Somewhere between the solar system and Proxima b the generation ship Calypso slowly limps back to Earth after failing to colonize an extrasolar planet. Carrying what may be the last of the human race, the Calypso is besieged by mechanical problems and caught in the crossfire between two unseen galactic forces. The ship’s problems are further compounded when a handful of xenomorphic stowaways make their presence known. The only person keeping everyone’s shit together (including their own) is Jacklyn Albright, who steps up to lead the Calypso against all odds when her father, the captain, falters.
And thus the premise of The Scourge Between Stars, the debut space horror novella by Ness Brown and published by Tor’s Nightfire imprint in the spring of 2023. Borrowing the stalking xenomorph from Alien, the decaying ship from Dark Star, and the uniformed humans who occupy a variety of functions a’la Star Trek, The Scourge Between Stars feels familiar, but Brown, whose professional background is astrophysics, keeps the narrative fresh, grounded, and throws in their own unique genre vision.
There’s no FTL in The Scourge Between Stars, which adds to a sense of futility and hopelessness to the story. If the Calypso will not make it back to Earth for hundreds of years, why bother? Main protag Jacklyn keeps the fire of hope burning despite all odds, and oh boy, are the odds against her, the crew, and the ship. Jacklyn is excessively critical of herself, comparing herself negatively to her father who, despite apparently having once been a great captain and leader, has sequestered himself in his quarter, forcing his daughter and crew to face the hardships on their own.
Yet, Jacklyn is extremely resolute, and this is demonstrated through all her relationships – be them platonic, professional, or romantic. Jacklyn puts everyone before herself, which overtime does take its toll on her. She is carrying a burden and Brown excels at depicting Jacklyn overcoming all the ordeals she is faced with by using her leadership and trusting others to do their roles.
These are the more action-oriented elements of The Scourge Between Stars. Jacklyn and her crew are also being hunted by xenomorphs that have made themselves hidden in the ship’s supplies, only surfacing now to lay eggs and stalk the Calypso crew. They bang inside the walls, dismember alone crew members, attack from the darkness, and even have a few unexpected tricks up their sleeve. Jacklyn and her crew take a competent approach to handle the alien menace, going ship section by ship section, locking down areas and trying to contain the aliens. Try as they might, things inevitably go awry, and the book has no shortage of alien attacks.
If there is a fault with The Scourge Between Stars is that the ending does feel rushed and resolved in a too tidy of package. Aside from this, The Scourge Between Stars expertly alternates between action and horror, finely maintaining an atmosphere of hopelessness and hope. Jacklyn is an excellent character, sympathetic and admirable, a model of a person acting against all odds. As a story proper, The Scourge Between Stars leverages the tropes that make space horror a fun genre to indulge in, but there is a unique authorial stamp from Ness that distinguishes the story from other space horror texts.
For more information about Ness Brown’s The Scourge Between Stars, check out our H. P. Lovecast Podcast interview with them:
The monthly Transmissions episode of our H. P. Lovecast Podcast is online.
In this episodes we interview Ness Brown about their debut space horror novella, The Scourge Between Stars. The episode can be streamed at the HP Lovecast Buzzsprout page, via the embedded player below, or via your podcast app of preference.
In September or October we *should* be resuming our twice a month schedule. This summer has been crazy with projects, obligations, work, and prepping for CoKoCon.
Scholars from the Edge of Time
Michele and I did a second episode of Scholars from the Edge of Time in August. Michele talked about The Swordsman and I talked about the video game Starsand. Check it out on YouTube.
Publishing Recap
Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.
Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”
Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”
Published in early August, Dark Dead Things #2 contains my essay “Correlating the Contents: Mimetic Desire in H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.”
Here is a round of autographed ephemera I’ve shared on social media the last two weeks.
First up is my copy of Bizarre Sinema! Horror all’italiana 1957-1979:
This is an incredible book. There’s an entire chapter + interview with Antonio Margheriti which I’ve cited in my masters thesis on Castle of Blood and in other essays as well.
Michele and I met Barbara Steele at a Hollywood Collectors Show back in July of 2010. She signed many of my movies but also my copy of Bizarre Sinema! in which she penned the foreword:
And, here is a picture of all of us from way back when. Queen!
Next up, part of my comprehensive Oliver Gruner library, is Crackerjack 3.
This DVD is signed by Gruner along with Bo Svenson, director Lloyd Simandl and WWE Diva Amy Weber. We met Amy Weber back in 2010 at a celebrity show in Burbank:
The folks at Boundheat Films coordinated the director signing my DVD. His auteur elements of including WIP/Lesbian Slave elements in his films are found in Crackerjack 3.
Next is Bikini Beach signed by the grooviest babe of the AIP beauty party films, Donna Loren.
These movies are always a lot of fun, especially when old guard folks like Buster Keaton show up.
Any finally, for this week, I have The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories: 3 signed by Gary Myers and George R. R. Martin.
Gary Myers is the bloody man and I would say is the most instrumental of me getting into the work of Lovecraft and cosmic horror. Myers’ Dreamlands stories are the best iteration of the Dreamlands and I suggest folks check his collection out.
