Michele and I has our monthly appearance on the Scholars from the Edge of Time segment of the Voice of Olympus podcast. This month we discuss the toga and sandal film Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). Great discussion and keep an eye out on a write up about the film here at my website. In the meantime, the episode can be downloaded/streamed at BlogTalkRadio.
Screen capture from the Eclipse release of Caesar and Cleopatra. Pictured is Claude Rains as Caesar and Vivien Leigh as Cleopatra.
This upcoming Tuesday we will have a mini episode on Voice of Olympus as well.
General Neo-Peplum News
Polis Part 2 Comic
Jave Galt-Miller informs via Kickstarter that the second part of his Polis: The Trail of Socrates has been printed and in his possession. He expects to ship out to backers in the next couple of weeks. Historic info about the project can be found on Kickstarter.
Cover art of issue 2. Copyright by Jave Galt-Miller
Of note, back when I wrote for Fanbase Press, I did a review of issue one of Polis. It can be read here.
There is a cover reveal and a product page for The Many Lives of The Twilight Zone: Essays on the Television and Film Franchise over at McFarland now! There’s no publishing date yet, but I am imagining it will be out late spring/early summer. To refresh, I have an essay in this book titled “Strange Realities: Twilight Zone-sploitation in Encounter with the Unknown” which does a deep dive into the 70s horror anthology film Encounter with the Unknown that Rod Serling narrated.
Issue 11 of Exotica Moderne has a cover reveal as well! In this issue I conduct an interview with Miss Pinup Miami.
Podcast News
Michele and I recorded a brand new episode of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast. In this episode we discuss William Eubank’s 2020 film, Underwater. Check it out on Buzzsprout or on your podcast platform of preference. Side note: we are finally on Pandora now!
General Neo-Peplum News
Sword and Sorcery Sketchbooks
Sword and Sorcery artist Gilead is selling sketchbooks of his fantasy art. If you’re in the US you can purchase them via PayPal for $12.00 at gilead@cox.net. More info in Gilead can be found at his Patreon.
Art copyright by Gilead.
Imperial Age to Debut New Song
Russian symphonic metal band Imperial Age, whose modus operandi is a melding of lots of different aspects of antiquity/mythology, has released a statement they will be debuting a new song on 2021-04-09 across all streaming platforms along with a music video on YouTube. The band is not doing preorders, and releasing the song’s title or cover art, though other things are being revealed via the band’s Facebook page and emails: screenshots seems to show the music video being vampire themed and Jane sings 100% of the vocals on the song.
Screencap of the new music video, promotional image made available on the band’s Facebook page.
Along with all of this, the band is working on a brand new album as well called New World.
The Midnight’s Horror Show Releases
Horror Show, the newest release from synthwave act The Midnight, was released this past Friday. The physical versions will be released later, but for now fans can enjoy digital incarnations at the project’s Bandcamp page. The release contains the track “Neon Medusa” which contains shades of mythology. Hope to dive into that track for a possible article.
I conducted an interview with G. A. Lungaro about his Neo-peplum/Lovecraft comic series, Isidora and the Immortal Chains.
General Neo-Peplum News
Byzantine Conference
The 47th annual Byzantine Studies Conference has a CFP open. More details can be found at the Byzantine Studies Organization of North America’s website. The CFP closes May 1st. Because of Covid, there’s a 50-50 chance it will either be in person or all online.
Soundtracks
Intrada released a 40th anniversary edition of the soundtrack for Ulysses 31, an old school anime which took the story of Odysseus and bumped it to the 31s century.
Last week the CFP for the neo-medieval project came to an end. I’ve spent the last week juggling the project and came to the decision to shutter it for the simple reason that I did not receive enough abstracts to justice the project to any publisher. The medieval project is officially dead. However, keep an eye out here later in the year for a CFP for a different project. Thank you to all who submitted.
Podcast News
New episode of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast is live! In this episode Michele and I discuss “The House on Curwen Street” and “The Watcher from the Sky” both from August Derleth’s The Trail of Cthulhu. The episode is available on our Buzzsprout website or via the Podcast application of your preference.
General Neo-Peplum News
Swords, Sandals, and Synthwave
It’s not often the synthwave genre dives into subject matter older than the 80s, let alone into antiquity, yet The Midnight (retro wave band) is releasing a new LP called Horror Show that contains a track called “Neon Medusa.” The LP is available for pre-order on vinyl, cassette, and digitally at the band’s Bandcamp page and will be released March 19th.
Clash of the Titans 2010 on HBO Max
Article at Looper praising Clash of the Titans 2010 remake and encouraging folks to check it out on HBO Max.
Peplum Erotica Gaming
Ubisoft isn’t the only publisher/developer that has the market cornered in sword and sandal gaming, with their Assassin’s Creed series and Immortals Fenyx Rising. There is a WIP game on steam called Slaves of Rome that takes an erotic approach to the genre.
Slave of Rome banner provided by the developers
The game appears to be a BDSM simulator that allows players to create, train, trade, and have sex with enslaved persons in an ancient Roman setting. More info about the game can be found on the developer’s Patreon, Twitter, and Reddit.
