an image or a few images in my head, so outlining one where the images were given to me didn’t change my process very much. If anything, it forced me to be more creative and to think outside the box. It was a fun experience, and one I hope to repeat in the next book. 

Aside from your introduction to the book, you also gave space for your artist, Apolonster, to share his musings and importance of working on the project. How did you connect with Apolonster? How did you two collaborate on the interior artwork, juggling artistic asks, feedback, and so on.

When I want to hire an artist, I usually go onto websites like DeviantArt and search artists until I find one that is already doing what I want to do. Then, I contact the artist to see if they are looking for work.

I found Apolonster when I was looking for somebody to do the cover to my novel Into the Bush. The moment I saw his portfolio, I knew I wanted to hire him, because he had some pictures that were exactly in the style I wanted.

I knew Sword & Scandal would be a much more complex project than that one was, because it needed a painted cover as well as interior illustrations. Apolonster is a talented and versatile artist who was classically trained at a European art academy, so when I started thinking of people to ask to do Sword & Scandal, he was my first choice.

My process for working on illustrations is that I write a worksheet that usually ends up being a couple of pages describing for the artist what I want, and then the artist gives me concept sketches. I pick one, and the artist makes the art.

Unfortunately, Apoloonster won’t be available for the next anthology for personal reasons. I already have the painting for the cover, and I’m looking for somebody right now to do the interior illustrations.

The next anthology in your Scandal series is going to be Jungle Scandals. What is some news you can share about that project? And aside form Jungle Scandals, what can folks expect to see from you in the near future? 

I’m currently writing a science fantasy book called Space Escapades, which I plan to be the final book in my Action Girls trilogy of books about three ditzy wannabe Hollywood starlets. 

I am creating the Kickstarter campaign as we speak. I hope to launch it early next year. I’m also working on a novel for the first time since my last one came out in March. Exciting things are on the horizon. 

The Mighty Sons of Hercules anthology published by Cirsova.

Do you see yourself revisiting the sword & sandal genre? If so, where would you like to take it next?

I want the “scandal” to be its own genre. I get into this in the introduction to Sword & Scandal. So, I want to do a bunch of differently themed books in the Scandal anthology series. The next one is Jungle Scandals, and then after that I want to do a science fantasy themed book, maybe called Planet Scandals or Outer Space Scandals. I’m going to do one called Scandal & Sorcery at some point, and might also do one called Sword & Scandal vol. II. I’m really taking them one at a time right now, so we will see what the future holds! 

I do know that Cirsova is thinking of doing another Mighty Sons of Hercules anthology, and I really want to be a part of that if he ends up doing it. 

I’ll probably revisit peplum at some point regardless. The thing is, if you look over my website, I have a pretty restless imagination and my books tend to all fall into different genres. I never really know what I am going to write next until I finish the book I’m working on. 

Sincere appreciation to Weichsel for his time for this interview. For more information on Sword & Scandal, J. Manfred Weichsel, and Apolonster, check out the following links:

Categories
News

News Roundup 2024-11-03

Personal / Website News

Scholars From the Edge of Time

A brand new Scholars From the Edge of Time vidcast is online!

For the spooky month of October Michele and I revisit the world of sword and scary with a horror-filmed Neo-peplum film, The Head Hunter!

The episode can be viewed on YouTube here – check it out!

Panthans Journal #330

The newest issue of the The National Panthans Journal has been published. This issues contains a re-print of my convention coverage of the Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. panel at Wondercon 2019.

Paraphrased from the zine: The National Capital Panthans Journalis a monthly publication issued as a .PDF file on the Saturday before the first Sunday of each month. Contribution of articles, artwork, photos and letters are welcome. Send submissions to the editor: Laurence G. Dunn at laurencegdunn@gmail.com in a Word document for consideration.

ECOF 2025

In September of 2025 there will be an Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship (ECOF) event down in Willcox, AZ. This event is to celebrate the 150th birthday of Burroughs while also honoring him with a plaque in the town due to his stationing with there the 7th U.S. Calvary in the 1890s. (Note: another ERB convention was held in Willcox back in 2019 and an event recap of that can be read at ERBZine #7059).

Here is a flyer for the 2025 event:

I’ll share more information about the event as I find out more on my website updates. There currently is a fundraiser going on to raise funds for the ERB plaque, and details for that can be found in the QR code in the above graphic, or by checking out the donation page at the Sulphur Springs Valley Valley Historical Society. 3.5K of 5K has been raised already.

Michele and I will be in attendance for this convention, so I’ve added it to the appearances section of my website as well.

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2024.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#1″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #326.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#2″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #327.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#3″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #328.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus / Warlord of Mars #1″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #329.

“Wondercon 2019 Coverage: Tarzan, John Carter, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.: What’s New?” reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #330.

