News Roundup 2025-05-25

Personal / Website News

Vanya #02 Review

A brand new comic review is live at my website! I am slowly making my way through my backlog of comics, which includes quite a few comics published by Bad Bug.

My review of issue two of Vanya is my most recent write up and it can be read right here. I’ve also submitted this to the Panthans journal, so stay tuned on that front.

Website Enhancements

There are two enchantments I’ve been working on for my website in order to increase ease of use and accessibility: Alt-Text and a Comics category.

Alt-Text

So, it turns out this entire time I’ve been doing Alt-Text wrong at my website. When composing a post, when I am adding a brand new photo to it, I just load the media directly to the post, which in turn adds it to the media library. Later on I go to my media library, add Alt-Text there, thinking the update cascades back to the posted images.

Turns out that is not how it works at all. Instead, I need to load a photo to the WordPress media area first, then add Alt-Text, then add the image to my post.

So, I am slowly working my way backwards to get this rectified and get proper Alt-Text on all my images. Go forward this should not be an issue since now I know how to properly do this. Apologies to any folks impacted by my lack of Alt-Text.

Comics Category

Secondly, I’ve added a new page category called “Comics.” I have an abundance of comic book reviews at my website and I’ve been classifying them as essays, which is not helpful. Creating a Comics tag should help classify the content much better. I have gone through all my comics-centric posts and changed their category, so we should be good to go forward on those.

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 there with the 7th U.S. Cavalry 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 the flyer for the 2025 event:

Here is the press release:

RENOWNED AUTHOR EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS’ CAVALRY SERVICE TO BE MEMORIALIZED IN WILLCOX, AZ

“Tarzan” Creator and Pop Culture’s Influential “Grandfather of Science Fiction and Fantasy” Commemorated for His 150th Birthday.

WILLCOX, AZ – The renowned “Master of Adventure” Edgar Rice Burroughs started his adult life as a cavalryman at Arizona’s Fort Grant in May of 1896. This September, as part of the late author’s 150th birthday celebration, his cavalry service will be memorialized with a monument at the restored Southern Pacific train depot in Willcox, where he arrived on his way to Fort Grant (35 miles north).

The influential creator of Tarzan of the Apes, John Carter of Mars, and The Land That Time Forgot series of stories wrote in his “Autobiography” that he specifically requested “to be sent to the worst post in the United States” and was then promptly assigned to Fort Grant in Arizona Territory, where his troop would spend some time hunting after the Apache Kid and other outlaws.

Many believe that Burroughs’ initial stay in Arizona influenced his first Martian story, Under the Moons of Mars, which begins with the first chapter titled “On the Arizona Hills.” The John Carter Martian stories would go on to influence generations of science fiction and fantasy books and movies, and would inspire many young people to become scientists, engineers, and astronauts. He would later author the books The War Chief and Apache Devil, both set in Arizona during the Apache Wars of the 1860s – 1880s.

This Willcox Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship (ECOF) Gathering will take place from September 25 to 28, 2025, with the 7th Cavalry Historical Monument formal dedication ceremony on Saturday, September 27th from 10:00 AM – 12:00 Noon near the historic Southern Pacific Railroad Depot.

The monument dedication at the Willcox train depot will include guest speakers and participation of local Buffalo Soldier reenactors. All other convention events will take place at the Elks Lodge #2131 in Willcox, and will include discussion panels, a “huckster” (vendor) room, Guest of Honor and speaker Jeffrey J. Mariotte (author of Tarzan and the Forest of Stone), Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. speakers, a Saturday night banquet/ dinner, a Tarzan movie screening, and other surprises.

These events are sponsored by the Sulphur Springs Valley Historical Society and the Apache Devils chapter of The Burroughs Bibliophiles. The celebration is open to the public for free (except for the dinner and movie), but full attendees can register for a fee that covers a goodie bag, a huckster table, and the Saturday dinner.

This is a must-attend event for fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs and pop-culture historians alike. If you’d like to visit the place where it all began, don’t miss this very special celebration. (Note that some convention activities will require full event registration – the registration form is provided separately.)

The Holiday Inn Express & Suites Willcox is offering a special daily room rate of $119 plus taxes for the nights of 25 to 27 September for attendees. The group name is “ECOF.” You can make reservations at this rate by calling the hotel at (520) 384-3333; rooms are limited. The address is 1251 N. Virginia Ave, Willcox, AZ 85643.