George R. R. Martin was the guest of honor at StokerCon 2017 and that is were I got his autograph. I’ve never read Game of Thrones or watched the series, so his short story here is the only work of his I am familiar with.
CFP List
Here are a few interesting CFPs I want to help proliferate.
Music Medievalism In Popular Culture at ICMS in Kalamazoo (May 9–11, 2024)
Sponsoring Organization: Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture Organizer: Anna Czarnowus
Jonathan Le Cocq (forthcoming, 2024) defines music medievalism as either the influence of the medieval on later music, or the impact on medieval music (real or imagined) on any later cultural practice. In popular culture, we can find both the music that has been influenced by the actual medieval one and music influenced by some folk music imagined as medieval. Medievalist music such as pagan folk music (Troyer in: Meyer and Yri, 2020) can be used in various media and there are various genres of it. Some music videos can be an example of the cultural practice that is influenced by the imaginary medieval music. Medievalist video games also contain “medievalized” music.
Please consider such topics and similar ones:
medievalist music as background
medievalist music and similar videos
medievalist music/folk music as medievalist
Please send your abstract to: annaczarnowus@tlen.pl by September 1, 2023, but an official proposal can only be made and accepted through https://icms.confex.com/icms/2024/cfp.cgi by September 15th.
Creating Camelot(s): The Idea of Community in Arthurian Texts (virtual)
Sponsored by Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain and International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB)
Organizers: Michael A. Torregrossa and Joseph M. Sullivan
Call for Papers – Please Submit Proposals by 15 September 2023 59th International Congress on Medieval Studies Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan) Hybrid event: Thursday, 9 May, through Saturday, 11 May, 2024
Session Objective
Although we often refer to the Matter of Britain as the Arthurian tradition, the figure of King Arthur is merely the center point of the story. The tales are in fact about the community that Arthur builds and the ways those inside it (and outside as well) interact with each other. Through Arthur and those he surrounds himself with, Camelot becomes a living thing, and we experience its birth, maturity, and death, as well as its re-creation across the ages. In this session, we’d like to highlight the multiple ways that Arthur’s realm has been constructed from the Middle Ages to the present. Submissions can explore the Arthurian legends from across time and/or space as represented through diverse genres and media. We seek contributions from a range of scholars–those within the disciplines of Arthurian Studies and/or Medieval Studies as well as those in outside fields, including beyond the humanities–as they consider at least one of the following questions:
● What are the origins of Camelot? How do Arthur’s literary and/or historic predecessors (Ambrosius Aurelius, Arthur of Dal Riada, Constantine, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Lucius Artorius Castus, Riothamus, Uther Pendragon, Vortigern, etc.) influence the creation of his home base? What real locales inspired the idea or site of Camelot? ● Moving forwards, how has Camelot been built as a physical place whether in the Arthurian past or in post-Arthurian re-creations? What does the site look like? How does it function as a space where individuals live and work? ● Also, how has Camelot been shaped as a communal space, a location for people to come together in fellowship, and who has been included within this group? In what ways does the community grow and change under Arthur and/or his successors? ● Alternatively, who has been excluded and/or expelled from the space(s) of Camelot, and in what ways have those individuals dealt with this loss? ● Similarly, who has been invited to join the community at Camelot but resisted its entreaties and/or rebelled against Arthur and his rule (or that of his successors)? What are the reasons for their rejection of Camelot? How do their actions impact the Arthurian world? ● Lastly, do those removed from and/or repelled by Camelot ever integrate (or re-integrate) and become part of the community? How does this acceptance shape them and/or the world of Camelot?
Submission Information
All proposals must be submitted into the Confex system at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call by 15 September 2023. You will be prompted to complete sections on Title and Presentation Information, People, Abstract, and Short Description. Be advised of the following policies of the Congress: “You are invited to make one paper proposal to one session of papers. This may be to one of the Sponsored or Special Sessions of Papers, which are organized by colleagues around the world, OR to the General Sessions of Papers, which are organized by the Program Committee in Kalamazoo. You may propose an unlimited number of roundtable contributions. However, you will not be scheduled as an active participant (as a paper presenter, roundtable discussant, presider, respondent, workshop leader, or performer) in more than three sessions.”.
Thank you for your interest in our session. Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at KingArthurForever2000@gmail.com.
For more information on the Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain, please visit our website at https://KingArthurForever.blogspot.com/.
For more information on the International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB), please visit our website at https://www.international-arthurian-society-nab.org/ and consider becoming a member of our organization.
This issue contains my essay, “Correlating the Contents: Mimetic Desire in H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.” It can be purchased at the Dark Dead Things website or at Amazon.
BlueSky
I have an account at BlueSky now. I can be found at: @nicholasdiak.bsky.social. I’ll try posting there concurrently with Facebook and Twitter. And maybe Post and Tribel, but I don’t see many folks on those last two.
Granted, there is not much there, but I think it’s pretty cool I’ve got to be in a few things. Here is a frame capture from Best.Work.Weekend.Ever. that you can kinda see me in:
I am in front of the T-shirt, way in the back. Michele and I also play dead bodies in There’s No Such Thing as Vampires – you can’t miss us in that.
Anyways, if you want to help me grow my acting CV, I am totally available to appear in documentaries, supplemental features on blu-rays, you name it!
CoKoCon Schedule
The schedule for CoKoCon 2023 is online. You can find Michele and I on the following panels:
Saturday Sept 2 9pm – Fiesta Ballroom 2: From EC Comics to Shudder: Horror Comics That Excite and Scare Us
Sunday Sept 3 6pm – Coronado: Creepy, Crawly, Otherworldly Bumps in the Night, or Cosmic Horror Films
Monday Sept 4 1pm – Coronado: 1pm: Weird West in Popular Culture
I’ll be on premises the entire con, so feel free to hunt me down to say hi! Michele and I will also have a table we were sill be selling and signing books.
Scholars from the Edge of Time
New episode of Scholars from the Edge of Time is now online.
In this episode, Michele and I discuss the 1999 Highlander/Mortal Kombat hybrid film, G2: Mortal Conquest. Check it out on YouTube!
Publishing Recap
Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.
Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”
Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”
Published in early August, Dark Dead Things #2 contains my essay “Correlating the Contents: Mimetic Desire in H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.”
These past few months I’ve gotten into the habit of sharing some of my autographed items (mostly DVDs right now) on social media. Figure I can share them here too because I think I have some rad stuff.
First up is my copy of Contamination signed by director Luigi Cozzi. I remember first getting into Italo-horror and exploitation films being exchanged with the poster art. It looks so ominous. When I finally watched the movie, it turned out to be amazing. The beginning is just like Zombi but then you got all the exploding alien eggs. The final 1/3 of the film is like a spy-fi movie. Simple film that aims big and succeeds. I snail mailed my DVD sleeve to Cozzi way back in the aughts and he was gracious to sign it for me.
Next up is Nightbeast signed by director Don Dohler’s son, Greg Dohler, who acted in his dad’s films. Dohler was the king of 80s creature features. Another sleeve I snail mailed to Dohler asking for an autograph (always include as SASE folks!).
Abominable is a damn fine cryptid film full of cameo actors, both old guard and (then) new school. My copy was signed by Lloyd Braun himself, Matt McCoy, at a Hollywood Collector’s Show in Burbank in the late 2000s/early 2010s.
I remember being super hyped for the first Transformers movie when it was released and enjoying it. I saw the second one and was really disappointed, and have not seen any since. I might give Transformers: The Last Knight a watch because of the Arthurian/peplum elements.
This special edition of Transformers came out in the 2000s, back when super crazy special editions were all the rage. The DVD comes housed in am Optimus Prime that folds out. It’s pretty cool!
I had my copy signed by Mark Ryan who voiced Bumble Bee. He was a guest at a tiny comic book convention in Seattle back in the 2000s. Over time the silver ink from the booklet got a little stuck to the plastic box. Doh!
In the latter half of the 2000s Michele and I became Oliver Gruner super fans and were buying as many films as he was in as possible. Once of those films was Velocity Trap and boy is it a fun film. Basically a Die Hard in space. I have my DVD signed by a lot of folks: Gruner himself (his signature is in ballpoint pin and hard to see, but it’s under Bruce’s name), Bruce Weitz, James C. Burns, and Jaason Simmons.
There was a small, tiny window in the mid-2000s, after MST3K concluded, but before Film Crew, Rifftrax, and Cinematic Titanic, that Mike Nelson was doing solo commentaries for Legend Films. So, if you wanted MST3K-like content, this was the way to go. One of those releases of a colorized version of Plan 9 from Outer Space that came pre-signed by Nelson and also with an air freshener (because the movie stinks?). Great version of the cult film.
Apparently the North American region, Blu-ray release of Dawn of the Dead is super rare and OOP. Licensing issues I believe? I don’t have a Blu-ray of that classic film, but I do have this huge digipack edition Anchor Bay put out. There’s a few different versions of Dawn of the Dead in this edition. I had Ken Foree sign ming.
Can’t have Dawn of the Dead without following it up with Day of the Dead. Another digipack edition put out by Anchor Bay, mine is signed by Howard Sherman (Bub!) and Terry Alexander. I believe I met them both at a Crypticon in SeaTac back in the late 2000s.
And that is a recap of the last week or so of autographed stuff I shared across my social medias. If you want to see more of them, give me a follow!
There’s been an uptick in work being cited lately and I am here for it!
Firstly, my essay “Lost Nights and Dangerous Days: Unraveling the Relationship Between Stranger Things and Synthwave” from Uncovering Stranger Things has been cited in the essay “‘Dad, every serial killer is somebody’s neighbor!’ The Problem of White Supremacy in Summer of ’84” by Erika Tiburcio Moreno and published in the edited collection The ’80s Resurrected: Essays on the Decade in Popular Culture Then and Now.
The book was published by McFarland in March earlier this year. More info can be found on the book’s product page at the McFarland website.
Next, Hannah Mueller’s essay “Male Nudity, Violence and the Disruption of Voyeuristic Pleasure in Starz’s Spartacus” from The New Peplum has been cited by James K. Beggan in his essay “Why is he there? Male presence in a sexually explicit magazine geared towards heterosexual men” that was published in the Porn Studies journal.
Cover art for The New Peplum
If you have access the essay can be read at the journal’s page at Taylor and Francis.
