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News Roundup W/E 2021-01-31

Personal / Website News

Book Reviews

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)

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News Roundup W/E 2021-01-24

Personal / Website News

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

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:

Jasaon Parent’s Eight Cylinders is on the prelim ballot under the Superior Achievement in Long Fiction category:
My text review of Eight Cylinders
H. P. Lovecast Podcast discussion of Eight Cylinders
H. P. Lovecast Interview with Parent about Eight Cylinders

Robert P. Ottone’s Her Infernal Name & Other Nightmares is on the preliminary ballot under the Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection category:
H. P. Lovecast Podcast interview with Ottone about Her Infernal Name

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.

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News Roundup W/E 2021-01-17

Personal / Website News

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

New episode of the HP Lovecast Podcast is online! For this month’s Fragments episode, we interview Jason Parent about his new novella, Eight Cylinders. The episode can be streamed at Buzzsprout or your podcast application of preference.

General Neo-Peplum News

Rest in Peplum

Animator Dale Baer passed away at the age of 70. He worked on quite a few sword and sandal-adjacent and sword and sorcery animated movies:

  • Robin Hood (1973)
  • The Lord of the Rings (1978)
  • The Smurfs (1980s)
  • The Black Cauldron (1985)
  • Quest for Camelot (1998)
  • The Emperor’s New Groove (2000)

Mona Malm passed away at the age of 85. She was in the super important Bergman film, The Seventh Seal (1957).

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News Roundup W/E 2021-01-10

Personal / Website News

Citations for The New Peplum

An essay from the collection Ancient Violence in the Modern Imagination: The Fear and the Fury cites Dr. Wetmore’s essay, “In the Green Zone with the Ninth Legion: The Post-Iraq Roman Film” from The New Peplum. I am not sure which, but when I find out I’ll update this citation in The New Peplum resource page.

The New Peplum also gets an extremely positive mention in the preface in Christopher Wood’s book Heroes Masked and Mythic: Echoes of Ancient Archetypes in Comic Book Characters:

“Yet we all stand on the shoulders of giants, and therefore I should like to take a moment here to give a brief nod to those scholars and thinkers who have strengthened my own resolve to write this, sometimes as a catalyst to change, and others with whom I couldn’t agree more or have said it better myself.

The New Peplum: Essays on Sword and Sandal Films and Television by Nicholas Diak is one such book. His main focus is on the modern “sword and sandal” films, and by that he means in the past 30 years rather than including the 1960s. The author views the use of technology and narrative approaches that change the end experience of the viewer as something impossible to achieve at a time earlier than now.”

– Christopher Wood, Preface to Heroes Masked and Mythic

I’m extremely flattered to receive such honour!

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

The Podcast Section of the website has been updated with episode dates and titles for the next few months.

Note: This Is Horror has their public nomination period open until January 15th. If you like the HP Lovecast Podcast and want to show support, consider nominating the podcast for the non-fiction podcast category. Info on nominating can be found at the This Is Horror website here.

General Neo-Peplum News

Spencer Alexander McDaniel has an article online about the white domestic terrorists who stormed the Capitol last week and how they used iconography associated with ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and Germanic peoples. The article can be read at his Tales of Times Forgotten website.

Rest in Peplum

Director Steve Carver passed away at the age of 75. He directed the original version of The Arena (1974).

Hammer actress Barbara Shelley passed away at the age of 88. She was in Nero’s Weekend (1956).

John Richardson passed away at the age of 86. He appeared in lots of Italian filone, though not so much in pepla. He was however in On My Way to the Crusades, I Met a Girl Who… (1969) and One Million Years B.C. (1966).

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News Roundup W/E 2021-01-03

Personal / Website News

Sorry folks, I missed a few weeks on doing a news roundup: holidays, other obligations, etc. This roundup will hopefully cover the last few weeks.

New Indie Peplum Comic and Interview

Comic book creator Samuel George London is currently crowd funding his newest endeavor, the neo-peplum comic Band of Warriors. I’ve interviewed London about his comic.

As a side note, expect more posts in the next few months as I do more write ups/reviews/interviews about sword and sandal comics I’ve Kickstarted. These include: Secret Rites, Aztlan, Teoatl, Isidora and the Immortal Chains, and S.P.Q.R.

Podcast News

Two new episodes of H. P. Lovecast Podcast are online. In the first episode Michele Brittany and I discuss “You Will Never Be the Same” by Erica L. Satifka and “Weird Tales” by Fred Chappell from Wonder & Glory Forever, edited by Nick Mamatas. The episode can be streamed at Buzzsprout or your podcast application of preference.

Second, our episode discussing Jason Parent’s Eight Cylinders is also online. Later this month we will be interviewing Parent about this novella.

Both of us also appeared on two Voice of Olympus episodes in the past week. The first was an appearance on Scholars from the Edge of Time and the other on a Sword and Sandal Cinema episode.