A side note, I’ve done some organizing on my bibliography page. The magazines/zines/etc. section was getting rather long so I broke it up into a section for Exotica Moderne, a section for Panthans, and a section for the rest. In the future, when a particular outlet starts to appear more than a few times I’ll parse it to its own area as well.

Calls for Papers/Proposals

Here are some new pop culture CFPs that have crossed my paths. Links to these will also be in the CFP page on the navigation bar.

Metal Music Studies Retrospectives

In celebration of the 10th year of Metal Music Studies, we (Ross Hagen and Edward Banchs) are compiling a section of short retrospectives on foundational and important publications for the reviews section. We are aiming for a mix of titles that includes books aimed at general audiences in addition to academic monographs and edited collections. We are looking for short retrospectives of around 1000-1500 words that would address the following threads of inquiry: 

  • What is the significance of the work?
  • What did it contribute to Metal Studies?
  • What aspects of the book still seem most relevant today?
  • Are there aspects of the book that you are critical of? 

The tone of the writing does not need to be rigorously academic; we are looking for more personal sorts of reminisces about these publications. 

If you are interested in writing a retrospective, please reply with up to three titles you are interested to write about. We’re operating on a “first-come, first-served” basis so it will be good to have some alternative titles in case your first choice is already spoken for.  We would like to have the first drafts by Dec. 1 – it’s a quick turnaround but since these will be short and less academic hopefully that won’t be too much of a discouragement.

We have reviews lined up already for the following:

  • Christie, The Sound of the Beast
  • Dawes, What are You Doing Here?
  • Kahn-Harris, Extreme Metal
  • Moynihan, Lords of Chaos
  • McNeil, Please Kill Me
  • Clifford-Napoleone, Queerness in Heavy Metal Music
  • Roccor, Heavy Metal. Die Bands. Die Fans. Die Gegner. 
  • Hein, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal: Histoire, cultures et pratiquants

We would like to get 5–10 more pieces to round out the section. We’d be particularly interested in reviews of some of the early collections like Scott & von Helden’s Metal Void: The First Gathering (2010) along with other edited collections and special issues of journals.

Please send replies and any questions to both ross.hagen@uvu.edu and edwardbanchs@gmail.com.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Some fun things and shout outs from these past few weeks.

Autographed Crawlspace

The folks at RedLetterMedia recently did a two-part episode on Full Moon’s Puppet Master series of films. They briefly brought up Puppet Master one’s director David Schmoeller and how he did a movie called Crawlspace with Klaus Kinski who was a nightmare to work with – so much so that Kinski became the inspiration for the Blade puppet.

Back in the late 2000s I contacted Schmoeller and asked him if I could post him my copy of Crawlspace to be autographed and he said sure! So, pictured here is my copy of Crawlspace, signed by Schmoeller (and producer Charles Band), along with a copy of “Please Kill Mr. Kinski” that Schmoeller sent as a gift.

Art of Michele Brittany

Michele has started a Facebook Page devoted to her crafting and art. If you want to check out her projects or purchase some of her journals, give the page a like and follow!

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61565895377463

Categories
News

News Roundup 2024-10-13

Personal / Website News

Yor #1 Review

New article up at this here website!

Folks probably know that I am a big fan of the Margheriti film Yor, the Hunter from the Future. I was excited a month or so ago when I stumbled upon that Antarctic Press was reprinting the comic in English! You better believe I ran to my local comic book store and put it on my pull list.

I got the issue in my paws and it’s pretty cool! It’s amazing how much the film adapted faithfully from the comic. You can read my compare/contrast right here.

Citations News

It’s been a while since I’ve had some citation news, but here is a new one, fresh off the presses!

My essay, “Lost Nights and Dangerous Days,” was cited by Gabrielle Berry in her essay “[Bones cracking]: Reading and listening to Foley and captions” which was published in the journal The Soundtrack, vol 16, Sept 2024 by Intellect. Super flattered!

Panthans Journal #329

The newest issue of the The National Panthans Journal has been published. This issues contains a re-print of my review of Carson of Venus / Warlord of Mars #1.

I love the cover by Mark Wheatley!

Paraphrased from the zine: The National Capital Panthans Journal is a monthly publication issued as a .PDF file on the Saturday before the first Sunday of each month. Contribution of articles, artwork, photos and letters are welcome. Send submissions to the editor: Laurence G. Dunn at laurencegdunn@gmail.com in a Word document for consideration.

Scholars from the Edge of Time

The September episode of Scholars from the Edge of Time is online!

For this vidcast Michele and I discuss the early 80s cult sword and planet film, Krull. How we have gone our entire life without watching this film is near criminal because it ruled.

Personal copies of the Krull Blu-ray and the soundtrack.

