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News Roundup 2025-02-09

Personal / Website News

Nylon Nightcap #1 Review

My first website content for 2025! I dig Bachelor Pad Magazine, and I love stockings and nylons, so I was totally excited when they announced they were going to start a new line called Nylon Nightcap. When announced, I pre-ordered a copy immediately, and it is a fantastic issue.

I’d like to do what I can to help get the word out about this issue, so I’ve done a write up about it and included quotations from Jason “Java” Croft, Miss Corsair Debonair, and Miss Penelope Pink. Check out my write up here!

Burroughs Bulletin #109

I have not one, not two, but three publication announcements!

Firstly, as part of Michele and my retrospective of the peplum work of Bella Cortez that we did in 2024, I conducted an interview with Cortez about her work on the Italian Tarzan knock off, Taur the Mighty (1963).

This interview has now been published in issue 109 of The Burroughs Bulletin, the journal of the Burroughs Bibliophiles. This is my first time being published in the journal and I am super excited.

Bella Cortez as Queen Akiba in Taur the Mighty (1963). Screen capture from the Sinister Cinema DVD of the film.

Sincere appreciation to Cortez for her time in being part of this interview.

For more information on the Burroughs Bibliophiles, how to join, and how to get copies of the Bulletins, check out https://www.burroughsbibliophiles.com or contact editor Henry Franke III at BurroughsBibliophiles AT gmail.com.

Merry Creepsmas

I have a sword & sorcery dark comedy/horror short story appearance in the anthology Merry Creepsmas: The Red Book from Wicked Shadow Press. My story is called “There’s Always Room.”

This is actually a short story I wrote 8-9 years ago for a different Christmas themed anthology that didn’t get accepted. The story has been in my repertoire for all this time, and when I saw this call for story submissions, I thought why not dust off the story, spruce it up a bit, and submit. Chuffed that it was accepted!

The anthology is available as an ebook and a print-on-demand title.

Panthans Journal #333

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 #3.

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 AT gmail.com in a Word document for consideration.

Podcast Stuff

HP Lovecast Podcast is still going, we’re just a bit erratic about it. We will have an episode for The Prophecy up, and we’ll be exploring doing some shorter comic-book reviews in between bigger episodes, perhaps resurrect the old Fragments line.

BlogTalkRadio shut down in January. This means all the podcasts I appeared on (Voice of Olympus, Chatting with Sherri) are no longer available, which is unfortunately. However, I have saved all my appearances as mp3s. I’ll be looking into having them edits and published elsewhere (with permission), perhaps at Archive.org or another venue.

This past week I’ve been a guest on Fan2Fan and also on the Castle of Horror Podcast. Stay tuned for when those become published online.

Michele is also cranking out episode of her Ride the Stream vidcast with Travis Lakata. She’s also done an episode of Fan2Fan as well.

So, we are both still heavy in the world of vidcasting and podcasting. We are just kind of all over the map now. As always, if you’d like me a guest on your podcast or vidcast, do reach out! I love appearing on other folks’ shows.

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. 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 external 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.

Comic Book Review: “The Moon Maid: Catacombs of the Moon #3″ reprinted in the National Capital Panthans Journal #333.

“There’s Always Room” in Merry Creepsmas: The Red Book. Edited by Parth Sarathi Chakraborty. Wicked Shadow Press, 2025.

“Tagliolini al Tarzan: Interview with Actress Bella Cortez on Taur the Mighty” in The Burroughs Bulletin #109. Edited by Henry Franke III. February, 2025.

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.

Horror Studies Now 2025

Horror Studies Now: A Two-Day Conference (29-30 May 2025, Northumbria University, UK)

Researchers working in the broad field of “Horror Studies”, are invited to submit abstracts about their research for an in-person conference, hosted by the Horror Studies Research Group at Northumbria University, on 29-30 May 2025. 

Speakers will each deliver a 15-minute talk about their research, followed by extended discussion and questions from the conference delegation. We welcome submissions from scholars at any career stage, but are particularly open to hearing from early career researchers and new voices in the field. The event is intended to provide a welcoming space in which to develop ideas, network, and forge collaborations with fellow Horror Studies researchers. 

The event seeks to explore areas and approaches that have not yet been adequately accounted for or represented in the field, encompassing (but not limited to): 

  • The diversity of perspectives, identities, and voices that comprise Horror Studies and horror production 
  • Independent horror production, alternative histories, and horror produced outside of Europe and North America  
  • The field’s methodological richness, including archival approaches, audience research, practice-based research, and new theoretical perspectives 
  • The breadth of cultural perspectives that inform Horror Studies and horror media 
  • Papers that address horror in all its media forms including games, film, comics, music, social media, television, literature, art, and so forth 

We seek to foreground scholarly excellence within the field by embracing a wide range of approaches, confronting representational biases within the canon, highlighting strategies to counter these biases, and contributing to a more diverse and inclusive academic landscape. We encourage and welcome expressions of interest from members of the global majority and people from underrepresented or marginalised groups. 

Special guests include: 

  • Dr Cüneyt Çakırlar (Nottingham Trent University; editor of Transnational Horror: Folklore, Genre and Cultural Politics [Liverpool University Press, 2025]) 
  • Dr Maxine Gee (Bournemouth University; screenwriter of short film Standing Woman [2020] and web series Tales of Bacon [2018]) 
  • Professor Maisha L Wester (University of Sheffield/Indiana University, Bloomington; author of African American Gothic in the Era of Black Lives Matter [Cambridge University Press, 2025]) 

The deadline for abstracts (of 250 words) is 23:59 (GMT) Friday 14 March 2025. Abstracts should be accompanied by a biographical statement (of 50-100 words) and submitted at the following link: https://forms.office.com/e/FgdAxxxWxy.  

A small fee will be required to attend to cover catering expenses; however, we are striving to keep this cost as low as possible. All speakers, unless they choose to decline, will have their work considered for the new Peter Hutchings Award for Outstanding Contribution to Horror Studies. The award includes a certificate for the winner and a publication (subject to revision) in Studies in the Fantastic. 

Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their proposal within 14 days of the deadline. Any questions should be directed to horrorstudies@northumbria.ac.uk 

The Horror Studies Research Group at Northumbria: Northumbria University is internationally renowned as the home of horror scholarship. This research specialism was founded by our late Professor Peter Hutchings, and the Horror Studies Research Group formalises Northumbria’s concentration of experts in this area. Our core team are widely recognised as leaders in this area, publishing field-defining monographs, presenting keynote lectures at major conferences, delivering talks at numerous European film festivals, holding positions on the editorial boards of the field’s primary book series and winning major research grants. Our global reputation for research excellence in Horror Studies is further proliferated by our many genre-based PhDs and alumni.  

Dracula: A Companion

Dracula: A Companion is intended to both be an essential guide to interpreting Bram Stoker’s Dracula and a collection of new perspectives supporting a reshaping of the way the text is taught and engaged with by students.

Fundamental to the approach of this companion is placing the text at the epicentre of its own cultural afterlife and pop culture status. Beginning with the novel’s inception and influences, Dracula is positioned as a ‘spark’ that ignited the character’s enduring popularity and presence across the globe. From here, the familiar topics the novel is understood through will see novel perspectives, accounting not only for new and exciting research, but exploring how Dracula’s immortality stems from how it can be subjected to new approaches, showcasing the versatility of the book, and its continued capacity to lend itself to readings that speak of topical cultural concerns.

The final sections prioritise the way the text has been reshaped to suit contemporary audiences, distanced from the ‘original’ novel through adaptation and literary pastiche. Every ‘version’ of Dracula has the potential to be someone’s first encounter with the character, and may be what they think of when hearing the name. By giving this aspect a clear focus it establishes to students and readers alike that ‘Dracula’ is not contained within the novel, but has become a myth recognised across the globe.

We kindly request abstracts of no more than 250 words for either full essay style chapters of 4,500 words or shorter case studies focusing on individual texts of approx 2000 words. We are also open to further ideas, suggestions, and questions. The deadline for abstracts is Monday March 31st 2025. Full contributions are expected to be due at the end of Summer 2025.

Please email abstracts or any other enquiries to madeline.potter@ed.ac.uk & m.crofts@hull.ac.uk

Potential topics (but by no means limited to):

  • Theatrical Influences on the novel’s form Historical influences
  • Transylvania as a mosaic (Hungarian and Irish Parallelism)
  • Stoker: a biographical reading
  • Global Dracula Stoker’s own travels
  • Dracula in translation
  • New perspectives on sexuality: LGBTQA+ readings/drag
  • New scientific & medical readingsNew perspectives on race
  • Romany enslavement
  • Dracula as Sensation fiction/Victorian popular fiction
  • Publishing practices
  • Reception of Dracula
  • Reading Dracula as a werewolf text
  • Neo-Victorian readings
  • Wider cultural understanding of Dracula [Intended as shorter chapters, akin to case studies of texts]
  • Dracula adaptations, appropriations and pastiches
  • Neglected adaptations (eg. The Claes Bang/Gatiss version, The 1977 Louis Jourdan version)
  • Neglected adaptations from non-anglo/American countries
  • Non-Western Draculas
  • Dracula for children: eg. Hotel Transylvania eg. Count Duckula
  • Dracula games (computer and table-top)
  • Dracula in New Media & Fandom

Twenty-First Century Neo-Victorian Gothic: Deviance and Transgression on Page and Screen

For a volume in the Genre Fiction and Film Companion series published by Peter Lang Oxford, we solicit papers on the topic of Neo-Victorian Gothic literature and film adaptation in the twenty-first century.

Neo-Victorian Gothic represents a contemporary revival of Gothic themes, often exploring deviance and transgression in the context of Victorian society as a challenge to the rigid structures imposed by
Victorian society and a re-examination of marginalized voices and experiences. This genre not only revisits the aesthetic and narrative structures of the Gothic, but also critiques and reinterprets the
cultural anxieties of both the Victorian and modern societies. Neo-Victorian texts frequently engage with themes of sexual and social deviance thus reflecting on contemporary concerns about identity,
gender roles, and morality too.

The neo-Victorian Gothic critiques historical injustices, especially regarding gender inequality, violence, sexual transgression, and neurodiversity through intricately weaving together themes of
deviance and transgression, with a critical lens on both Victorian history and contemporary culture. By revisiting Gothic conventions such as encounters with the uncanny in all its manifestations, with
ghosts and the doppelgënger, neo-Victorian works illuminate the persistent shadows of social constraints and anxiety while advocating for a deeper understanding of identity and morality in both
past and present contexts. Moreover, the genre heavily relies on intertextual references to Victorian literature, thus drawing parallels between the past and the present and reflecting on the continuity of
certain social issues across time.

While aware of the many renowned masterpieces of neo-Victorian Gothic literature from the previous century, the proposed volume will explore how our twenty-first century engages with the topics of
deviance and transgression. Will Self’s Dorian, An Imitation (2002), Julian Barnes’ Arthur and George (2005), Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale (2006), John Harding’s Florence and Giles
(2010), Rosie Garland’s The Palace of Curiosities (2013), Gregory Blake Smith’s The Maze at Windermere (2018), Nell Stevens’ Briefly, A Delicious Life (2022) are some of the many novels published in the past twenty-odd years. What is more, neo-Victorian novels are frequently adapted for the screen: for example, the novels of Sarah Waters’ Tipping the Velvet (2002), Fingersmith (2005),
Affinity (2008) and Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White (2011) or more recent productions such as Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes films, and TV series like Sherlock, Ripper Street,
Whitechapel, and Penny Dreadful. The Companion will therefore revisit the issues of deviance and transgression as embodied in literary texts and adaptations in the context of the challenges set by the contemporary reading audiences and viewers.

Please send abstracts of about 300 words and short bios for consideration by 1 April 2025 to Prof. Rossie Artemis at: artemis.r@unic.ac.cy

Authors will be notified about the status of their proposals by 1 May 2025, and the first drafts of essays (about 4500 words) will be expected by 1 November 2025.

For more information about Peter Lang’s Genre Fiction and Film Companion series, please visit: https://www.peterlang.com/series/gffc

Miscellaneous Tidbits

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

Rest in peplum David Lynch

David Lynch passed away last month, and he deserves as rest in peplum (Dune is sword and planet enough for me!). Lynch is one of my all time favorite directors, and many of his films, especially Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, had a huge impact on my and my appreciation of cinema as a whole. I’d like to recap some of my Lynch thoughts, my exposure to his work, and share some of my Lynch treasures.

