Digging through my archives I came across an article I wrote for my zine as part of S. T. Joshi’s Esoteric Order of Dagon APA. The article was in dire need of editing and spell checking, but it still seemed like a fun piece on retroism and sword and sorcery.
Michele also has an episode on her top 5 vampires which can be heard here. Sincere appreciation for Fan2Fan for having us on as guests!
Emmanuelle / Black Emanuelle CFP
The Call for Papers for Emmanuelle, Black Emanuelle, and Emmanuelle derivative films is open.
Collection of Emmanuelle comics by Guido Crepax (personal collection).
The CFP can found on this page. If you know other scholars who would be interested in this project, please share! I’d be super appreciative to get the word out.
Scholars from the Edge of Time
For our monthly appearance on Scholars from the Edge of Time, Michele and I discuss the 1959 Biblical plum film Solomon and Sheba (see below). The episode can be viewed on Hercules Invictus’ YouTube channel.
James Bond and Popular Culture Review
Michele’s book, James Bond and Popular Culture, has a brand new review online!
Lex “Hugin” Karrila has an autobiography being published this year by Running Wild Productions: 40 Years a Black Metal Punk. The books covers his 40+ year musical career from his punk days to his later metal, industrial, dungeon synth, and other extreme genres with projects such as Uruk-Hai, Hrossharsgrani, BoneMachine, and many more.
I had the honor to collaborate with Karrila on a few songs for his Ceremony of Innocence project and have done a deep analysis of his Hrossharsgrani album Pro Liberate Dimicandum Est which is part of my essay in the upcoming A Hero Will Endure collection (see below).
In conjunction with the book, a double album is being released that provides an aural sampling of Karrila’s musical career. Included on the compilation is the Ceremony of Innocence track “Our Fire Burns” which I did lyrics and vocals for, so that is very cool (note: my old website has a discography section, I might have to bring that back!).
The German edition of the book is slated to be released this April (Bandcamp page for Running Wild Productions, keep an eye there) while an English edition will be published later this year.
A Hero Will Endure Preorder
A Hero Will Endure: Essays at the Twentieth Anniversary of Gladiator is available for preorder at the Vernon Press website.
This collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling” and is slated to be released in February.
Miscellaneous Tidbits
Rest in Peplum Gina Lollobrigida
Iconic Italian starlet Gina Lollobrigida passed away on the 16th this month.
My autographed 8×10 of Lollobrigida.
She didn’t star in too many historic epics, however she did star opposite of Yum Brenner in King Vidor’s Solomon and Sheba.
The barebones Blu-ray of Solomon and Sheba.
Michele and I decided to make her and this film the primary focus of our Scholars from he Edge of Time appearance this month (see above).
New Edge Sword and Sorcery Kickstarter
The folks at New Edge Sword and Sorcery will be launching a Kickstarter very soon to fund publishing of issue 1 (issue 0 can be found on Amazon).
Personal copy of issue 0.
You can sign up to be notified when the Kickstarter goes live at this link.
Note: This essay was first published in the autumn of 2018 in the Letters from Thanator zine that is part of S. T. Joshi’s Esoteric Order of Dagon APA. This essay has been updated with corrections to spelling, word usage, and various clarifications.
A Game Called Quest is author S. J. Larsson’s third book, after 2016’s Megalodon: Apex Predator and 2017’s Total Immersion. Published with Severed Press, (as with his other two titles), A Game Called Quest concerns brother and sister Donny and Amanda, joined by friend Kevin, as they play a video game on the Atari 2600 entitled Quest which seemingly has VR capabilities that puts them into a fantasy world called Quintarria. The novella itself has issues: misspellings pop up more frequent than they should and Larsson doesn’t appear to be up to task to convey the story at an appropriate pace and consistent fashion. Despite these shortcomings, A Game Called Quest is noteworthy for its attempt at blending retro-modernism in the form of 80s nostalgia that has surfaced in the past decade along with the neo-peplum/sword and sorcery genre. The ongoing wave of 80s nostalgia is mostly preoccupied with the era’s horror aspect, (as evident in the Netflix series Stranger Things), and Miami Vice-esque aesthetics and for the most part eschews the sword and sorcery element that were popular during the decade. A Game Called Quest’s intersection of 80s retro-ism and sword and sorcery is its strongest facet and deserves exploration.
Personal copy of A Game Called Quest.
This short-form article will first provide a plot summation of A Game Called Quest followed by an attempt to unearth both the 80s retro-modernism and sword and sorcery elements in the story. Next, additional contextualization will be pointed out between the text and the real world, specifically regarding the usage of Pac-Man and how A Game Called Quest relates to other early console fantasy games, some that flirt with ARG (alternate reality game)-elements, akin to Quest’s VR immersion.
A Game Called Quest centers on Donny, a fourteen year old freshman trying to purchase a copy of Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 on launch day, but is thwarted by class bullies Brian, Duff, and Ernie. His punk-rock sister Amanda takes him and Kevin, a not-quite-a-friend of Donny’s, to purchase something else to cheer them up. They wind up in a mysterious trinket store where the eccentric proprietor, Royee, rents them an Atari game he created himself: Quest. The three take the game, along with its various peripherals, back home and play it. They are plunged into a fantasy world called Quintarria, with Donny assuming the role of a wizard and party leader, Amanda an elf archer, and Kevin a dwarf warrior. The three set off to save the kingdom, leveling up by killing monsters and bosses while gaining new skills and abilities in the process. At the same time, they also combat the real world bullies who intrude on them. The novella ends with the trio beating the VRgame, besting the bullies, and returning Quest to Royee, whose shop mysteriously disappears.
The 80s was perhaps the last gilded age of the sword and sorcery genre until the Lord of the Rings trilogy attempted to revive it twenty years later. The decade prior saw the cumulation of literary sword and sorcery, with folks like Lin Carter who edited many fantasy anthologies that gave visibility to both new talent and older, obscure works. The 80s saw the genre transcend the literary world and into other mediums, particularly in the cinematic realm. Examples include film adaptations of Robert E. Howard’s Conan such as Conan the Barbarian (1982, John Milius) and Conan the Destroyer (1984, Richard Fleischer), esoteric fare such as Hundra (1983, Matt Cimber), animated endeavors like Fire and Ice (1983, Ralph Bakshi) and even Italian derivatives such as Ator, The Fighting Eagle (1982, Joe D’Amato) and Conquest (1983, Lucio Fulci). The genre was also explored in video games, such as Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II, Legendary Axe and Golden Axe, and tabletop games as with Dungeons and Dragons.
Despite the popularity of the genre, sword and sorcery elements are greatly lacking representation in the current 80s nostalgia trend. Outrun, the aesthetics that dominate 80s retro-ism and so named after the Sega arcade game of the same name, concentrates on components such as neon-magenta colours, vector gridlines, VHS tracking artifacts and faux VHS boxart, a setting sun broken by clouds, fast cars and palm trees. Synthwave, the music genre heavily inspired by the 80s, focuses mostly on horror elements (especially John Carpenter films and his music), as well police elements such as those in To Live and Die in L.A. (1985, William Friedkin), and cyberpunk and 8-bit/16-bit video game aesthetics. Movies and television shows such as Stranger Things, Kung Fury (2015, David Sandberg), Turbo Kid (2015, Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell), and so on, also focus on these facets of the 80s. Stranger Things comes close to tackling the sword and sorcery genre during this time period, with the children in the show playing Dungeons and Dragons in season one and the arcade game Dragon’s Lair in season two. However, depictions of Frank Frazetta-styled barbarians and ruggedly harsh but fantastic worlds are absent in the present day trend of retro-modernism. Most sword and sorcery depictions appear in shows such as Game of Thrones, but even that series has its own identity and does not rely on 80s homage. The Fox television show Son of Zorn is perhaps the closest example of sword and sorcery done in a retro-modern fashion. Son of Zorn was a live action sitcom with a cartoonish He-Man inspired character named Zorn inserted into the “real world” à la Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988, Robert Zemeckis) and Cool World (1992, Ralph Bakshi). The show was not a success and was cancelled after its first season.
Therefore, while the greater outrun, synthwave, and retro-modernism movements are concerned with exploring the horror, retro-tech, cyberpunk and Miami Vice elements of the 80s, A Game Called Quest differentiates itself within 80s revivalism by centering itself at the crossroads of retro-gaming and the sword and sorcery genre while borrowing heavily from other popular and cult 80s stories. To begin with, A Game Called Quest shares much in common with The NeverEnding Story (1984, Wolfgang Petersen): both involve bullies harassing a young protagonist and a sequence in which the youth visits a store and procures an item (a book in The NeverEnding Story and a video game in A Game Called Quest) that transports them to a fantasy world full of magic and populated by fantastic beasts and denizens. There are also shades of Labyrinth (1986, Jim Hensen) and Tron (1982, Steven Lisberger) present in A Game Called Quest as well, with both films involving heroes going to another world, with Tron complimenting the video game aspect and Labyrinth the fantasy aspect. Though made in the early 90s, it should be pointed out that A Game Called Quest’s plot anticipates Full Moon Entertainment’s Arcade (1993, Albert Pyun) in which teenagers are transported into a virtual video game world.
Regarding the 80s sword and sorcery elements, attention should first be directed to the novella’s cover. The artwork is a stock piece of art called “Dwarf Knight on Winter Cold” by Vuk Kostic1 that depicts a heavily armored dwarf in a forest during a winter’s night. The placement of the artwork against a solid red background and the typeface of the title has the cover replicate the box art of an old Atari video game. Though the dwarf isn’t quite in the Frazetta or Boris Vallejo style, it still evokes 80s fantasy elements. The story proper, of course, is submerged in video game sword and sorcery, with a party of adventurers fighting dragons, dark elves, snow imps, trolls, chimeras, and more. While the sword and sandal and the sword and sorcery genres share some overlap, A Game Called Quest contains elements of the neo-peplum genre, having been written post-1990, and by playfully making use of the genre tropes in a unique fashion.2 Basically, a contemporary-written book that leverages the sword and sorcery genre but via an 80s retro-gaming framework.
There is some fortuitous irony in that Donny is able to get Quest over Pac-Man. Various times through the story, Donny or Kevin exclaim how Quest is the greatest game ever.3 This is in stark contrast to the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man that Donny had been pining for. This was the first home console port of Pac-Man, though it differs wildly in quality to the superior arcade version. Though initially a best seller, the port’s poor quality eventually had a negative impact to both Atari (who had manufactured an excessive number of cartridges)4 and the overall image of the video game industry. These would be elements that led into the video game crash of 1983.5
Poor reception of Pac-Man aside, there is a greater link between Pac-Man, Quest and fantasy games as they appeared on early consoles. The 2600 port of Pac-Man was programmed by Tod R. Frye who would go on to program the Swordquestseries of games for the 2600. Swordquest consisted of three games, Earthworld, Fireworld, and Waterworld with a fourth release, Airworld, being unreleased (though a version would appear on the Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration compilation released in late 2022). The Swordquest games were not RPG games but instead adventure-puzzlers. Taking place in a fantasy world, players would move between rooms, dropping off items and solving puzzles. The innovative feature of the Swordquest games, much like Quest, is the ARG/metagame aspect of it: accomplishments in the game could impact the real world. In Swordquest, clues are unveiled within the game and crossed referenced in an accompanying comic book. Solving these puzzles would offer the player opportunities to win real world treasures created by the Franklin Mint: the Talisman of Penultimate Truth from Earthworld, the Chalice of Light from Fireworld, the Crown of Life from Waterworld, the Philosopher’s Stone from Airworld and ultimately the Sword of Ultimate Sorcery. The series was ultimately cancelled after the limited release of Waterworld and Atari was purchased by Tramel Technology.6 It is quite uncanny that Quest attempts to blend a video game with the real world in its narrative while the Swordquest series was, in every practical sense, actually able to perform this feat.
A Game Called Quest is not the best written work as Larsson doesn’t posses either the technical writing or storytelling acumen to truly accomplish what they set out to do. However, the fragments that do exist, the intersection of 80s nostalgia and the sword and sorcery genre via retro-gaming, is a stand out, well executed aspect of the novella. It’s definitely aninteresting take on the sword and sorcery genre as well as a refreshing nostalgia piece that attempts to work with specific80s tropes that are not as popular as others.
A few of the tenants of neo-pepla is that while it is applicable mostly to the sword and sandal stories, it has a universality that is can be applied to stories with shades of sword and sandal and encourages different styles (especially post-modern) of storytelling as well. The genre is also not restricted to films, but instead is a true transmedia genre thatcan be found in television, video games, comic books, music, literature, and other media as well. Nicholas Diak, introduction to The New Peplum: Essays on Sword and Sandal Films and Television Programs since the 1990s, ed. Nicholas Diak (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017), 6-14
S. J. Larsson, A Game Called Quest (Hobart, Tasmania: Severed Press, 2018), 18, 130.
Steven L. Kent, The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon and Beyond – The Story Behind the Craze that Touched Our Lives and Changed the World (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001), 236.
Diak, Nicholas. Introduction to The New Peplum: Essays on Sword and Sandal Films and Television Programs since the 1990s, 4-19. Edited by Nicholas Diak. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017.
Kent, Steven L. The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon and Beyond – The Story Behind the Craze that Touched Our Lives and Changed the World. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001.
Larsson, S. J. A Game Called Quest. Hobart, Tasmania: Severed Press, 2018.
The second issue of the neo-peplum comic Born of Blood was released late 2022 by MERC Publishing.
I’ve done a write up of the issue which can be read here.
Emmanuelle / Black Emanuelle CFP
The Call for Papers for Emmanuelle, Black Emanuelle, and Emmanuelle derivative films is open.
Personal copy of Emmanuelle 4 signed by Brinke Stevens.
The CFP can found on this page. If you know other scholars who would be interested in this project, please share! I’d be super appreciative to get the word out.
New Episode of H. P. Lovecast
A new episode of H. P. Lovecast is now online. This episode was recorded last month, but with all the moving and getting settled, we are publishing it now. It’s a recap episode where Michele and I talk about accomplishments of 2022, personal projects, and goals for 2023. Check it out at our Buzzsprout website, at the podcast player below, or via your podcast app of preference.
A Hero Will Endure Cover Reveal and Table of Contents
A Hero Will Endure: Essays at the Twentieth Anniversary of Gladiator has a (draft) cover reveal and a table of contents! Here is the cover (might be slightly changed):
Draft cover.