The episode can be watched on YouTube, have a listen/watch!

Looking at the rest of 2024, in October we will be discussing The Head Hunter (2018) and then (depending on holidays fall) Gentlemen Broncos (2009).

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2024.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#1″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #326.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#2″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #327.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus: The Flames Beyond#3″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #328.

Comic Book Review: “Carson of Venus / Warlord of Mars #1″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #329.

Calls for Papers/Proposals

Here are some new pop culture CFPs that have crossed my paths. Links to these will also be in the CFP page on the navigation bar.

Roger Corman’s Horror Movies: Collected Essays

Edited by Sue Matheson

Part of the series edited by Carl Sederholm

Indie filmmaker Roger Corman is known for producing and directing hundreds of B-movies, discovering industry stars (like Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, and Robert de Niro), anticipating Hollywood’s New Wave, and founding a profitable empire that included New World Pictures and Concorde/New Horizons. Entertaining, literate, and campy, his fast-paced, low-budget genre films, aimed at the youth market and generally shot in less than two weeks, included horror movies, horror comedies, and sci-fi/horror. The Beast With a Million Eyes(1955), It Conquered the World (1956), The Undead (1957), Not of This Earth (1957), A Bucket of Blood(1959), The Wasp Woman (1959), The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961), The Intruder (1962), The Terror (1963), The Man With X-Ray Eyes (1963), The Haunted Palace(1963), and Dementia 13 (1963) helped make Corman “The King of the Drive-in” and the “King of Cult.” Cult classics, the gothic horror films of his Edgar Allan Poe cycle (House of Usher [1960], The Pit and the Pendulum [1961], Premature Burial [1962], Tales of Terror[1962], The Raven [1963], The Haunted Palace [1963], The Masque of the Red Death [1964] and The Tomb of Ligeia [1964]) also revived the careers of Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Basil Rathbone, and Peter Lorre. As the “Orson Welles of the Z movies,” Corman was not only an auteur filmmaker and influencer; he was also a producer and distributor of horror movies. The last movie he directed was the under-appreciated Frankenstein Unbound (1990). Corman’s better-known works have been taught in courses on the history of the horror genre and cult films, while many others deserve critical reexamination.

This anthology seeks previously unpublished essays that explore Roger Corman’s body of horror films and mashups. It is open to submissions on films belonging to his Edgar Allan Poe series franchise and his well-known cult horrors, but will particularly welcome interdisciplinary approaches that can illuminate overlooked films like The Beast With a Million Eyes (1955), It Conquered the World (1956), The Undead (1957), Not of This Earth (1957), Attack of the CrabMonsters (1957), Night of the Blood Beast (1958), Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959), The Intruder (1962), Tower of London (1962), The Man With X-Ray Eyes (1963), and Frankenstein Unbound (1990).

This volume will be interdisciplinary in scope, including approaches from philosophy, literary studies, film studies, gender studies, history, psychology, popular culture studies, hauntology, ecology, etc. The chapters will be peer-reviewed, scholarly, and written at a high academic level.

Contributions could include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

  • Thematic and structural analysis of one or more films
  • Visual style
  • Notions of evil
  • Photography and cinematography
  • The supernatural
  • Corman as an auteur and/or influencer, producer, distributor
  • Mash ups and updated horror
  • Soundscapes and music
  • Film as philosophy/philosophy in film
  • Failed parenthood
  • Comedy, black humor, and irony
  • Social and cultural contexts
  • American youth and youth culture
  • Drive-in film culture
  • Landscapes as sites of horror
  • Literary and gothic adaptations
  • Exploration of the sub- and unconscious
  • Class, sexuality, abject, gender and queer readings

This anthology will be organized into thematic sections around these topics and others that emerge from submissions. It is open to works that focus on other topics as well. Prospective authors are welcome to contact the editor with any questions, including potential topics not listed above. Please share this announcement with anyone you believe would be interested in contributing to this volume. Please submit a 250-word abstract of your proposed chapter contribution, a brief CV / bio, current position, affiliation, and complete contact information to Sue Matheson (smatheson@ucn.ca) by the 30th of December 2024. Full chapters of 6,000-7,000 words are likely due in June/July 2025 after signing a contract with the publisher.

Note: Acceptance of a proposed abstract does not guarantee the acceptance of the full chapter.

Categories
Peplum

Yor’s [Comic] World: Yor, The Hunter From The Future #01

Yor, the Hunter from the Future is a 1983 Italian Barbarian film directed by Antonio Margheriti (Castle of Blood [1964], Ark of the Sun God [1984]) and starring Reb Brown (best known as the lead protagonist in the MST3K-riffed Space Mutiny [David Winters, 1988]). The movie is a strongman/sword and sorcery film that came during a wave of similar other films (Ator, the Fighting Eagle [1982, Joe D’Amato], Conquest [Lucio Fulci, 1983], The Barbarians [1987, Ruggero Deodato], and so on), that were capitalizing on the success of Conan the Barbarian (1982, John Milius), though the added Star Wars-esque elements at the film’s end edge Yor into sword and planet territory. The film has enjoyed cult status, no doubt due to the presence of Brown and Margheriti’s special effects.