The first David Lynch movie I ever saw was Lost Highway. This was in the late 90s and I checked it out because I was a hardcore Rammstein fan at the time and Rammstein was in the soundtrack.

I recall renting the movie on VHS and watching it, and my dad walked in and decided to sit down and give it a watch too. And then Patricia Arquette pops on screen and does a striptease. Awkward!

It was a surreal movie, and I didn’t know too much about film noir at the time, but I remember enjoying it! The soundtrack was rocking, Bill Pullman was fresh of ID4 and he ruled, and the movie was mysterious and interesting. I was a fan!

Years later Michele and I would meet actor Greg Travis, who played the aggressive motorist who gets beat up, at a convention were he autographed my DVD of Lost Highway (and Michele’s copy of Starship Troopers).

Years later Mulholland Drive came out. I was a student working on my bachelors and I was hyped about this film. This was the agonizing days of waiting months and months for a film to be released on DVD after it had been released in theaters.

I watched Mulholland Drive and it was basically Lost Highway done even better. The noir elements, the erotic elements, the recreation of people into other people. While Lost Highway had a “distance” to it, Mulholland Drive was more emotional. I was a super fan of it immediately.

At a different convention Michele and I met Rena Riffel, perhaps better known for her appearance in Showgirls and various women-in-prison films by Lloyd A. Simandl. She had a small part in Mulholland Drive where she is under the employ of the seedy Mark Pellegrino. I was so happy we got to meet her and she signed my Mulholland Drive DVD.

After Mulholland Drive I was pretty much a Lynch convert and watched nearly all of his movies. I dug Elephant Man. I could never get through Dune. I don’t recall Wild at Heart too well unfortunately. Blue Velvet was amazing. I have a Twin Peaks boxset, but have been afraid to dive into it unfortunately.

In the late 2000s there was a Twin Peaks anniversary convention at the Hollywood Collectors show that Michele and I went to and met lots of awesome actors and actresses.

I met Jennifer Lynch who signed the documentary she did about her father’s painting, Pretty as a Picture.

Jennifer, Charlotte Stewart, and Catherine E. Coulson all signed my Eraserhead boxset. This boxset I purchased from Scarecrow Video up in Seattle. Eraserhead is, well, it’s an odd film. It’s surreal, and I dug it, but nowhere near the level of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. But I appreciate the hell out of it.

Notice the little squiggly face by the vertical 2000 on the right side? That’s Jack Nance. When Coulson signed my DVD, she closed her eyes and reached out to the long departed Nance, who guided her to draw his face. I was so flattered she did that. RIP to Coulson who sadly passed away 10 years ago.

One other artifact I was to share is this boxset of Dumbland. It’s in the same dimensions as the Eraserhead boxset, so I believe it was put out by the same company. This boxset I also bought at Scarecrow (plug: hear me talk about Scarecrow Video at the Fan2Fan podcast!)

I remember watching this and thinking… well.. that’s David Lynch for you!

One last note, my friends over at the Fan2Fan Podcast have dropped a new episode, and it is on Lynch’s Blue Velvet. Give it a listen!

David Lynch and Blue Velvet – Fan2Fan Podcast

Ride the Stream Vidcast 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 discussion of episode five of season 1:

And their discussion of episode 6:

Ride the Stream can be followed on Bluesky.

Jungle Scandals Kickstarter

J. Manfred Weichsel (whom I interviewed about their anthology, Sword & Scandal, which can be read here) has a new Kickstarter up.

This campaign is to finance the second book in his Scandal line, Jungle Scandals. Check out the campaign here and consider supporting!

Categories
News

News Roundup 2025-01-26

Personal / Website News

2024 Accomplishments

Every year I like to do a recap of accomplishments for the prior year and talk about future projects and goals. You can find prior year end summaries here:

In short, 2024 was not a prolific year for me, especially compared to 2023. In terms of quantity of getting things published, it was a painful year. I definitely was not on my A-game this year. Now, part of this has been my focus on the Emmanuelle/Black Emanuelle book, which has had its ups and many downs. That manuscript will be done soon and sent to the publisher, freeing me up to tackle my backlog and other items on my to do list.

Despite this, there was some pleasant surprises in 2024. Let’s take a look!

Publication Accomplishments

In the realm of physical publications, I had zero new essays published this past year. However, 2024 was the year of the reprint because I had a ton of content from my archives get a new life. I’ve never had reprints of my work before, so this was a comforting accomplishment.

“A Hero Will Endure”: Essays at the Twentieth Anniversary of Gladiator, which contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling” saw a softcover edition published in November.

Portions of my master’s thesis on Antonio Margheriti’s film Castle of Blood was reprinted in the booklet for the Artus films release of the film.

The National Capital Panthans Journal reprinted six of my Edgar Rice Burroughs comic book reviews and convention writeups across six issues.

My essay I did for Weird Tales was mentioned in Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year #16.

Here at my website I had 13 articles published (so a bit better than 1 a month):

  • Peplum Ponderings = 3
  • Comic Book Reviews and Articles = 3
  • Book Reviews = 2
  • Music Reviews and Essays = 2
  • Interviews Conducted = 2
  • Videogame Articles = 1

Podcast Accomplishments

Michele and I went into 2024 with big plans and goals for the H. P. Lovecast Podcast. Early in the year though, however, we had a bad encounter, which killed our podcasting momentum. That, and combined that I was working on the Emmanuelle book and Michele on her Mummy ’99 book, we put HP Lovecast on the back burner until the autumn when we resumed making new episodes. We are climbing out the rut for sure.

23 Podcasts and Vidcasts in 2024:

  • 11 appearances on Scholars from the Edge of Time
  • 7 appearances on Fan2Fan
  • 5 episodes of H. P. Lovecast

2025 Expectations

I’m hoping 2025 will be a big turnaround for me. There’s lots on my to do list and even a few items that floating out there waiting to be published.

Podcasting

2025 Marks the 10 year anniversary of the HP Lovecast Podcast! What do Michele and I have planned? Not sure yet, but we will get it sussed out. We have an episode on The Prophecy that will be published in February (it was going to be our X-mas episode, so a little late).