New Episode of HP Lovecast
A new episode of our monthly Transmission program is now online.
For July we interviewed Chelsea Pumpkins, editor of the horror anthology AHH! That’s What I Call Horror: An Anthology of ’90s Horror. The episode can be streamed via our Buzzsprout page, the embedded player below, or through your podcast app of preference.
The schedule for CoKoCon 2023 is starting to take shape! You can find Michele and I on the following panels:
Saturday Sept 2 9pm – Fiesta Ballroom 2: From EC Comics to Shudder: Horror Comics That Excite and Scare Us
Sunday Sept 3 6pm – Coronado: Creepy, Crawly, Otherworldly Bumps in the Night, or Cosmic Horror Films
Monday Sept 4 1pm – Coronado: 1pm: Weird West in Popular Culture
I’ll be on premises the entire con, so feel free to hunt me down to say hi! Michele and I will also have a table we were sill be selling and signing books.
Publishing Recap
Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.
Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”
Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”
Kino Lorber just had a summer sale on their Blu-rays so I took the opportunity to pluck up some Italian films for the library.
The Last Hunter I already had on DVD, from Dark Sky Films. In fact, here is my copy autographed by Antonio Margheriti’s son, Edoardo Margheriti:
I did a presentation on The Last Hunter at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association conference waaaaaaay back in 2010. Not my best presentation and still very green at being an academic, but the text of it can be read at my Academia.edu account.
Ironmaster I have not seen. It sounds like an Italian sword and sorcery flick, but in a prehistoric age. I am a fan of Umberto Lenzi’s work so this should be a fun watch.
Lastly is Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, which I also have not seen. I’ve seen the iconic image of Sophia Loren slipping off her stockings that I feel like I’ve seen the film. I always think of Mastroianni from Divorce, Italian Style.
Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew Commentary
Matt Page, author of 100 Bible Films, has recorded a commentary for Paolini’s 1964 Biblical peplum, The Gospel According to St. Matthew. The commentary and be streamed from YouTube. Criterion Collection recently released a Pasolini boxset that contains this film.
Call for Papers
Michael Torregrossa has a few CFPs out there. I’m sharing them here to help get the word out. Check them out and consider submitting!
Beowulfs Beyond Beowulf: Transformations of Beowulf in Popular Culture (Panel)
Sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture and the Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association
Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Richard Fahey, Carl Sell, and Benjamin Hoover
Call for Papers – Please Submit Proposals by 30 September 2023
55th Annual Convention of Northeast Modern Language Association
Sheraton Boston Hotel (Boston, MA)
On-site event: 7-10 March 2024
The Old English epic Beowulf remains an important touchstone for connecting us to the medieval past, yet it also has continued relevance today through its various transformations in cultural texts (especially works of popular culture). Our hope with this session is to expand our knowledge of these works and assess their potential for research and teaching.
Please visit our website Beowulf Transformed: Adaptations and Appropriations of the Beowulf Story (available at https://beowulf-transformed.blogspot.com/) for resources and ideas.
Over a millennium old, the story of Beowulf is disseminated primarily through its editions and translations and its transformations. These three types of Beowulfiana represent a massive corpus of over 1000 works according to the Beowulf’s Afterlives Bibliographic Database; though, as medievalists, we tend to focus on the first two categories rather than the last concentrating on scholastic pursuits rather than entertainments. Consequently, many are often surprised by the variety and vitality of this corpus and its vast potential for research and teaching.
New versions of the Beowulf story feature in all forms of modern mediævalisms, yet (as is true with most medieval texts) research continues to focus primarily on depictions of Beowulf on screen (about 100 examples according to the Internet Movie Database). We hope in this session to expand our view of Beowulf’s reception by creators and look more deeply at the text’s wider use.
We are particularly interested in explorations of the adaptation and/or appropriation of the text, its characters, and its themes in works of fiction (at least 250 examples according to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database and much more recorded by the Beowulf’s Afterlives Bibliographic Database) and comics (at least 380 examples according to the Grand Comics Database), as well as their representations in new and neglected works on screen (including film, television, entertainment consoles, and the Internet). Additional versions of Beowulf can be found in works of creative, performative, and visual arts that also need more attention.
We hope to make our conversation productive. Therefore, we request that submissions highlight the ways the new text transforms the old (for example as interpretations or appropriations of the poem or as an intertext for another work) as well as its value in furthering the Beowulf tradition rather than focusing solely on any perceived defects.
Please see our website Beowulf Transformed: Adaptations and Appropriations of the Beowulf Story (at https://beowulf-transformed.blogspot.com/) for a growing list of ideas, resources, and support.
All proposals will also be considered for a themed issue of the open-access journal The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe.
All proposals must be submitted into the CFPList system at https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20596 by 30 September 2023. You will be prompted to create an account with NeMLA (if you do not already have one) and, then, to complete sections on Title, Abstract, and Media Needs.
Notification on the fate of your submission will be made prior to 16 October 2023. If favorable, please confirm your participation with chairs by accepting their invitations and by registering for the event. The deadline for Registration/Membership is 9 December 2023.