The film was adapted from a series of Argentinian comics titled Yor the Hunter that was created in the mid-70s by writer Ray Collins (Eugenio Juan Zappietro) and artist Juan Zanotto. For decades the comic has been inaccessible to an English-speaking audience, however Antarctic Press (Gold Digger and Ninja High School) is remedying this situation by publishing a translated edition of the original Yor comics. Slated to be released across four issues, the first was released in late August/September.

One thing that becomes apparent when comparing the two version of Yor is just how closely the film follows the plot of the original comic book incarnation. Issue one of Yor, divided into three episodes, corresponds to the first thirty minutes of Yor the movie. All the major narrative events and characters are there.

Film Yor vs. comics Yor:

Brown’s Yor is more lighthearted with a strong helping of naivety. Comics Yor is much more grimdark and serious. Film Yor is an outsider to the initial tribe depicted in the film while comics Yor is already part of the tribe and becomes a leader of it when he exposes a false god – a woolly mammoth encased in ice. Both are strong barbarians that wear a medallion and wield a stone axe. 

Film Kalaa vs. comics Kalaa:

Film Kalaa is played by Corinne Cléry (Bond girl Corinne Dufour in Moonraker [Lewis Gilbert, 1979] and O in The Story of O [Just Jaeckin, 1975]) who is both the love interest of Yor and the damsel in distress of the film. Film Kalaa does not have as much character development as comics Kalaa who is much more strong willed. Comics Kalaa initially rebuffs Yor when he selects her to be his wife, not holding a high opinion of him. Comics Kalaa is also a damsel character, who must be rescued by Yor. 

Film Pag vs. comics Pag

Cinematic Pag is played by Antonio Margheriti regular Luciano Pigozzi (Beetle in Ark of the Sun God, Francesco in And God Said to Cain [1970]) and pretty much is a one to one of comics Pag. Both are confidents/guards of Kalaa, proficient with a bow, and full of sage-like advice.

The major plot beats of the comic are present in the film.

Both the comic and film features a dino battle early in the story. In the film, Yor is introduced by him saving Kalaa and Pag from a triceratops. In the comic Yor saves Pag from a T-rex.

Ukan and his Blue People attacks Yor and friends, kidnap Kalaa and steal Yor’s medallion.

And after the battle throws Yor over a cliff, where he survives. 

Afterwards Yor and Pag enter the caves of the Blue People in order to save Kalaa. In the film Yor rides a pterodactyl in to make a grand entrance while in the comic Yor and Pag battle the pterodactyls en route to the caverns. An epic battle ensues and in both media versions end with Yor destroying a dam and flooding the caves of the Blue People.

While the film adapts the plot of the comics fairly faithfully, where it really deviates is in tone. The filmic version of Yor is much more lighthearted. Even though it has a fair amount of blood (from when Yor slays the triceratops), the overall atmosphere of the film is fantasy-adventure, akin to Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (John Korty, 1984) with a bit of spear and fang thrown in for good measure. Conversely, the comics version of Yor is much more dark, grittier, and violent. There are executions, rape, and the violence is less cartoonish. The comics version of Yor also narrates the inner feelings of Kalaa and Yor, and they ponder the nature of love in the hostile, primitive world.

After comparing the two iterations of Yor, it is interesting to note just how faithful Margheriti’s adaption was to the source material, save for the tone. It is an interesting case study in how the same story can be told the same textually, but differ greatly in atmosphere and mood. Both film and sequential art incarnations of Yor compliment each other quite well. Fans of the film may not find the camp element in present in the comics version, but can certainly appreciate seeing the original source material of Yor and how it all came about. On its own, the comics version of Yor is fun, and feels like it could have been published in the early years of Heavy Metal. 

Yor, the film, definitely derails itself as it progresses and veers into Star Wars territory, so it will be interesting to see if it continues to be faithful to the comics when issues two through four are published.

Being a Yor superfan, I’ve accumulated some Yor artifacts over the years, and the publishing of issue one of the comic is a perfect opportunity to show off a bit of the collection, which include different home video editions (including a German version of Yor on DVD signed by Reb Brown himself) and soundtracks. Check everything out in the slide show:

I had the opportunity to talk about Yor on the Fan2Fan Podcast, which can be streamed at the Fan2Fan Libsyn.

For more information on the Yor comics, check out the following links: