News
I did a write up of Catherine McCarthy’s short story collection Mists and Megaliths. The review can be found here.
First episode for September for HP Lovecast is up! In this episode we discuss the one-shot comic book Lady Lovecraft, written by Mike Shea and art by Don Wilkinson. Episode can be found on our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
We concluded our King in Yellow month on the HP Lovecast Podcast. This past Tuesday our monthly transmissions episode went up which contained interviews with James Chambers, Carol Gyzander, and Meghan Arcuri about Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign. This episode can be streamed at our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
Taking advantage of the renewed interest on Candyman ’92 because of the new Candyman ’21, I’ve written an article about bands and music projects that sample the original Candyman. This was a fun article to do and it continues one of my interests to explore the world of sampling.
Antiquipop has published Dr. Swist’s essay titled “Les légions du soleil noir: Classical Antiquity & Far-Right Politics in French Heavy Metal.” An English version can be read at their website.
Dr. Swist will also be giving a presentation called “Fascist Receptions of Antiquity in Metal Music” at Brandeis University on October 19, 5pm via Zoom.
Registration is at: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYtcOCoqzwrEtOvAUhbE_8mgfo2Ftq6BCTd
Physical releases of The Forgotten City for xbox and PS5 has just been released!
In sword and planet news, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. is publishing a new Carson of Venus novel, Skies of Venus: A Novel of Actor.
The new novel is written by Neal Romanek with cover art by Richard Hescox. The book is available for pre-order at the ERB website and is expected to be released in the upcoming Winter.
Hercules Invictus started a new program of sorts on his Voice of Olympus show called Hercules and the Planetary Powers, which has a focus on space stuff. Because of this, for the next few episodes, Scholars from the Edge of Time will be doing more sword and planet oriented programming. Our first episode kicked off with a talk about the cult film The Ice Pirates. Check it out on the Voice of Olympus BlogTalkRadio website.
We’ve finished recording and editing the August episode of Transmissions. This episode will feature interviews with James Chambers, Carol Gyzander, and Meghan Arcuri and will conclude our King in Yellow month for August. This episode will post Tuesday the 31st.
The Podcast Appearance page has been updated with dates and programming until the end of the year. These are subject to change, of course, but should give you a general idea of what we are covering and when for the remainder of the year.
The Horror Writers Association did a cover reveal of their upcoming cook book.
The book is edited by Marge Simon, Robert Payne Cabeen, and Kate Jonez, with Cabeen also doing the spooky cover art. Currently unknown publish date. Also, I am not sure, but I may be in this book? Long ago the editors were collecting recipes and I did some sort of vegetarian dish. But that was way back in 2016. So, maybe 50-50 chance I got a recipe in this book or not. We will find out together!
Matt Page has added a new review to his Bible Films Blog: the silent film Absalon (1912).
Also, Page’s upcoming debut, 100 Bible Films, has a cover reveal!
More info and pre-ordering options can be found at the Bloomsbury product page for the book.
Helicon Storytelling has a new article up called “Classical Reception Studies: The Ancient World in Media.” They cover movies Gladiator and Troy, the Hades video game, the 2000s Battlestar Galactica iteration, and the books Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and the Cicero Trilogy by Robert Harris.
Sons of Chaos author Chris Jaymes will be speaking at the UCLA SNF Hellenic Center about his graphic novel. Zoom registration details are here. The event is September 18th.
My publisher, McFarland Books, has just published a new book by Matthew Sims called Ancient Greeks on the Human Condition.
Ordering details can be found at the McFarland product page.
Starting another series of articles at this website called “Dark Libations” where I look at the usage of cocktails in horror and dark fiction. My first article is online and it is on the Jungle Bird in Nisi Shawl’s short story “Street Worm.”
New episode of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast is now online!