Be advised of the following policies of the Convention: All participants must be members of NeMLA for the year of the conference. Participants may present on up to two sessions of different types (panels/seminars are considered of the same type). Submitters to the CFP site cannot upload the same abstract twice.(See the NeMLA Presenter Policies page, at https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention/policies.html, for further details,)
For more information on the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, please visit our website at https://MedievalinPopularCulture.blogspot.com/.
Roughly fifteen years ago Severin Films gave rejuvenated life to a handful of Black Emanuelle titles, Italian derivatives of the French Emmanuelle films. Staring Laura Gemser, the Black Emanuelle films took on a distinct identity of their own while at the same time flirting with other popular Italo-genres of the period: mondo, cannibal, women in prison, etc.
Severin only scratched the Black Emanuelle surface back in the latter august, with other DVD companies such as Blue Underground, Full Moon, Mya, and Shriek Show, published Black Emanuelle titles they had rights to. It was a scattered canon of releases with some titles and alternate versions remaining unreleased in digital format.
Fast forward to 2023 and Severin Films returns to the erotic world of Black Emanuelle with an epic fifteen disc boxset of Black Emanuelle Blu-rays and soundtracks. As in typical Severin fashion, the Black Emanuelle boxset came in a variety of bundles. This article is an unboxing of The Around the World bundle along with a comparison and remembrance of prior Black Emanuelle releases from other publishers.
Like the Severin release of All Haunts Be Ours, Black Emanuelle came in a large box, only cube-shaped instead of pizza box-shaped.
Bonus Spunky cat checking things out.
Packed with lots of popcorn, obscuring the contents within.
First up is the Severin Airlines bag. The type face and red-orange-yellow colours evoke the 70s for sure. The sun has a bit of a broken sun vibe typically found in synthwave artwork. The bag is the perfect size to fit all the Black Emanuelle swag within.
It even has zippers of the iconic Severin Films logo.
A reproduction necklace from Black Emanuelle.
The insert shows a picture of Laura Gemser in one of her poses from the photoshoot scene in the film.
A reproduction Polaroid.
A passport that look quite convincing that had a Severin Films logo sticker and a sticker that references Violence in a Women’s Prison.
A comparison of the Emanuelle passport to a real, present day one.
The passport reproduction gets even more detailed with identifying information.
To compliment the passport, there are three sheets of stickers that can be put inside the passport as visas.
Each sticker set is grouped by film.
Gemser was truly a globetrotting reporter with all these sticker-visas!
The next big ticket item is the board game, Around the World with Black Emanuelle. This will be opened at a later date.
A recreation pen from the Hotel Siam in Bangkok. It looks like a white Mont Blanc.
And finally, the treasure itself, the boxset proper. The outer boxset is sturdy cardboard and has, on the side, a scroll wheel that changes the photo displayed inside Gemser’s camera when turned.
Before going further, the two original Black Emanuelle boxsets Severin published back in the 2000s need to be highlighted. These boxes were locked with velcro and when opened showed a nude Gemser. Each boxset had three films.
Inside the Black Emanuelle boxset is a small, but thick book titled The Black Emanuelle Bible, edited by Kier-La Janisse who has done wonder work on other Severin releases.
The blu-rays and CDs are packed in a folding booklet, with inserts for each disc.
Disc one contains the Black Emanuelle and Black Emanuelle 2. Paired here is the original Severin DVD release of Black Emanuelle 2 which did not feature Gemser.
Disc two contains Emanuelle in Bangkok and Emanuelle in America. Here the boxset is paired with the original Severin edition of Emanuelle in Bangkok and the Blue Underground version of Emanuelle in America.
Disc three contains two extremely controversial Black Emanuelle films. Firstly there is Emanuelle and the Last Cannibalspaired with the Severin Blu-ray edition and the Shriek Show DVD version.
The other half of the disc has Emanuelle Around the World. Severin originally published this in two different DVD editions: a normal edition and a European XXX edition.
Skipping to disc five there is Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade pictured with the original Severin DVD and the Full Moon Blu-ray.
The other film on disc five is Sister Emmanuelle. The original Severin edition came in a boxset that contained postcards of the films’ posters.
Disc six has the sleazy Violence in a Women’s Prison, compared to the Severin Blu-ray edition.
Disc seven demonstrates the fluid naming conventions Italian genre films adhered to. This disc contains Emanuelle Black Velvet, paired with its Full Moon edition. Severin previously published this film under the Black Emanuelle White Emmanuelle moniker (two Ms!).
Disc nine has Divine Emanuelle, this one paired with its Shriek Show counterpart Divine Emanuelle: Love Cult.
And finally, as far as release comparisons go, disc element contains Laura Gesmer’s first film appearance, Amore Libero – Free Love. The defunct boutique label Mya originally published this film on DVD under The Real Emanuelle title.
Slated to be included in this boxset was an item called “Emanuelle’s Studio Magnetic Fashion Playset.” However that item seems to be held up by the manufacturer and will ship at a later date.
All in all this is a comprehensive boxset on all things Black Emanuelle. The ephemera really contextualizes the era these movies came out in and underscores the traveling and cosmopolitanism aspect aspects of them. A glorious and glamorous boxset that solidifies the Black Emanuelle legacy.
If you enjoyed this unboxing check out these related articles. Also, I still have a soft open on the Emmanuelle/Black Emanuelle CFP. If you have an essay idea, send it over! Details can be found here.