And here is the table of contents:
Introduction: On Comets, Cakes, and Toys – Marking ‘Gladiator Days’ for (More than) Two Decades – Rachel L. Carazo
Chapter 1 “A Vital and Adrenalized Contributor”: DreamWorks, Gladiator, and the Establishment of a Movie Studio – Kimberly A. Owczarski
Chapter 2 ‘Wailing’ and ‘Moaning’: Gladiator’s Music Phenomenon and Legacy – Matthew Hodge
Chapter 3 “What We Do in Life, Echoes in Eternity”: An Ecocritical Reading of the Scenery and Landscapes in Gladiator – Stefano Rozzoni
Chapter 4 Maximus – The Twenty-First-Century Hybrid Hero: The Bridge Between Traditional and Counterculture Hero Archetypes in Gladiator – Kristen Leer
Chapter 5 “Father! I would butcher the whole world, if you would only love me…”: The Character of Commodus, between Historical Reality and Cinematographic Representation – Livio Lepratto
Chapter 6 “Commodus is not a Moral Man”: Nemesis, Narrative Construction, and Historical Reconstruction in Gladiator – James Shelton
Chapter 7 Games for the Throne, the Thread of Love, and Women and Heroes: Mythic Gendered Arenas in Gladiator and Game of Thrones – Loraine Haywood
Chapter 8 “…But Not Yet”: Reflections on Juba, the Spirit Guide and “Eternal Echo” of Gladiator – Ashley Weaver
Chapter 9 Ecce homo heroicus! The Enduring Maximus, Twenty Years On – Peter Burkholder and Krista Jenkins
Chapter 10 Roman Religious Figurines that “hear you […] in the afterlife”: Maximus’ Lares, His Vilica, and the Pomerium of Elysium in Gladiator – Rachel L. Carazo
Chapter 11 Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling – Nicholas Diak
Chapter 12 Gladiator and Contemporary Roman Customs: The Myth of Maximus on the Roma and Lazio Soccer Fields – Antonio Valerio Spera
The collection is set to be published this February by Vernon Press which has a product/pre-order page.
Matt Page has a review of the newly resorted 1948 Biblical peplum film Queen Esther starring Ottilie Kruger (in her only non-stage acting role per IMDB) as the titular character (from the Book of Esther).
This past Friday the 13th turned out to be a lucky day for me because I received not one, but two! Joseph S. Pulver. Sr. edited Lovecraftian anthologies that contain Nick Mamatas autographs.
The first is The Leaves of a Necronomicon which Nick Mamatas graciously autographed to me. Copies can be ordered via this link at Books Inc.
Next is the Dreamlands anthology New Maps of Dream. This anthology was actually released back in 2020, but the edition with autograph pages from the contributors was delayed due to the sheets being lost in the mail. However, this edition is now released and can be purchased at PS Publishing.
HPLCP Transmissions – Ep 09 – Kaaron Warren, Christine Morgan, and Matthew M. Bartlett –
H. P. Lovecast Podcast
Emmanuelle à la Crepax
Italian erotic comics artist Guido Crepax has been having his body of work republished by Fantagraphics. At the tale end of 2022 the publisher released The Complete Guido Crepax: Erotic Stories 1 which contains all of his Emmanuelle adaptations:
I had trade paperback editions of Emmanuelle 1 and 3 but missing 2, so having this collection released was an excellent surprise.
Of course, if anyone wants to write about sequential art versions of Emmanuelle, I happen to have a CFP open…..
Funko Toga and Sandal Homer
Michele gifted me this rather adorable Toga and Sandal-themed Funko Homer Simpson named Obeseus.
It’s not shown in this picture, but he’s holding a drumstick. I love it!
Xiphos – The Rise and Fall of Athens
The Rise and Fall of Athens is the debut album of the martial/neo-classical outfit Xiphos.
As can be seen from the cover and title, the neo-peplum album is about Ancient Greece. Two of the members of Xiphos, Miklós Hoffer and Troy Southgate, and also a part of the neo-classical outfit H.E.R.R. who have an album called XII Caesars that explores the same subject matter.
Hoffer was gracious to autograph a copy of the album to me. Copies of the limited edition digipack can be ordered by PayPaling 11.99 euros to mgahoffer AT hotmail.com
It’s been one year since Princess Giaris led a victorious attack on the Argives and won over the Sparta populace as their future queen. In the time since, Giaris, her father King Cleomenes, and warrior Mor all led successful sorties against the enemies of Sparta. While Cleomenes is satisfied with his daughter’s development into a skilled warrior, he sends her off to his advisor Aurelia to continue her training – the arts of suggestion and seduction.
Born of Blood #2 standard retail cover by Ruth Lucas.
Aurelia puts Giaris through a regimen of bedding Spartan warriors to improve her sexual prowess and to make her able to read men’s bodies in order to seduce and then command them. She is taught other arts of intrigue, such as using different perfumes to accomplish near magical effects.