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

Dr. Jeremy J. Swist interviews power metal band Judicator about their concept album, Let There Be Nothing, which is about the Byzantine general Flavius Belisarius. The interview can be found at his Heavy Metal Classicist website.

Comicon.com has a preview of King Size Conan #1.

RedSharkNews honours Gladiator at 20 years old by looking at its sound design.

Screen Rant has an article called “15 Best Movies With Accurate Depictions Of Ancient History (Including Agora).” Their list (peplum and non-peplum films) is:

  1. The Fall Of The Roman Empire (1964)
  2. Red Cliff (2008)
  3. A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1966)
  4. Beowulf (2007)
  5. Spartacus (1960)
  6. Life of Brian (1979)
  7. Asterix: The Mansions Of The Gods (2019)
  8. Alexander (2004)
  9. Barabbas (1964)
  10. Hero (2002)
  11. The Trojan Women (2004)
  12. Centurion (2010)
  13. The History Of The World, Part 1 (1981)
  14. Agora (2009)
  15. Confucius (2010)

Rest in Peplum

Animator Doug Crane passed away at the age of 85. He contributed to many animated sword and sandal, sword and sorcery, and sword and planet cartoons:

  • The Mighty Hercules (1963)
  • The Mighty Thor (1966)
  • Heavy Metal (1981)
  • Various He-Man and She-Ra projects in the 80s
  • The Pirates of Dark Water (1991)

Italian actor Corrado Olmi passed away at the age of 94. He was in Satyricon (1969, Gian Luigi Polidoro).

Bond Girl Tanya Roberts passed away at the age of 65. Known for her appearance in A View to a Kill and in Charlie’s Angels, for sword and sorcery fans, she stole hearts with her appearance in The Beastmaster (1982, Don Coscarelli).

Michele Brittany, Tanya Roberts, Nicholas Diak in 2013
The Beastmaster DVD autographed by Tanya Roberts, John Amos, and Don Coscarelli.
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News Roundup W/E 2020-12-13

Personal / Website News

Citations for The New Peplum

I’ve finally procured a copy of The Borgia Family: Rumor and Representation and was able to confirm that Jennifer Mara DeSilva’s essay “The Secularization of Cesar Borgia and the American Motion Picture Production Code” contains my intro to The New Peplum listed in the bibliography. I’ve updated the page for The New Peplum to reflect this. The book can be found for sale at the Routledge store website.

The Borgia Family: Rumor and Representation

Dr. Hannah Mueller’s essay, “Male Nudity, Violence and the Disruption of Voyeuristic Pleasure in Starz’s Spartacus” is cited in Dr. Maria San Filippo’s book, Provocauteurs and Provocations: Screening Sex in 21st Century Media. This book can be found at the Indiana University Press bookstore.

Provocauteurs and Provocations

McFarland Sale on Viking Books

McFarland is having a sale for books about Vikings in film and pop culture. From now until December 31, if you use the code VIKINGS30 during check out, you’ll get a 30% discount. The New Peplum is part of this sale, no doubt due to the presence of Steve Nash’s excellent essay “There are no Boundaries for our Boats: Vikings and the Westernization of the Norse Saga”.

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

Dr. Ross Clare has given a presentation on Herodotus from Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey that has been published on the YouTube channel of Herodotus Helpline.

Rest in Peplum

A little late on the news for some of these folks as I’m just hearing of their passing.

Abby Dalton, perhaps best known for Falcon Crest, passed away at the age of 88 on November 23rd. She starred in The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent (1958, Roger Corman)

Romano Ghini passed away on October 25th. This guy was a prolific sword and sandal star:

  • Samson (1961, Gianfranco Parolini)
  • Triumph of Maciste (1961, Tanio Boccia)
  • The Black Invaders (1962, Franco Montemurro)
  • Fury of Achilles (1962, Marino Girolami)
  • The Fury of Hercules (1962, Gianfranco Parolini)
  • Hercules Against the Sons of the Sun (1964, Osvaldo Civirani)
  • Antony and Cleopatra (1965, Vittorio Cottafavi)

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News Roundup W/E 2020-12-06

Personal / Website News

Podcast News

We’ve flipped things around this December for HP Lovecast. Usually the fragments is the third Sunday of the month, however due to other obligations going on, we’ve bumped our interview with Nick Mamatas to the first Sunday. This episode can be listened to at Buzzsprout or your podcast app of preference.

ICYMI

In case you missed it, my review for Jason Parent’s new novella, Eight Cylinders, is online here at my website. Stay tuned for next month were we will do an episode on this novella along with an interview wit Parent on HP Lovecast.

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

Greg Hildebrandt, the artist who created a few of the iconic Star Wars posters (and The Deadly Spawn!) has created a variant cover for Red Sonja.

Comicon.com offers a preview of Red Sonja #22.