If you would like more information about the 2025 ECOF event, please call Frank Puncer at 520.281.1818, or email him at fwpuncer at gmail dot com.

Here is the registration from:

Michele and I will be in attendance for this convention, so I’ve added it to the appearances section of my website as well. I may be doing a presentation on Tarzan as a peplum character in Tarzan and the Lost Empire. Hope to see yall there!

Publishing Recap

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

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Some fun things I shared online from these past few weeks. Highlighting things from my personal collection of pop culture artifacts.

Invasion of the Bee Girls

Back in December of 2024 I shared two movies that actress Victoria Vetri had signed for me: When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (Val Guest, 1970) and Kings of the Sun (J. Lee Thompson, 1963). I had posted the movies to her (see her website on directions if you’d like to have her autograph an item of your’s) and was super gracious she took the time to sign them.

A few months later while at Zia’s Records, I found a Midnite Movies edition of Invasion of the Star Creatures (Bruno VeSota, 1972) and Invasion of the Bee Girls (Denis Sanders, 1973). I collect titles from this line of films (I have a lot) and Invasion of the Bee Girls has Ms. Vetri in it, so I had to pluck it up.

I swear, not a week or so later after plucking up the DVD, Kino Lorber released a Blu-ray of Invasion of the Bee Girls, which I promptly pre-ordered.

Ms. Vetri had signed my prior movies, I thought I would send her my newest titles to see if she could autograph them.

And she did! So, here are both copies of Invasion of the Bee Girls signed by Victoria Vetri – aren’t they awesome?

Bikini Drive-In and Bikini Carwash Company I & II

In the late 2000s I start a correspondence with Ed Wood regular Conrad Brooks, who signed many of my movies he was in, but also gifted my DVD burns of movies he was in.

One of those films he gifted me was Bikini Drive-In (Fred Olen Ray, 1995), which I wound find out years later, has a peplum homage scene in it with sword and sandal icon himself, Gordon Mitchell.

Recently I saw that MVD was putting out a Blu-ray release of Bikini Car Wars Company I (Ed Hansen, 1992) and II (Gary Dean Orona, 1993), and I confused the titles of the different movies and pre-ordered the MVD set, confusing it with the Fred Olen Ray film.

Well, it arrived, and one cannot say “no” to too many bikini films, so here they are: my Conrad Brooks autographed DVD-r of Bikini Drive-In and the Blu-ray set of The Bikini Carwash Company 1 & 2. Time to marathon them all (and maybe do a short peplum ponderings article on Bikini Drive-In?)

Mitchell / RIP Joe Don Baker

Cult actor Joe Don Baker passed away on May 7th. I was first introduced to Baker as CIA Agent Jack Wade in GoldenEye (Martin Campbell, 1995), but got more familiar with his filmography seeing him appear in Final Justice (Greydon Clark, 1985) and Mitchell (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1975) on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Many, many moons ago, on eBay I believe (??), somewhere (??) I happened upon this autographed VHS copy of Mitchell, with Baker’s autograph in big thick black sharpie. A cult curio, I had to pluck it up. RIP to the legendary star.

News from Friends

Cool kids I know have been busy lately! Here are some signal boosts I’d like to give out.

New Ride the Stream Episodes

Michele and Travis have some brand new episodes of their Ride the Stream vidcast online at YouTube. They dive into the next few episodes of Lost.

Here is their take on episode 20:

And their dialogue about episode 21:

New episodes drop every Friday on YouTube. Keep an eye on their YouTube channel, or give them a follow on Bluesky.

New Fan2Fan Episodes

Bernie and Pete have some new episodes of their Fan2Fan podcast online.

Michele joins as a guest in their episode about the 1979 Herzog/Kinski version of Nosferatu:

Michele is also a guest in the discussion about the 2024 incarnation:

Older episodes of Fan2Fan can be found at its Libsyn page or via your podcast app of preference.

New Music from Philippe Gerber

Philippe Gerber, who has done the music for our H. P. Lovecast Podcast, has some brand new music that has just been published!

First, under Gerber’s own name, he has released a three track EP called Rebirth, which can be found at Bandcamp.

And next, under his John 3:16 moniker, he has published a collaboration album with Eisenlager (who sadly passed away last year) titled De Lumière et d’Obscurité. It, too, can be found at Bandcamp.