SPQR Comic Ships
After a few minor setbacks and misprints, Riley Hamilton’s Kickstarted comic SPQR issue #1 has begun being shipped. If you didn’t contribute to the Kickstarter, no worries, the comic is available for purchase at Hamilton’s website.
I contributed to the Kickstarter so I reckon my copy will arrive in the next few weeks, so stay tuned for some sort of write up about it.
Rest in Peplum
British actress Nicola Pagett passed away at the age of 75 from a brain tumor. She played Messalina in an episode called “Claudius” in the 1968 miniseries The Caesars and Talia in The Viking Queen (1967).
ICYMI in the wake of Fry’s Electronics closing down, I penned a short article about the Roman-themed Fry’s that was in Costa Mesa, CA.
Call for Papers – Closed!
The Call for Abstracts for the collection of neo-medieval media is now closed. I’ll be assessing the submissions over the next couple of days to determine if the project is go/no go. But in advance, thank you to all who have submitted.
Podcast News
Our newest episode of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast is live! In this episode we dive into the anthology Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 2 and look at three stories: “Dead End Town” by Lee Murray, “The Island in the Swamp” by J. Scherpenhuizen, and “Depth Lurker” by Geoff Brown. The episode can be streamed at Buzzsprout or your favorite podcast program.
Also earlier this week Michele and I had an episode of the Scholars from the Edge of Time podcast. In this episode we interviewed Dr. Jeremy Swist on ancient worlds and heavy metal. That episode can be streamed/downloaded at Blog Talk Radio.
General Neo-Peplum News
Peplum Children’s Book
Children’s author and classicist Annelise Gray will have a new fiction book titled Circus Maximus: Race to the Death published by Head of Zeus on March 4th. It’s elevator pitch is Ben-Hur meets National Velvet for 9-12 year olds.
Rest in Peplum
Italian director Giancarlo Santi passed away at the age of 81. He was an assistant director on the Lou Ferrigno Hercules films: Hercules (1983) and The Adventures of Hercules (1985).
After a prolonged illness, British actor Ronald Pickup passed away at the age of 80. He played Orpheus in the Atlantis (2013-2015) television series, played King Sharaman in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), and an appearance in the biblical peplum In The Beginning (2000).
Acclaimed sound editor Alan Robert Murray passed away at the age of 66. He worked on:
The Call for Abstracts for my collection of essays on neo-medievalism is live. The CFP can be found here. This upcoming week is the final week this CFP will be open.
HP Lovecast Podcast
Our newest episode of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast will be going up later today. Yesterday our podcast host, Buzzsprout, was the target of DDoS attacks, so we really couldn’t access anything.
General Neo-Peplum News
Academic Talks
Dr. Jeremy J. Swist gave an online lecture earlier this week called “An Unholy Trinity: Antiquity, Heavy Metal, and White Supremacism.” That talk is now available on YouTube and can be streamed here.
Of supplemental interest, Dr. Swist gave another online lecture in 2019 called “By Spartan Law: Laconophilia in Heavy Metal Music” that is also on YouTube.
Sean Woodward writes an extremely positive review of Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern over at Horror Buzz. 9 out of 10 stars!
Call for Papers
The Call for Abstracts for my collection of essays on neo-medievalism is live. The CFP can be found here.
General Neo-Peplum News
Rest in Peplum
Valeria Gagealov passed away. She starred in Romanian pepla, such as The Column (1968) and the historic epic Michael the Brave (1971).
Cannot find a news source to back this up and I only seen scuttlebutt on Facebook groups, but Reg Lewis may have passed away at the age of 85. He was in Colossus of the Stone Age (1962).
Exotica Moderne #10 is out! Copies can be ordered from House of Tabu. My contribution to this issue is pretty minimal, I only did a mini review of Zeena Schreck’s EP Bring me the Head of F. W. Murnau. However, I am ahead of the game for issue 11, which will contain my interview of Miss Pinup Miami. That interview is conducted, concluded, edited, and turned in!
Cover for Exotica Moderne #10
StokerCon 2021/AnnRadCon News
Official announcement has been made through the Stokercon channels that StokerCon 2021 will be a digital-only conference, with a physical one to resume when the world is safer from the COVID19 pandemic. This also means the AnnRadCon for 2021 will also switch to an online/digital mode. More details forthcoming as we get things sussed out. The official announcement can be read at StokerCon2021.com.
On a slight positive note, the cover art for the StokerCon 2021 souvenir book has been published online! Michele and I have a short essay in the book about AnnRadCon and the conference’s accomplishments thus far. The book is edited by Josh Viola, with cover art by Aaron Lovett and will be published by HEX Publishing.
Cover art for the StokerCon 2021 book
Podcast News
Episode 7 of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast Presents: Fragments is online! In this episode we interview Lee Murray. The episode can be listened to on our site at Buzzsprout or on your podcast application of preference.
Call for Papers
The Call for Abstracts for my collection of essays on neo-medievalism is live. The CFP can be found here.