Michele and I will also be continuing with the Scholars from the Edge of Time vidcast in March.

I’m already queued up to be on the Castle of Horror Podcast to talk about, well, Margheriti’s film Castle of Blood! So, folks, if you want me on your vidcast or podcast, feel free to reach out!

And not me, but I do want to plug Michele’s new vidcast, Ride the Stream, with Travis Lakata. They’ve got LOTS of episodes in the pipe on the TV show Lost.

Publications

The Emmanuelle/Black Emanuelle book will be sent to the publishers in the next month or so. So, cross fingers all goes well for it!

Hopefully my essay on peplum cats will see publication this year. 

I am on the hook to do a Roger Corman and Sampling essay due later this year. After doing the Gladiator and Sampling essay, it will be fun to build on my existing scholarship.

I’ve got a backlog of comic book and book-book reviews I am hoping to churn out for my website. Some of these writings will also be concurrently published in the Panthans Journal.

I’ve been asked to create some unique cocktails to be published in a few issues of a magazine (not tiki, surprisingly!). More info when I’m allowed to spill more beans.

On the subject of tiki, I’ll be getting some articles out there for Exotica Moderne as well.

Finally, my interview with peplum starlet Bella Cortez will be published in an issue of the Burroughs Bibliophiles Bulletin later this year.

Conferences

I’m only slated for one conference this year which will be the Edgar Rice Burroughs Circle of Friendship that will be in Willcox, AZ in late September. I have a presentation I’ll be doing on the sword and planet genre. 

On top of personal ongoings, (I am working on getting my driver’s license, yay!), 2025 is going to be BUSY. I am not expecting my output to be like it was in 2023, but I’m optimistic I’m going to realize some cool stuff. 

Thank you to all the friends, peers, and colleagues who support what I do. And thank you, yes you visitor to 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 Handbook of Trans Cinema

Chapter proposals are invited for The Handbook of Trans Cinema. Join confirmed contributors like Cáel M. Keegan, author of Lana and Lilly Wachowski: Sensing Transgender. We seek a broadly international group of scholarly contributors. 

Past books have provided in-depth studies of transgender themes and filmmakers in selected works of cinema, e.g., Rebecca Bell-Metereau’s Transgender Cinema (2019), Eliza Steinbock’s Shimmering Images: Trans Cinema, Embodiment, and the Aesthetics of Change (2019), and Akkadia Ford’s Trans New Wave Cinema (2021). As a next step, The Handbook of Trans Cinema provides an encyclopedic overview of international trans cinema, with chapters examining the variety of genres of trans cinema from around the world, as well as the connections between these films and core concepts in trans studies and in film theory. Each chapter will provide a broad overview of its subject, with extensive references to both trans theory and film theory. In addition to giving surveys of the chapter’s topic, chapters will include in-depth discussion of at least three films. Abstracts for proposed chapters should include several references to both trans theory and film theory, and abstracts should list at least three films that will be explored in-depth.

Please see the list of high priority chapters at the end of this CFP. Proposals for other topics will also be considered, but all chapters will offer broad overviews of their subject, and not traditional scholarly analyses of a single film or filmmaker. To be most competitive, each chapter proposal should examine films from multiple countries and in multiple languages, with the exception of chapters in the handbook’s Part IV. “National Overviews of Trans Films,” which will each focus on a single country’s films. (See the listing of high priority chapters for the four parts of the book at the end of this CFP.)

The senior editor of The Handbook of Trans Cinema, Douglas Vakoch, has edited over two dozen books, including The Routledge Handbook of Trans Literature (with Sabine Sharp, 2024) Transgender India: Understanding Third Gender Identities and Experiences (2022), and Transecology: Transgender Perspectives on Environment and Nature (2020).

Interested authors should submit a 300-word abstract, a 200-word biography, and a sample of a previously published chapter or article to https://bit.ly/HandbookofTransCinema no later than January 30, 2025. Proposals submitted by email will not be accepted. Abstracts and biographies should be submitted as Word documents, and previously published chapters or articles should be submitted as PDFs. Both Word files and PDFs should contain the author’s name in the file names. Please include your email address in your biography file so we can contact you with our decision about your proposal.

You are welcome to submit more than one abstract. If you decide to submit multiple abstracts for different chapters, please add a note at the top of each abstract to indicate whether you wish to be considered for writing only a single chapter, or whether you wish to be considered for writing more than one chapter.

The most competitive proposals will detail the author’s argument. It is not enough to describe what you plan to do in your chapter. You should summarize what you will conclude. For example, it’s not enough to say you will examine multiple films from diverse countries. List the specific films you propose to include and then explain what your analysis will demonstrate.

Authors will be notified whether their proposals are accepted by March 20, 2025. Partial first drafts are due by July 15, 2025; solid first drafts of full chapters are due by October 1, 2025; and final versions that cross-reference other chapters extensively are due December 1, 2025. All chapters must include at least one author with a PhD. In your 200-word biography, please note the year and university where you earned your doctorate. Only previously unpublished works will be considered. 

For examples of abstracts for handbook chapters, see samples from the editor’s previous handbooks: The Routledge Handbook of Trans Literature and The Routledge Handbook of Ecofeminism and Literature.