The weird fiction/poetry literary magazine Dark Dead Things is publishing their second issue. I’m incredibly honored to be included in this issue with my essay on a Rene Girard reading of Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu.”
The issue can be ordered from the Dark Dead Thingswebshop as a bundle with a rad T-shirt of Meowlister Crowley. Issue 1 is still available, so check that out too and supporting this indie endeavor.
Sincere gratitude to Mike Salinas for including me in this issue.
Stranger Things Essay Citation
My essay, “Lost Nights and Dangerous Days: Unraveling the Relationship Between Stranger Things and Synthwave” that was published in Kevin Wetmore’s book, Uncovering Stranger Things, has been cited in Jutta Steiner’s book Nostalgie Im Upside Down: Das progressive Potenzial von Nostalgie in Der Retro-Serie Stranger Things.
My Stranger Things/synthwave essay continues to be my most cited piece of writing. Very flattered!
Bibliography Updates
I’m increasing seeing other texts aside from The New Peplum becoming cited and reviewed. Because of that I am creating subpages for some of these works with more detail. If you click the dropdown on the Bibliography menu you’ll start seeing them. These updates are a work in process, but I look forward to sharing more detail about these pieces I’ve composed or edited over the years.
Atlantis, the Lost Continent
A new episode of Scholars from the Edge of time is now online! In this episode Michele and I discuss the 1961 American sword and sandal film, Atlantis, the Lost Continent. Check it out on YouTube.
Publishing Recap
Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.
Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”
Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”
Published in early August, the second issue of Dark Dead Things contains my essay “Correlating the Contents: Mimetic Desire in H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.”
An organized panel to be proposed for the 120th annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West & South, April 3rd – 6th, 2024 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA at the invitation of Washington University, St. Louis.
After a successful 1st edition of the panel in 2022 at Winston Salem, we are seeking abstracts for another panel on the reception of antiquity in modern music. 15-minute papers on the topic may discuss any genre of modern & popular music, including folk & country, rock & metal, hip-hop & pop, and theater & soundtracks, and may focus on lyrics, album artwork, music videos, live performances, or the music itself. We are particularly interested in questions of how musicians integrate ancient culture, myth, and art into a modern medium, and how they read antiquity in response to the personal, the aesthetic, & the political.
Send 300-word abstracts and questions to Jeremy Swist (swistjj@miamioh.edu) by 15th August 2023. Potential panelists must commit to present in person if accepted.
Recent Peplum Acquisitions
I’ve plucked up two peplum films recently to add to the library.
First is Land of the Pharaohs which just got the Blu-ray treatment this past June. Michele and I recently talked about this movie on Scholars from the Edge of Time (YouTube video link here) and I really dug it! When I saw Warner Archive was going to do a new version of it I had to pre-order it.
Next is an old release of a movie called G2: Mortal Conquest. Apparently this movie is a re-worked version of the 1995 movie Gladiator Cop. A name like Gladiator Cop, I gotta watch it! However it’s OOP and kinda pricy, so I’ll pluck up a copy later. In the meantime, this alternate version in the form of G2 will have to do. I remember Daniel Bernhardt from Future War which was on MST3K, which was baaaaad. So, I am hoping this movie will be just as campy fun.
Secret Agent Barbie GBA Game
Last weekend was Barbenheimer – when two blockbuster films, Barbie and Oppenheimer, got released the same weekend. It looked like a pretty fun pop culture event, two movies at the polar opposites of tone and subject matter, but linked none-the-less.
I didn’t get a chance to partake, but I’ll definitely watch both movies when they are released on Blu-ray. In the meantime, just for fun, I’ll share the odd Barbie artifact in my collection: a complete, in box (CIB) copy of Secret Agent Barbie: Royal Jewels Mission.
I bought this game long ago, I believe at the SoCal Retro Gaming Expo in Ontario, CA. I don’t have many CIB retro games in my collection (then and now), and I recall this game being extremely cheap. It was also a time, I believe, I was knee deep in spy-fi studies when Michele was working on her James Bond book. So because of all of that, I plucked up this game when I happened upon it. I recall playing it for a bit on my Retron-5 and enjoying it. Perhaps I’ll have to give it a proper play through.
Anyways, a rare opportunity to see a CIB Barbie game: box, cartridge, poster, manual, and Nintendo booklet. Not pictured is my plastic case I keep the game in to keep it in the best condition I can (the outer box is a bit bent in though).
Our June Transmissions episode of HP Lovecast is online!
This turned out to be a McFarland-centric episode. We interviewed Sean Woodard about his essay “Journeys into Depravity in (Post)Colonial Australia: Colonizer versus Colonized Identity and “Otherness” in Wake in Fright and The Nightingale” and Josh Spiegel about his book Timelines of Terror: The Fractured Continuities of Horror Film Sequels. The episode can be streamed at our Buzzsprout website, via the player below, or your podcast app of preference.
The cool kids at the Fan2Fan Podcast are doing a series of episodes about 3D movies. I got to be a guest on an episode talking about the pre-Empire, pre-Full Moon Charles Band movie, Parasite.