Meanwhile, Cleomenes is visited by the Klepthes who demand land as payment for the information they provided to Giaris to the whereabouts of the Argives (see issue one). Cleomenes furiously rejects their demands. That night the Klepthes kidnap Cleomenes and hold him ransom and murder Mor in the skirmish. Giaris tortures one of the surviving Klepthes to find their camp by ripping his foot off.
Giaris leads a small army of women armed with intoxicating perfumes to the Klepthes’ camp where they proceed to charm and murder its occupants. However, they are too late for Cleomenes had been impaled to a rack, tortured, and killed.
After the King is buried next to his wife during a funeral attended by Leonidas, Aurelia spits on his grave, revealing herself as the orchestrator of his demise.
Born of Blood #2 variant cover (in foil) by Lauren Wright.
While the first issue of Born of Blood was heavy on combat, issue two takes the toga and sandal approach by focusing on the political and intrigue aspects of the neo-peplum genre (with an strong emphasis on the seduction). Issue two borrows heavily from the porno-pepla of the late 70s and early 80s (Caligula, Caligula the Untold Story, and Caligula and Messalina) with wanton nudity and sexual acts. Blood is not the only bodily fluid that flows in abundance in the panels of issue two.
These two panels sum up issue two.
The artwork depicting Aurelia in a rather sinister format foreshadows her treachery at the issue’s end. It’s an obvious cliché. However, the throwback to the first issue’s encounter with the Klepthes, which only occurs in one (seemingly) throwaway panel was an unexpected element of intrigued that strongly ties both issues together.
The emotional angle of issue two is on the idiosyncratic side. Giaris mourns for the loss of her father during a rainy funeral, yet has no reaction (during or immediately afterward) when finding Mor’s body. He is only brought up offhandedly at the issue’s funeral conclusion. Giaris isn’t that cold hearted (yet?), instead it feels like a panel of acknowledgment is missing.
Issue two of Born of Blood is certainly graphic, both in its violence (ripped off limbs) and nudity, but it provides a backdrop of severity and intensity for Princess Giaris in her story to become a fierce Queen of Sparta.
The Kickstarter that funded the production of issue two concluded in June 2022 with issues shipping in the late fall. As with other MERC Publishing crowdfunding endeavors there was lots of swag, add-ons, and alternate covers which also had their own variants (foil, metal, nude/non-nude, etc.).
These included bookmarks.
And Magnets.
Stickers, poker chips, and other loot.
All the Kickstarter loot for my pledge.
The Kickstarter .PDF of issue two stated that issue three would be hitting stores back in November. This didn’t quite happen as it looks like crowdfunding for issue three will begin in early 2023. The Kickstarter waiting page can be found here.
In the meantime, please check my other articles related to this write up.
As with 2021, 2022 was a crazy year. Lots of life stuff: got a new job after 16 or 17 years at my previous job, and bought a house – first house ever! It’s been quite a process and these last few months busy with cleaning, packing, and moving. However, that is all done (well, except unpacking and furnishing) and Michele and I get to start 2023 off in a home with our cats.
I did a 2021 Accomplishments List and looking back on those, I actually got most of them done! Some projects have been delayed, and of course I have items and reviews on my to do list that have been pending for a while.
Now that I’m all settled in in the new house, with my own office, and library of research material close at hand, I look forward to taking a big bite out of 2023!
I’d like to give a shout out to the following folks who have given me platforms to share what I’ve been working on or given me venues to contribute to:
Bernie Gonzalez and Pete Charbonneau (Fan2Fan Podcast)
Hercules Invictus (Voice of Olympus Network)
Ken Holewczynski (Exotica Moderne)
James Chambers, Carol Gyzander (Galactic Terrors)
Jonathan Maberry (Weird Tales)
Kevin Wetmore (Twilight Zone book)
Hal and Dee Astell (CoKoCon)
Michele Brittany (partner in crime)
You are all greatly appreciated!