High priority chapters include:

Part I. Genres

  • Drama as Trans Cinema
  • Comedy as Trans Cinema
  • Romantic Comedy as Trans Cinema
  • Romance Trans Cinema
  • Historical Trans Cinema
  • Westerns as Trans Cinema
  • Action Adventure Trans Cinema
  • Asian Epic Trans Cinema
  • Martial Arts Trans Cinema
  • War Trans Cinema
  • Disaster Trans Cinema
  • Horror Trans Cinema
  • Thriller Trans Cinema
  • Mystery Trans Cinema
  • True Crime Trans Cinema
  • Noir Trans Cinema
  • Spy Trans Cinema
  • Science Fiction Trans Cinema
  • Isekai (異世界) Trans Cinema
  • Superhero Trans Cinema
  • Fantasy Trans Cinema
  • Musical Trans Cinema
  • Animation as Trans Cinema
  • Anime (アニメ) as Trans Cinema
  • Fan Fiction Trans Cinema
  • Biopic Trans Cinema
  • Documentary Trans Cinema
  • Travelogues as Trans Cinema
  • Coming-of-Age Trans Cinema
  • Sports Trans Cinema
  • Silent Trans Cinema
  • Experimental Trans Cinema 

Part II. Trans Concepts

  • Abjection and Trans Cinema
  • Activism and Trans Cinema
  • The Anthropocene and Trans Cinema
  • Anthropology and Trans Cinema
  • Aging and Trans Cinema
  • Animal Studies and Trans Cinema
  • Archives and Trans Cinema
  • Asian Studies and Trans Cinema
  • Biopolitics and Trans Cinema
  • Black Studies and Trans Cinema
  • Camp and Trans Cinema
  • Children and Trans Cinema
  • Cognition and Trans Cinema
  • Colonialism and Trans Cinema
  • Critical Plant Studies and Trans Cinema
  • Cross-dressing and Trans Cinema
  • Culture and Trans Cinema
  • Diaspora and Trans Cinema
  • Disability and Trans Cinema
  • Education and Trans Cinema
  • Ethnicity and Trans Cinema
  • Fungibility and Trans Cinema
  • Gender Dysphoria and Trans Cinema
  • Glocalization and Trans Cinema
  • Hispanic Studies and Trans Cinema
  • Historicity and Trans Cinema
  • Human Rights and Trans Cinema
  • Identity and Trans Cinema
  • Inclusion and Trans Cinema
  • Intimacy and Trans Cinema
  • La Loca and Trans Cinema
  • Lines of Flight and Trans Cinema
  • Medicalization and Trans Cinema
  • Memory and Trans Cinema
  • Monstrosity and Trans Cinema
  • Nature and Trans Cinema
  • Nomad Science and Trans Cinema
  • Normality and Trans Cinema
  • Paradox and Trans Cinema
  • Passing and Trans Cinema
  • Performativity and Trans Cinema
  • Politics and Trans Cinema
  • Race and Trans Cinema
  • Religion and Trans Cinema
  • Reveal and Trans Cinema
  • Subalternity and Trans Cinema
  • Subjectivity and Trans Cinema
  • Temporality and Trans Cinema
  • Tipping Point and Trans Cinema
  • Tranimals and Trans Cinema
  • Transability and Trans Cinema
  • The Transgender Gaze and Trans Cinema
  • Transgression and Trans Cinema
  • Transphobia and Trans Cinema
  • Trans-poetics and Trans Cinema
  • Visibility and Trans Cinema
  • Waste and Trans Cinema
  • Whiteness and Trans Cinema
  • Wrong Body and Trans Cinema
  • Young Adults and Trans Cinema

Part III. Film Theories and Concepts

  • Anthology Films and Trans Films
  • Apparatus Theory and Trans Films
  • Art and Trans Films
  • Auteur Theory and Trans Films
  • Counter Cinema and Trans Films
  • Critical Theory and Trans Films
  • Diasporic Cinema and Trans Films
  • Ethnographic Films and Trans Films
  • Existentialism and Trans Films
  • Experimental Cinema and Trans Films
  • Fandom and Trans Films
  • Feminism and Trans Films
  • Film Festivals and Trans Films
  • Formalism and Trans Films
  • The Frankfurt School and Trans Films
  • Genre Theory and Trans Films
  • German Expressionism and Trans Films
  • Humor and Trans Films
  • Intimacy Coordination and Trans Films
  • Italian Neo-Realism and Trans Films
  • Marxism and Trans Films
  • Media Industries and Trans Films
  • Modernism and Trans Films
  • Music and Trans Films
  • New Wave Cinema and Trans Films
  • Phenomenology and Trans Films
  • Postcolonialism and Trans Films
  • Posthumanism and Trans Films
  • Postmodernism and Trans Films
  • Post-Structuralism and Trans Films
  • Psychoanalysis and Trans Films
  • Pure Cinema and Trans Films
  • Queer Film Theory and Trans Films
  • Realism and Trans Films
  • Rhetoric and Trans Films
  • Silent Cinema and Trans Films
  • Sound and Trans Films
  • Soviet Montage and Trans Films
  • Structuralism and Trans Films
  • Subjective Cinema and Trans Films
  • Surrealist Cinema and Trans Films
  • Visual Arts and Trans Films
  • Vulgar Auteurism and Trans Films

Part IV. National Overviews of Trans Films
(National Overviews Are Also Encouraged and Warmly Invited for Other Countries Not Listed)

  • Trans Cinema from Argentina
  • Trans Cinema from Australia
  • Trans Cinema from Brazil
  • Trans Cinema from Canada
  • Trans Cinema from Chile
  • Trans Cinema from China
  • Trans Cinema from Costa Rica
  • Trans Cinema from Egypt
  • Trans Cinema from France
  • Trans Cinema from Germany
  • Trans Cinema from Ghana
  • Trans Cinema from Hong Kong
  • Trans Cinema from India
  • Trans Cinema from Indonesia
  • Trans Cinema from Iran
  • Trans Cinema from Iraq
  • Trans Cinema from Israel
  • Trans Cinema from Italy
  • Trans Cinema from Japan
  • Trans Cinema from Mexico
  • Trans Cinema from New Zealand
  • Trans Cinema from Nigeria
  • Trans Cinema from Norway
  • Trans Cinema from Poland
  • Trans Cinema from Russia
  • Trans Cinema from South Africa
  • Trans Cinema from South Korea
  • Trans Cinema from Spain
  • Trans Cinema from Sweden
  • Trans Cinema from Switzerland
  • Trans Cinema from Taiwan
  • Trans Cinema from Thailand
  • Trans Cinema from the United Kingdom
  • Trans Cinema from the United States

Technical and Professional Knowledge in Late Antiquity

Society for Classical Studies 157th Annual Meeting
JANUARY 7-10, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO

Call for Papers for Panel Sponsored by the Society for Late Antiquity

Organized by Betsy Bevis, Department of Classics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The Society for Late Antiquity invites papers that in some way situate themselves at the intersection of intellectual and economic history (broadly conceived) and speak to aspects of technical or professional knowledge in the long Late Antiquity. Because professional and technical knowledge is often knowledge intended to be put into practice, we encourage submissions that incorporate archaeological and other material evidence.