The episode can be streamed from the Fan2Fan Libsyn, the embedded player below, or via all the major podcast apps.
And just for fun, here is my autographed copy of Parasite. I had this signed by Scott Thomson who is better known for his role of Copeland in three Police Academy movies.
Personal copy of Parasite.
Scholars from the Edge of Time
June’s Scholars From the Edge of Time is also online at YouTube. Michele and I talk about the Italo dystopian film, Warriors from the Year 2072. Check it out here.
Personal copy of Warriors of the Year 2072.
Publishing Recap
Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.
Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”
Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”
An interesting CFP popped up on my radar that I thought I’d share:
Call for Chapters: Entering the Multiverse, Edited Collection Editor: Paul Booth, DePaul University
The multiverse is, seemingly, everywhere all at once. The recent success of multiverse focused media across platforms (e.g., films like Everything Everywhere All at Once or Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse; television like the CW/DC multiverse crossovers or the His Dark Materials adaptation; literature like Dark Matter by Blake Crouch or This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone; multiple comic book/graphic novel storylines, etc.) speaks to significant issues within contemporary culture. Different from transmedia (one narrative told across media boundaries) or shared universes (spinoffs that take place within the same media universe), multiverse fiction explores alternate realities, multiple canons, and contradictory realities within the confines of one fictional narrative.
In this volume, I hope to encompass the multiplicity of the concept of the multiverse through multiple perspectives. This is a story that can only be told through the edited collection: where each chapter of which advances a theory of the cultural relevance of the multiverse concept while retaining its own unique philosophy or theory.
Chapters can be in whatever form the author thinks best suits the topic: fiction, creative non-fiction, academic essay, comic, poem, etc.
I am particularly interested in the concept of the multiverse across cultural boundaries, nonwestern approaches to the multiverse concept, and multiple iterations of the multiverse.
Chapters may explore, but are certainly not limited to, the following topics:
Scientific explorations of the concept of the multiverse
The multiverse in various media forms
Different types of multiverses
Inclusion in multiverse fiction
Historical explorations of the concept of the multiverse
Multiversal theories
Practical applications of multiverse theory
Diversity and the multiverse
Please submit proposals of 300-500 words with a brief biographical statement and contact information via email attachment to Paul Booth at pbooth@depaul.edu no later than Aug 31, 2023. In your proposal, please note what genre you will be writing in. Notice of acceptance will be sent out by Sept 15, 2023. Draft chapters of 5-6,000 words (inclusive of works cited) will be due March 15, 2024.
The New Peplum, specifically Kevin Wetmore’s essay, was referenced in Ancient Rome on the Silver Screen: Myth versus Reality that was published this past May by Rowman and Littlefield.
Michele and I will be participants at CoKoCon 2023 this upcoming Labour Day. Michele will be vending a table with her journals and our books. Panels we are on will TBD. More info to come but keep an eye on the CoKoCon 2023 website for the most current news.
Publishing Recap
Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.
Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”Vernon Press Product Page
Published in May, this issue of Weird Tales contains my essay “When the Stars are Right.”
Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”
Joan Jocson-Singh, who I had the honor of interviewing about her book, Heavy Music Mothers: Extreme Identities, Narrative Disruptions (read here), has just revamped and updated her website, On the Shelves. Check it out!
CFP: Heavy Metal & Global Premodernity II
There’s a brand new call for abstracts for the second Heavy Metal and Premodernity conference. Details are as follows:
Last year, the first manifestation of Heavy Metal & Global Premodernity forged an international fellowship of scholars working in a rich array of disciplines, along with musicians, artists, and journalists, in order to critically explore how metal music and its scenes throughout the world have engaged with the history, mythology, literature, and art of premodern and precolonial cultures. Through panel presentations, roundtable discussions, and unstructured and multilingual social hours, we shed light from a variety of perspectives upon metal’s entanglements in such areas as precolonial Mexico, the ancient Near East, classical Greece and Rome, and medieval Europe and Byzantium.
Next year, we hope to expand and enrich our fellowship. We invite contributions/proposals for engagement from all interested individuals working inside or outside the academy, including musicians and journalists involved in metal scenes anywhere in the world. We especially welcome those from backgrounds historically underrepresented in either academia or metal. You don’t need an advanced degree or know how to play guitar. If you have a topic of interest you would like to explore, we want to hear from you!
We welcome abstracts for panels and individual presentations, creative and traditional in form and varying in length, related to metal’s reception of the history and culture of any period, people, and place from premodern and precolonial worlds. We define global premodernity as human culture of any period roughly prior to 1600 CE, and we have chosen this delineation to be inclusive of texts, traditions, and narratives outside of the traditional study of classics or biblical studies, which often ignores the rich cultural history of the majority world and narratives outside standard eurocentric education.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to, to following:
Premodern or neoclassical art, architecture, dress, symbols, and/or other material culture in album artwork, music videos, promotional photography, and live performances
The incorporation of premodern music and/or instruments into metal songs
The reception of historical, literary, and religious and philosophical texts and ideas in song lyrics
Issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, and the reception and inclusion of premodern and contemporary women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and other historically marginalized groups
Political activism of musicians who engage with premodernity
Interviews and/or auto-ethnographies of fans, musicians, (photo)journalists, and/or scholars
Methodologies in the study of metal’s reception of premodernity
Pedagogical strategies for teaching premodern history and cultures with metal songs
Performance and creative demonstrations of music.