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News Roundup W/E 2020-11-29

Personal / Website News

Apologies, I missed putting out a news roundup for 11/22, so this post will cover both weeks.

Podcast News

Michele and I interviewed Michael Oden (creator of the Elysian Fields comic) on the Scholars from the Edge of Time segment of the Voice of Olympus show. Episode has been added to the podcast index and can also be streamed here.

For H. P. Lovecast Podcast, the upcoming schedule is going to look like this:

  • 2020-12-06 – Wonder and Glory Forever
  • 2020-12-20 – Interview with Nick Mamatas (already recorded)
  • 2021-01-03 – Eight Cylinders
  • 2021-01-17 – Interview with Jason Parent

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

David Prowse, better reknown as the actor who portrayed Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, passed away at the age of 85. His contributions to the sword and sandal genre include:

  • Dr. Who “The Time Monster” (1972). He was a minotaur
  • Up Pompeii (as an muscular extra)
  • Jabberwocky (1977, Terry Gilliam)

Daria Nicolodi passed away at the age of 70. She was known for her many contributions to Italian cinema in the 70s and 80s and her collaborations with Dario Argento. She appeared in Sinbad of the Seven Seas (1989, Enzo G. Castellari)

Miscellanea

The folks at Comicon have quite a few articles that have gone up in the past two weeks:

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News Roundup W/E 2020-11-15

Personal / Website News

Stranger Things Citation

My essay, “Lost Nights and Dangerous Days: Unraveling the Relationship Between Stranger Things and Synthwave” from Uncovering Stranger Things was cited (opens up!) in the article “GTA Vice City Created a New Wave of ’80s Nostalgia: How a video game kickstarted reverence for a decade — even for those who never lived through it” over at Super Jump.

The New Peplum Citations

The New Peplum has been cited in two essays in a new anthology published by Brill, The Modern Hercules: Images of the Hero from the Nineteenth to the Early Twenty-First Century, edited by Alastair J.L. Blanshard and Emma Stafford:

The Modern Hercules

The two essays are:

“Hercules’ Self-fashioning on Screen: Millennial Concerns and Political Dimensions” by Jean Alvares and Patricia Salzman-Mitchell

“Warriors, Murderers, Savages: Violence in Steve Moore’s Hercules: The Thracian Wars” by Katherine Lu Hsu

Unfortunately I don’t know which essays within The New Peplum these two essays cite, but as soon as I find out I’ll update the citation page accordingly.

Podcast News

New episode of H. P. Lovecast Podcast Fragments is live. This is the episode we interview Robert P. Ottone. Check it out on Buzzsprout or your podcast app of preference.

Call for Papers

The Call for Presentations for Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference is live. The CFP can be read at the StokerCon 2021 website.

The Call for Abstracts for my collection of essays on neo-medievalism is live. The CFP can be found here.

General Neo-Peplum News

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla

The newest neo-peplum title in Ubisoft’s long running Assassin’s Creed series, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, was released this past Tuesday. Lots of news to round up.

Lakeshore records released the soundtrack via Bandcamp.

YouTube cocktail channel How2Drink has created a libation for AC:V called The Horn of Eivorr.

Blood of Zeus

Articles at Screenrant: “Blood of Zeus: 10 References to Classic Peplum Flicks You Probably Missed” and “Blood of Zeus: 5 Authentic References to Greek Mythology, 5 Things That Are Totally Made Up.”

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News Roundup W/E 2020-11-08

Personal / Website News

Podcast News

Recorded our interview with Robert P. Ottone over the weekend for H. P. Lovecast Fragements. Episode is now in post-product and will be uploaded on the 15th.

Call for Papers

The Call for Presentations for Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference is live. The CFP can be read at the StokerCon 2021 website.

The Call for Abstracts for my collection of essays on neo-medievalism is live. The CFP can be found here.

General Neo-Peplum News

Sword and Sandal Media Releases

Kino will be releasing a blu-ray of Ulysses (1954, Mario Camerini) on November 17. DVD Beaver has the details on the specs, supplements, and screen captures.

Ubisoft will be releasing Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla on November the 10th across all major platforms. More details can be found at the publisher’s product page.

Peplum Photography

Photographer Ana Martinez has a beautiful photo set called “Olympus” at their website. Thanks to Dannie DeLisle for the heads up!

The photo set reminds me of the “Celestial Goddesses” post over at Lingerie Addict. Check that one out too for a melding of peplum and lingerie.

Rest in Peplum

Scottish actor John Fraser passed away on November 7th. He was in El Cid (1961, Anthony Mann) and the sorta sword and sandal (I’ll allow it for its historic epic sequences) Loves of Three Queens aka The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships (1954, Marc Allégret and Edgar G. Ulmer)

Neo-Peplum Television

Over at Inverse there is an interview with Blood of Zeus creators Vlas and Charley Parlapanides.