Citation News
In the autumn of 2020, James Arthur Anderson had his book, Excavating Stephen King: A Darwinist Hermeneutic Study of the Fiction, published by Lexington Books. This text cites his essay, “Four Quadrants of Success: The Metalinguistics of Author Protagonists in the Fiction of Stephen King,” which appeared in Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical Essays.
Cover Art
My essay “Permission to kill: Exploring Italy’s 1960s Eurospy Phenomenon, Impact and Legacy” from James Bond and Popular Culture: Essays on the Influence of the Fictional Superspy has been cited by Samhita Sunya in their essay “On Location: Tracking Secret Agents and Films, between Bombay and Beirut” which appears in the journal Film History Vol. 32, No. 3, Fall 2020.
Journal issue cover
General Neo-Peplum News
Story of a Gladiator Physical Release
On Friday Limited Run opened a pre-order for 1,500 copies of Brain Seal’s game Story of a Gladiator for the Playstation. It, of course, sold out by the day’s end (but your’s truly, who has an Xbox and not a Playstation, had to buy a copy because reasons). Though the physical copy of the game was sold out, digital copies can readily be had on the Xbox, Playstation, Switch, and Steam. As I’ve been enjoying the Xbox incarnation, expect some sort of write-up about it in the very near future.
Rest in Peplum
Legendary actor Christopher Plummer passed away at the age of 91 from hitting his head from a fall. Renown for The Sound of Music (1965) he starred in numerous pepla productions:
Cemetery Dance has published an extremely positive review of Horror Fiction from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical Essays.
Call for Papers
The Call for Abstracts for my collection of essays on neo-medievalism is live. The CFP can be found here.
Podcast News
Two Voice of Olympus podcast appearances happened this past week. First I was on a Sword and Sandal Cinema segment were I talk about the film Immortals. That can be downloaded/streamed here.
Secondly, we interviewed S. Alessandro Martinez about his debut novel, Helminth, on the Scholars from the Edge of Time show.
On Friday we recorded our interview with Lee Murray. That will be published on Sunday the 7th.
General Neo-Peplum News
Neo-Peplum Speed Metal Release
Canadian speed metal band Aphrodite have their second album, Orgasmic Glory, being released on March 30th. Their Bandcamp page is taking preorders and also contains two preview tracks.
Lecture Event
Dr. Jeremy J. Swist will be giving a lecture called “An Unholy Trinity: Antiquity, Heavy Metal, & White Supremacism” via Zoom on February 18th at 6 PM PST. Contact hannah-huzzey@uiowa.edu for details on how to attend.
Rest in Peplum
Cloris Leachman, who starred in Mel Brooks’ spoof on the epic movie genre, History of the World: Part One, passed away at the age of 94 of natural causes.
New Zealander Peter Vere-Jones passed away at the age of 82. He had appearances in both Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys as well as The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
The Call for Abstracts for my collection of essays on neo-medievalism is live. The CFP can be found here.
Podcast News
The preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Awards was just announced a few days ago. Some of the books on the ballot have been the subject of a few interviews/episodes of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast. In case you missed it, here they are and I strongly encourage a listen to the episodes, checking out the work, and if you’re a voting member of the Horror Writer’s Association, consider voting for these works:
Now, because of the Stoker preliminary ballot being announced, Michele and I are going to be shifting our February schedule somewhat to better promote/leverage/accommodate our guest that month, Lee Murry. The initial schedule was that we were going to discuss Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 2 on the first weekend of the month and interview Murray on the third. However, Murray is on the preliminary ballot for two publications: Grotesque: Monster Stories under the Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection category and Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women under the Superior Achievement in an Anthology category. Because of this, we are going to flip and publish the interview the first week of the month and the discussion the third.
Outside of H. P. Lovecast Podcast news, I have two appearances on the Voice of Olympus program this week, one on Tuesday and another on Friday where Michele and I will be interviewing S. Alessandro Martinez. Also, a big heads up, it looks like I will be a guest on the Scaredy Cats podcast in April to discuss the film Slumber Party Massacre. Stay tuned for more details as we get closer to April and a date is solidified.
General Neo-Peplum News
Neo-Peplum Metal Release
Italian death/black/adventure metal band Gates of Doom released a new album earlier this month called Aquileia Mater Aeterna. Per the album’s description on the band’s Bandcamp page, Aquileia Mater Aeterna is
[a] concept album [that] focuses on the Friulian city of Aquileia, from its foundation by the Romans in 181 B.C. to its destruction in 452 A.D. at the hands of Attila. Historically, the city has been a crossroads of peoples and cultures crucial for the birth of our homeland Friûl and its identity, and it’s a great inspiration for our band.
Gates of Doom at Bandcamp
Sword and Sandal Peanut Butter Commercial
Peanut butter brand Jif has a new add that spoofs Gladiator. The commercial can be watched at Adweek.
Screenshot from the Jif commerical
Academic Panels
Dr. Ross Clare was recently on a panel called “Tolkien and the Classical World: Book Discussion.” An audio recording of that panel can be found on YouTube.