Please send abstracts and any questions to metalpremodernity@gmail.com. The submission deadline is 2 October 2023.
Abstracts should be roughly 300 words maximum, and include author name and affiliation (if appropriate).
We are concerned to make the conference as accessible as possible to disabled people and those for whom English is not their first language. Captions will be supplied, but if you have other access needs for presentation please mention these upon submission of your abstract and we will work with you to fulfill these.
Charlotte, Jeremy, & Shamma
Call for Submissions: Three Stooges Zine
Will Sloan is looking to start a zine about The Three Stooges and is looking for submissions. Here is the flyer:
And here is the text:
Call for Submissions: The Journal of Stoogeological Studies: an Unauthorized Three Stooges Fanzine.
Are you a knucklehead? Do you find yourself a “victim of circumstance”? Is your head so full of thoughts and opinions about the life and art of the Three Stooges that a hammer and buzzsaw can barely sent it?
We want YOU to contribute to the world’s greatest Three Stooges Fanzine!
What we want:
Reviews
Essays
Interviews
Biographical Studies
Personal Essays/Autobiography
Journalism/Reportage
Poetry
Fiction
Art/Comics
Suggested Topics:
Anything and everything to do with Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Shemp Howard, Joe Besser, “Curly Joe” DeRita, Ted Healy, and of course, Jerome “Curly” Howard
Stooge and Stooge-adjacent movies and TV shows, from the Columbia Shorts Department to Kook’s Tour and beyond
Stooge supporting players, directors, coworkers
Personal stories of your relationship with the Stooges’ work
The Robonic Stooges
Stooge comic books, records, failed TV pilots, merchandise, and other ephemera
Three Stooges Coffee (particularly the “Three Bean Blend,” although the “Angry Moe” blend has its good qualities)
Sociopolitical musings on the Stooges and race, class, gender, sexuality, and other academic lenses
Send submissions to editor/publisher Will Sloan at thewillsloan@gmail.com. Feel free to get in touch if you want to workshop a pitch. Submissions are due Sunday, August 13th at 9pm PST.
In this episode we interview Tom Starita about his new horror novel, Delta, and Beth Cato about her new chef/swashbuckling novel, A Thousand Recipes for Revenge. The episode can be streamed at the H. P. Lovecast Buzzsprout website, the embedded player below, or through all major podcast apps.
For May’s Scholars from the Edge of Time episode Michele and I discuss the 1955 Howard Hawks film Land of the Pharaohs. It can be viewed on YouTube.
We also did another episode a week later, with Michele talking about the white cat in Mummy (1999) and me talking about cats in strongman sword and sandal films of the late 50s/early 60s. Also on YouTube.
Publishing Recap
Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.
Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”
Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”
I shared this on Twitter the other day and since it is peplum related I thought I would share it here.
Here is my DVD copy of Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part 1 signed by November 1980 Playboy Playmate Jeana Keough (Tomasino).
Aside from her Playboy spread, Keough is probably best known for her appearances in various ZZ Top music videos of the 80s and in The Real Housewives of Orange County series. She only had a cameo part in History of the World Part 1 during the Roman Empire segment. I had the honor to meet Keough at a Glamourcon convention way back in 2010:
Jeana Keough (Tomasino) – Glamourcon 2010
Aside from autograph my copy of History of the World, she also autographed an 8×10 of one of her Playboy pictures for Michele and I:
Jeana Keough Playboy picture with super stockings.
First new article up at my website is an interview with the authors of the brand new book, Heavy Music Mothers: Extreme Identities, Narrative Disruptions.
I had the honor to talk with Joan Jocson-Singh and Julie Turley on their book. It can be read here.
H. P. Lovecast Podcast
New episode of H. P. Lovecast Podcast is online!
Michele and I return back to the Lands of Dream to talk about the one-shot comic Dreamquest by Clay Adams and Mick Beyers. The episode can be streamed at our Buzzsprout website, via the embedded link below, or via your podcast app of preference.
And for fun, here is my autographed copy from the original Kickstarter campaign:
Fan2Fan Appearance – Akira
2023 marks the 35th anniversary of the legendary anime Akira.
The cool kids over at Fan2Fan have invited me on their podcast to talk about the iconic Japanimation film. Part one can be streamed at the Fan2Fan Libsyn, in the embedded podcast player below, or via your podcast app of preference (Akira part 2 is with Allan and Rebecca and can be streamed here).
Also, here is my trustworthy, old school Vampire Hunter D DVD:
Book Reviews
A few reviews of some of the books I’ve been involved in have popped up.
First, there is a fairly positive review of The New Peplum that appears in Cadmo: Journal for Ancient History, 2022, No. 31., written by Inês Simão Sebastião. The review is in Portuguese.
Next, there is a review of Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern in the debut issue of The Incredible Nineteenth Century: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Fairy Tale. The review, by Hogan D. Schaak, is not a positive one at all. Take it with a grain of salt since the reviewer butchers Michele’s name as “Brittany Michelle.”
Publishing Recap
Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.
Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”
Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”