2023 Projections
Three days into 2023 and projects are already lining up. Some are carryovers from 2022. Some have been legacy to dos. Some will be brand new. We’ve already been in touch with folks for future episodes of H. P. Lovecast, so expect lots of cool stuff there. I got some looming deadlines for essays for anthology editors, so time to get to work!
Things to look forward to in 2023
Publishing of the debut issue of the Footage Fiends zine which contains my essay on the Mario Bava cosmic horror/exotica film, Caltiki: The Immortal Monster.
A Hero Will Endure: Essays at the Twentieth Anniversary of Gladiator is slated to be published this February. This contains my essay on industrial bands that sample the film. This book has been a long time in coming, so I am extremely excited to see it published!
My CFP for the Emmanuelle / Black Emanuelle project will be open until the spring. Submit, submit, submit!
Essay to be published in Weird Tales. Proof was done and turned in.
New episodes of H. P. Lovecast Podcast
Appearances on the Fan2Fan Podcast
Appearance on the Scaredy Cats podcast discussing the film The Final Girls.
Being on panels for CoKoCon 2023.
Projects I’ll be starting in 2023
Projects I anticipate to be starting/working on in 2023:
Essay on peplum cats for a project for Simon Bacon about cats in cinema (due early spring!)
Essay on the Front Line Assembly album Implode and how it samples the films Mimic and Event Horizon (passion idea project)
Crossing fingers – get enough submissions for the Emmanuelle project to procure a publisher and get that book off the ground
Turning my Acylum/Vikings presentation in a journal article
And other legacy items on my to do list…
Thank you to everyone who has been with my on my academic journey, who has read and shared my material or given me platforms. You all rock socks!
The Call for Papers for Emmanuelle, Black Emanuelle, and Emmanuelle derivative films is open.
The CFP can found on this page. If you know other scholars who would be interested in this project, please share! I’d be super appreciative to get the word out.
H. P. Lovecast Podcast
Final episode of H. P. Lovecast Podcast for 2022 is online. It is our monthly Transmissions episode and in this one we interview author Jason Rekulak about his novel, Hidden Pictures.
The episode can be streamed at our Buzzsprout website, via the embedded player below, or via your podcast app of preference.
We will be resuming our 2+ episodes a month in 2023. Michele and I have been in the process of moving to our first home, so the last few months have been quite hectic preparing for that. However, we are all done (except for lots of unpacking yet to do). Happy to have everyone along for the ride with the podcast and appreciate everyone who has listened and shared.
A Hero Will Endure Preorder
A Hero Will Endure: Essays at the Twentieth Anniversary of Gladiator, is set to be published this February by Vernon Press. The collection contains my essay, “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.” There is no cover art yet, but there is a product/pre-order page at the publisher’s website.
2022 Accomplishments
Much like I did for 2021, I’ll be doing a recap of 2022 accomplishments later this week. Stay tuned!
Miscellaneous Tidbits
Rest in Peplum Ruggero Deodato
Ruggero Deodato, legendary Italian genre director best known for his found footage horror film, Cannibal Holocaust, passed away at the age of 83 (Variety Article). I am a huge appreciator of Deodato’s films and his contribution to cinema. His peplum and sword and sorcery work include:
Ursus and the Valley of Lions (1961) (assistant director)
Devil of the Desert Against the Sun of Hercules (1964) (assistant director)
Hercules, Prisoner of Evil (1964)
The Barbarians (1987)
And many collaborations with Antonio Margheriti.
Michele and I recently discussed The Barbarians on Scholars from the Edge of Time, which can be listened/watched at this YouTube link.
One of my favorite Deodato movies is the underrated Cut and Run. Basically, a more palatable version of Cannibal Holocaust. One of my treasures is my copy of Cut and Run autographed by Michael Berryman and Richard Lynch (rest in peplum).