The past decade has been especially fruitful for both economic and intellectual histories of the ancient Mediterranean. Monographs, such as Bond 2016, or Hawkins 2016, have expanded our understanding of specific professions in the classical world, while intellectual histories such as Johnson 2010, Eshelman 2012, or Gellar-Goad and Poult 2024 have tackled topics such as reading, intellectual communities, or the transmission and creation of knowledge. Recent works such as Mark Lettney’s (2023) The Christianization of Knowledge in Late Antiquity, or Salvatore Cosentino’s (2022) “Pillars of Empire,” that deal specifically with the later centuries of Mediterranean Antiquity continue these trends into Late Antiquity. This panel endeavors to bring together these two strands of scholarship and examine their continuing impact in the post-Classical world.

Ideas for submissions might include:

  • Technical Treatises – such as agricultural, military, or magical manuals. What role do compendia and encyclopedic works play in the transmission of technical and professional knowledge?
  • New Professions and Technologies – such as the expansion of imperial bureaucracies, professionalization of Christian clergy, or technologies (e.g., large-scale water mills, or tube-constructed vaulting) and art forms (e.g., cage cups or gold-sandwich glass) that expanded or developed after the 3rd century CE. 
  • Technologies of Knowing – codices, tabulation, exegetical or typological readings of text or iconography. 
  • Technique/Technology within Space – where and how is professional and technical knowledge visible in the environment? Can we reconstruct changes in technical knowledge from changes in workshop spaces? 
  • Fragments of Knowing – where and how do technologies and professions end or break down? Processes of recycling, deconstruction, or de-skilling.
  • Professional Education and Organization – how did one become a “professional”?

Please send abstracts that follow the guidelines for individual abstracts (see the SCS Guidelines for Authors of Abstracts) by email to Betsy Bevis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign at (ebevis@illinois.edu) by February 14, 2025.

Please ensure that the abstracts are anonymous.

The organizers will review all submissions anonymously, and their decision will be communicated to the authors of abstracts by March 21, 2025, with enough time that those whose abstracts are not chosen can participate in the individual abstract submission process for the upcoming SCS meeting.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

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

Wildfire 7

I lived in Orange, CA from 2010 to 2020, so I am no stranger to the fires that happen in SoCal, but these fires going on right now are just Earth-shatteringly tragic. There’s places I’ve been to before that simply don’t exist anymore. I’m lucky that none of my friends have lost their homes, but thousands of others have.

I saw in the news about deployed prisoner fire fighters and it reminded me of the movie Wildfire 7:

My copy is signed by the director, Jason Bourque, and actors Tahmoh Penikett and William DeVry.

I have not seen this movie since the late 2010s, so I’ll be fuzzy on remembering the plot, but basically Tracy Gold is the victim of domestic violence, but winds up going to prison anyways, and joins the fire fighting squad in California. I’m pretty sure the movie is probably extremely relevant today regarding the punishing the women victims and the ideas of putting prisoners into legal slavery.

Nightmare Weekend

A fun one I shared on BlueSky, here is my copy of Nightmare Weekend signed by Andrea Thompson, best known for her portray of Talia Winters on Babylon 5.

We met her at an autograph show back in 2009. Here we are!

The Monuments of Mars

An odd duck in my autograph media collection, here is a copy of The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever signed by author/conspiracy theorist Richard C. Hoagland:

Why do I have this book in my collection? Well, growing up in the 90s, the channel I watched the most often was the Sci-Fi Channel (Saturday Anime! MST3K!) An aside from commercials shilling Dianetics, the commercial that appeared the most often on the network was for a VHS tape of the Monuments of Mars: A Terrestrial Connection:

So, I grew up seeing that commercial many times a day.

Years, years later I am at a Half Price Books in Tacoma Washington, and a copy of the book was sitting there, on the shelf, all autographed, for not even eight dollars. Nostalgia kicked in and I bought it.

Have I ever read it? Not a chance. I am certain 95% of the book is totally made up.

Ride the Stream Vidcast 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 part 2 of discussing the pilot:

Here is their discussion on the episode “Tabula Rasa”:

And here is their discussion on the episode “Walkabout”:

Ride the Stream can be followed on Bluesky.

Categories
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 #332

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
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
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
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
News

Biweekly News Roundup 2024-09-08

Personal / Website News

H. P. Lovecast Podcast

After a few months hiatus Michele and I are back with H. P. Lovecast!

We have some interviews with folks we will need to connect on and get out the door, but we are going to slowly transition back into a normal schedule.

In the meantime, here is our first episode in a while! We talk about the 2022 cosmic-horror/dark comedy film, Glorious, directed by Dr. Rebekah McKendry. Check it out here, via the embedded player below, or through your podcast app of preference.

Ep 61 – Rebekah McKendry's Glorious – H. P. Lovecast Podcast

Scholars From The Edge Of Time

The August episode of Scholars from the Edge of Time is also online. For this episode we take a gander at the 2017 sorta-Templar film, Pilgrimage, which we both really dug.

The episode can be watched on YouTube.

For September we are looking to do Krull (1983). If you have suggestions for sword and sandal/sorcery/planet movies you’d like us to cover, let me know!

Panthans Journal #328

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: The Flames Beyond #3.

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.

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.

Expanding Our View of Sherwood: Exploring the Matter of the Greenwood in Comics

Sponsored by Medieval Comics Project and International Association for Robin Hood Studies (IARHS)

Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa and Carl B. Sell

60th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan)

Hybrid event: Thursday, 8 May, through Saturday, 10 May, 2025

Please Submit Proposals by 15 September 2024

Session Information

According to a recent search of the Grand Comics Database, creators of comic books and graphic novels have produced approximately five thousand comics directly based on or inspired by the Robin Hood tradition. These comics span over one hundred years and come from at least ten countries; however, the true scope of Hood’s influence on the medium appears much larger. A variety of archers, both heroes and villains, also feature within the pages of comics, and some, such as DC Comics’s Green Arrow, have even made the transition to the screen. In addition, Hood and his fellows have also frequented cartoons, comic strips, and manga, although their adventures there remain largely uncatalogued.