In this episode Michele and I discuss the graphic novel adaptation of The King in Yellow done by I. N. J. Culbard. The episode can be streamed at our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
This episode, along with all of our other programming this month, is all themed on Robert W. Chambers’ influential collection, the King in Yellow. The first episode that dropped this month was on the Hippocampus Press release of Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign, in which we talked about “The Yellow Crown” by Carol Gyzander and “Found and Lost” by Meghan Arcuri. This episode can be listened to at our Buzzsprout website.
The final day of the month on our Transmissions episode we will be publishing interviews with James Chambers, Gyzander, and Arcuri about their work with Under Twin Suns.
In addition, I’d like to highlight that the Horror Writers Association released their own version the The King in the Yellow via their Haunted Library of Horror Classics series. Consider plucking up a copy (Amazon link), being supportive of the organization, and following along our podcast this month.
Michele and I were both interviewed on Brenda S. Tolian and Joy Yehle’s Burial Plot Podcast. We are both super honored and flattered to be invited onto their show were we talk horror academia, the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference, our H. P. Lovecast Podcast, and much more. The episode can be streamed at the Burial Plot Podcast Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
Danielle DeLisle has written a sword and sorcery short story over at Paizo called “Iconic Encounter: Water and Bone.”
Earlier this month, Writerpunk Press released their sixth anthology called Taught by Time: Myth Goes Punk.
Looking at the table of contents, there is a lot of neo-peplum stories dealing with mythology:
The anthology can be ordered at Amazon.
Dr. Swist has made an appearance on the Spartan History Podcast. The episode can be streamed at their Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
H. P. Lovecast Podcast kicks off its King in Yellow August with a brand new episode. Live now is our deep dive into two short stories from the brand new anthology from Hippocampus Press, Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign: “The Yellow Crown” by Carol Gyzander and “Found and Lost” by Meghan Arcuri. The episode can be streamed on our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
In other podcast news, Michele and I were interviewed by Brenda S. Tolian and Joy Yehle for their Burial Plot Horror Podcast. This episode will be published later on, but I strongly encourage a listen to their catalog of episodes which can be found at their Buzzspout website or via your podcast app of preference.
The newest issue of Exotica Moderne is now out! This issue contains my write up of the video game The Touryst. So far, I have still be in all issues of Exotica Moderne, and I hope to keep it up.
The issue can be ordered from the House of Tabu website. The product page can be found here.
I have been accepted to present a paper at the 2021 Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association conference in November. My paper is titled “Victory over Valhalla: Violence via Vikings Sampling in Acylum’s Kampf Dem Verderb” and continues my research of industrial bands that sample peplum/historic epic texts into their music. This will be the first time presenting at MAPACA, thought I have presented many years at the SWPACA. I’m excited for the opportunity. Time to get to work on that presentation!
On the subject of industrial bands that sample peplum films, the Gladiator book that contains my essay about industrial bands that sample Gladiator, is looking to be published in early 2022. Cross fingers!
Discovered a podcast called Drunk Mythology Gals described as “Two gals spike and spill the divine tea from Olympus to Valhalla.” Their newest episode dropped August 3 and is a second part of a discussion on the Olympics of antiquity.
Recorded a short segment on Hercules Invictus’ Sword and Sandal Special on his Voice of Olympus program. I talk about the indie Kickstarted Pandemic Peplum comics, Band of Warriors #1 and Teoatl #1. It can be listened or downloaded from BlogTalkRadio.
Brand new episode of HP Lovecast Podcast is also online. This is our monthly Transmissions episode. In this episode we interview S. T. Lakata and J. H. Moncrieff. The episode is on our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
Just found out that my essay, “Permission to Kill: Exploring Italy’s 1960s Eurospy Phenomenon, Impact and Legacy” which appeared in Michele Brittany’s James Bond and Popular Culture: Essays on the Influence of the Fictional Superspy has been cited in Michael Guarneri’s book Vampires in Italian Cinema, 1956-1975.
The book can be purchased at the Edinburgh University website.
I’ve updated the HWA Academics/Non-Fiction board with three new CFPs:
These CFPs can all be found at the board here.