Of this vast array of comics and related media, relatively little of the corpus seems known to enthusiasts of the Matter of the Greenwood. Although Robin Hood scholars (working since the 1990s) have started to share some comics, much work still remains to be done to more fully assess the world of Sherwood Forest depicted in their panels. Therefore, in this co-sponsored session, we hope to create a deeper connection between Robin Hood Studies and Comics Studies to highlight items from this rich corpus and provide ideas and reflections on how to find, access, and employ Robin-Hood-themed comics in our classrooms and research.

Applicants to the roundtable are invited to revise their work for publication in a special issue of the open-access journal The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies.

Thank you for your interest in our session. Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at Comics.Get.Medieval@gmail.com. A full PDF version of this call can be accessed from Academia.Edu.

Submission Information

The process for proposing contributions to sessions of papers, roundtables and poster sessions for the International Congress on Medieval Studies uses an online submission system powered by Confex. Be advised that submissions cannot be accepted through email. Rather, access the direct link in Confex to our session at https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/round/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=5826. You can also view the full Call for Papers list at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call.

Within Confex, proposals to sessions of papers, poster sessions and roundtables require the author’s name, affiliation and contact information; an abstract (300 words) for consideration by session organizer(s); and a short description (50 words) that may be made public. Proposals to sessions of papers and poster sessions also require a title for the submission (contributions to roundtables are untitled).

Proposers of papers or contributions to roundtables for hybrid sessions should indicate in their abstracts whether they intend to present in person or virtually.

If you need help with your submissions, the Congress offers some resources at the Participating in the Congress page at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/participating-congress. Click to open the section labeled “Propose a Paper” and scroll down for the Quick Guide handouts.

Be advised of the following policies for participating in the Congress:

You are invited to propose one paper (as a sole author or as a co-author) for one session of papers. You may propose a paper for a sponsored or special session or for the general sessions, but not both. You may propose an unlimited number of contributions to roundtables and poster sessions, but you will not be scheduled to actively participate (as paper presenter, roundtable discussant, poster author, presider, respondent, workshop leader, demonstrator or performer) in more than three sessions.

Further details on the Congress’s Policies can be found at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/policies-guidelines.

A reminder: Presenters accepted to the Congress must register for the full event. The registration fee is the same for on-site and virtual participants. For planning, the cost for the previous year’s event is posted at the Congress’s Registration page at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/registration.

If necessary, the Medieval Institute and Richard Rawlinson Center at Western Michigan University offer limited funding to presenters. These include both subsidized registration grants and travel awards. Please see the Awards page at the Congress site for details at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/awards.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Want to give some appreciation and shoutouts to some friends who have big projects that just came out or are about to come out.

Ian Welke’s Messing With Mr. In-Between

Ian Welke, friend who has been on both Scholars from the Edge of Time and H. P. Lovecast, has a new book out called Messing with Mr. In-Between.

The book can be purchased at its Amazon product page. Check it out!

Global Indigenous Horror

Global Indigenous Horror is an upcoming collection edited by Naomi Simone Borwein, who has been a presenter at the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference and also published in Horror Literature form Gothic to Post-Modern.

More information and the ability to pre-order can be found at its University Press of Mississippi product page. Also – that cover is rad. Keep an eye out!

Philippe Gerber Scores

Composter Philippe Gerber, who creates music under the John 3:16 moniker and also did the theme song, “Azathoth,” for the H. P. Lovecast Podcast, has been scoring films lately! There’s two of them right now from SRS Cinema.

The first is The Final Possession, which can be found on Indiegogo.

And the next is Venus Die-Trap, (love the name), also on Indiegogo.

Check them out, consider backing/ordering the films!

Brenda S. Tolian’s Bestial Mouths

Friend and H. P. Lovecast interviewee alumnus Brenda S. Tolian has a new book coming from Raw Dog Screaming (aroooo) Press: Bestial Mouths. It’s a poetry collection! RDSP just did a cover reveal:

The collection is slated to come out November 14th and can be pre-ordered at the Raw Dog Screaming Press product page. The cover is wicked cool with all the mushrooms.

Ripple Effects Kickstarter

FanBase Press is about the launch their very first Kickstarter. This will be for a deluxe edition of Jordan Hart’s Ripple Effects.

Get notified when the Kickstarter goes live at the campaign’s Notify Me On Launch page. Consider backing! Or, if you’d like the current trade paperback edition, that can be found for purchase here.

Categories
News

Biweekly News Roundup 2024-08-18

Personal / Website News

Becca Boo Issue Two Review

New review is up at my website!

I take a look at Becca Boo issue 2. I had previously reviewed issue 1 and enjoyed it (read my review here), and issue 2 definitely kept up the quality. My issue 2 review can be read here.

Note: A while after publication of my review, Obscura Comics sent over the missing Kickstarter swag. I’ll be updating my review to reflect this.

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.

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.

Phantom of the Paradise Edited Collection

Editor: Sean Woodard
Contact: phantomparadisebook@gmail.com
Abstract Deadline: Friday, November 15, 2024
Chapter Drafts Deadline: June 15, 2025

Essays sought for a peer-reviewed edited collection focused on Brian De Palma’s film, Phantom of the Paradise.

Brian De Palma’s 1974 film Phantom of the Paradise, starring William Finley, Paul Williams, and Jessica Harper remains a cult classic of 1970s American independent cinema and popular culture. A throwback to the legend of Faust and Gothic narratives such as Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera (1910), and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), the film satirizes the modern music industry. The musical prominently features a stellar soundtrack by Paul Williams and many of De Palma’s trademark filmmaking techniques and Hitchcockian homages that he would perfect in further genre fare like Carrie (1976), Dressed to Kill (1980), and Blow Out (1981).

Furthermore, Phantom of the Paradise has a devoted fan base around the world. For example, a fan-made preservation website called “The Swan Archives”—devoted to detailing the film’s production history and cataloging and preserving its physical promotional materials and merchandise—was the subject of a 2013 Bright Lights Film Journal essay. In addition, filmmaker Guillermo del Toro owns an extensive collection of Phantom of the Paradise memorabilia, while director Edgar Wright specifically cast Paul Williams in a cameo role in Baby Driver (2017) out of his affinity his role in De Palma’s film. The film’s growing popularity has also led to sold-out repertoire screenings, shadow cast events, and fan cosplay at horror conventions. In an archived 2019 interview with The Globe and Mail, Williams commented on the film’s resurgence and its overall legacy: “Isn’t it bizarre? You can’t be quick to write something off as [a] failure. . . . I am beyond grateful.”

While academic research has been focused broadly on De Palma’s filmography, there has not been a singular scholarly text devoted to the film. The celebration of Phantom of the Paradise’s 50th anniversary in 2024 makes it an appropriate time to celebrate and re-evaluate the film.

The purpose of this edited collection is to place Phantom of the Paradise into a cultural and theoretical context, as well as critically analyze the film, its connections to other genre films, its place in Brian De Palma’s filmography, and its continued influence.

We seek proposals for chapters that approach the subject matter with theoretical concepts that will appropriately meet the rigorous expectations of an academic work, but through a prose style that shall be accessible for both an academic audience and a general readership.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • Brian De Palma as an Auteur
  • Paul Williams’ Career
  • Film and Literary Adaptation and Intertextuality (Phantom of the Opera, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Faust, etc.)
  • Narrative, Thematic, or Structural Analysis of the Film
  • Audio/Visual Style
  • The supernatural and the Gothic
  • Body Horror
  • Monstrosity/Abjection
  • Class, Gender, Sexuality, and Queer Readings
  • Psychoanalytic Film Theory
  • Philosophy in Film/Film as Philosophy
  • Voyuerism and “the gaze”
  • Mirrors, Screens, Foils, and Doubles
  • Genre Hybridity
  • Soundtracks and Film Scoring
  • Horror Musical Film Cycles (including Phantom of the Paradise; The Rocky Horror Picture Show [Sharman, 1975]; Shock Treatment [Sharman, 1981]; Little Shop of Horrors [Oz, 1986]; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street [Burton, 2007]; Repo! The Genetic Opera [Bousman, 2008]; and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog [Whedon, 2008])
  • Cult Cinema, Fandom, and Popular Culture

Please send abstracts of 300 – 500 words with a working title and five (5) keywords, accompanied by a short third-person author bio (100 words max), to phantomparadisebook@gmail.com as a Word document.

Final essays should be 5,000 – 6,000 words in length, inclusive of endnotes and bibliography. Citations and references shall be formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition. No images. A formal proposal for the collection will be submitted for consideration to a leading academic press.

Proposed Timeline

  • August 1, 2024 – November 15, 2024: Call for Papers
  • December 15, 2025: Notification of abstract acceptances sent to authors
  • December 15 – June 15, 2025: Book chapters drafting period
  • June 15 – July 31, 2025: Initial editorial review of submitted chapter drafts; editing/revision remarks sent to writers
  • August 1 – September 15, 2025: Contributor revision period
  • September 15 – September 30, 2025: Second editorial review
  • October 1 – October 15, 2025: Contributor revisions, as neede
  • October 15 – December 15, 2025: Finalize full manuscript
  • December 15, 2025: Submit full manuscript to press for editorial board consideration and peer review process

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Elysian Fields Kickstarter

Michael Oden is revamping/rebooting his Neo-peplum comic, Elysian Fields, with a Kickstarter campaign. You can sign up to get notified when the campaign launched at this link.

I had the honor to interview Oden a few years ago about the original incarnation of Elysian Fields, and if you’re curious, it can be read here.

Arcade Autograph

My friend Nolan McBride of the Dead Ringers Podcast was a recent guest on the VH US Podcast to talk about the Albert Pyun film Arcade (check out the episode here).

Back in December 2022 after Pyun had passed away I shared my autographed copy of Cyborg (check it out here). McBride podcast appearance totally made me remember that I had a copy of Arcade signed by the awesome cult director. So, here it is!

Nick,

We shot this in 12 days and I actually got into a fight with Charles Band on the final cut and left the film. But I really liked the Cast and David Goyer’s script.

Best, Albert Pyun

Thanks for all the memories Pyun!

Alien Quadrilogy Autographs

Alien: Romulus is out in the world now. Despite not caring for Prometheus and Covenant, I’ll give Romulus a shot since I’m always curious were the Alien/Predator universe lore takes off into. But for now, since the movie is out, it’s a good enough time as any to share my autographed copy of the Alien Quadrilogy boxset.

This is signed by Veronica Cartwright (Alien) and Lance Henriksen (Aliens). I recall buying this boxset back in 2004 from a Fred Meyer I lived across the street from in University Place, WA. I was so excited to scrimp some monies to buy this set and all the supplemental goodies in it. The set is two decades old, and I’ll probably someday buy some 4K versions of the movies on it, but this will remain one of my prized gems in the library.

In Gowan Ring Concert 2007

Speaking of old, old Washington memories, while categorizing my music and getting everything imported onto my Mac, I came across a copy of Webs Among the Din 2 by folk project In Gowan Ring.

Michele and I actually got to be concert organizers and promoters and have In Gowan Ring (Patreon link) perform a tiny concert at the University Bookstore at the University of Washington – Tacoma Campus. It was a lot of fun! Michele did up posters, and I did the green room and made my custom onion cheese tart. Michele also made a recording of the event, so perhaps we will find it while we continue to unpack, and see if something can be done with it.

After In Gowan Ring concluded their tour they did a commemorative release called Webs Among the Din 2, which features a map and a listing of all their performances.

So, 17 years ago this month we got to host a folk band at our school. Very cool!

The Neverending Streamer – More Fallout Write Ups

Travis Lakata has some new Fallout episode write ups on his Substack, The Neverending Streamer.

Check them out:

Florida, Man Indiegogo

My friend Evan Jordan (one of the editors of Footage Fiends, the zine I got to contribute an essay about Caltiki to last year) is doing a crowdfunding endeavor for his feature-length movie debut, Florida, Man.

Per the Indiegogo campaign:

Florida, Man aims to explore the [..]paranormal encounters I had in addition to the rest of my weird past in the state of Florida through archival footage, re-enactments, interviews with surviving family members and other involved parties, as well as ending with a full paranormal investigation of the rural home where everything occurred all those years ago.

Check out the campaign at Indiegogo.