David von Ancken passed away at the age of 56. He executive produced and directed the Ben Kingsley miniseries, Tut (2015).
Hyacinth Wijeratne passed away at the age of 74 from a car accident. She was in the Sinhala Biblical epic Christhu Charithaya (1990).
Jean-François Stévenin passed away at the age of 77. He was in The Silence of Joan (2011).
The neo-peplum video game, The Forgotten City, was just released and the reviews are coming in:
Michele and I were on the Mythic Gaming special episode of Voice of Olympus. We discussed Minecraft Dungeons. The episode can be streamed/downloaded from BlogTalkRadio.
Next, for our monthly Scholars from the Edge of Time program, we discussed the film Hercules Against the Mongols. This, too, can be streamed/downloaded from BlogTalkRadio.
In HP Lovecast news, our news Fragments episode is online! In this episode we tackle Michael Mann’s The Keep. The episode is on our Buzzspout page and all major podcast applications.
Renown comedian Jackie Mason passed away away at the age of 93. He has a cameo role in Mel Brooks’ peplum parody, History of the World: Part I.
Mike Mitchell has passed away at the age of 65. He was in Gladiator (2000), Braveheart (1995), Morning Star (2014), The Legend of Mordred (2019), and The Wilhelm Tell Saga (202x).
Friend, colleague, and AnnRadCon alumni Rahel Sixta Schmitz has their debut book, The Supernatural Media Virus: Virus Anxiety in Gothic Fiction Since 1990, being published by transcript Verlag.
Schmitz’s book cites her essay, “Mapping Digital Dis-Ease: Representations of Movement and Technology in Jim Sonzero’s Pulse and Stephen King’s Cell” and Frazer Lee’s “Koji Suzuki’s Ring: A World Literary Perspective” both of which appeared in Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical Essays. I am honored to be mentioned in the acknowledgments.
The book can be purchased at the publisher’s website or at any major online bookstore.
Issue 12 of Exotica Moderne will be out soon! The cover of a Tiki Statue fighting a shark makes me recall Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2:
This issue contains my write up of the video game “The Touryst” published by Shin’en Multimedia. Here’s an interview preview that shows a bit of my article:
I’ll admit, I’m proud of the pictures in this one, they were convoluted to get! I played the game on the Xbox One, which allows screen captures. However, I don’t have a Microsoft cloud storage, so I wound up posting screenshots to Twitter from the Xbox and downloading them from there.
The magazine will be able to be ordered at the issue’s product page at House of Tabu.
Dr. Kara Cooney will be appearing on The Ozymandias Project: Ancient Office Hours podcast on July 21. Episode listing at their website.
Black Ink Fiction has an open call for 2-5K neo-peplum short stories for an anthology called Shadows Over Olympus. Details can be found at the publisher’s website.
New episode of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast is online! In this episode we discuss “The Barrens” by F. Paul Wilson and “The Faces at Pine Dunes” by Ramsey Campbell both from the Arkham House anthology Cthulhu 2000. The episode can be streamed from our Buzzsprout website or your Podcast app of preference.
There are a few CFPs for peplum related conferences going on right now.
The first is from Dr. Jeremy Swist and Dr. Charlotte Naylor Davis on Heavy Metal and Global Premodernity. The CFP can be found here on Google Docs.
The second is from Michael A. Torregrossa on Medieval in Popular Culture Sponsored Sessions at MAPACA 2020. The CFP can be found at UPENN.
Rest in peplum to iconic director Richard Donner! Director of many high profile and influential films, such as The Omen (1976), Superman (1978), and Lethal Weapon (1987), he also directed peplum adjacent fare such as Ladyhawke (1985) and Timeline (2003). He passed away at the age of 91.
Prolific character and genre actor William Smith passed away at the age of 88. His most iconic peplum role was playing Conan’s father in Conan The Barbarian (1982). He was also in Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1961).
Michele and I had the honor to meet William Smith at a convention.
