Personal / Website News
Hearteater #1 Review
New comic book review is now online!
I take a look at the debut issue of Hearteater, a NSFW erotic pirate adventure comic. It can be read here.
HP Lovecast Podcast
A new episode of HP Lovecast Podcast is also online!
We have a returning guest, David Rose, on the show talking about his short story collection of Lovecraftian military fiction, Monsters in the Bush. The episode can be streamed at the HP Lovecast Buzzsprout page, via the embedded player below, or through your podcast app of preference.
HPLCP Transmissions – Ep 29 – David Rose and Monsters in the Bush – H. P. Lovecast Podcast
Scholars from the Edge of Time
The February Scholars from the Edge of Time vidcast is now online.
Michele and I start our retrospective of the peplum films of Bella Cortez with Vulcan, Son of Jupiter. I’ll be typing up my notes as a “Peplum Ponderings” article later this month.
The episode can be watched on YouTube. Stay tuned in March for the next Bella Cortez film we tackle which will probably be The Tartars (1961).
Emmanuelle Legacy CFP Re-opened + Bibliography
Since garnering publisher interest, I’ve re-opened the CFP for the Emmanuelle legacy book. The updated CFP can be found here.
I’ve also started annotating Emmanuelle scholarship and posting it here at my website so other scholars have a nice bibliographic resource. The bibliography and annotations can be found hereand it’s a major WIP.
Miscellaneous Tidbits
Recent Peplum Acquisitions
I never heard the term “spear and fang” before as a genre, I just kinda called them “prehistoric peplum,” but alas, it’s a term and it has its roots in a Robert E. Howard story of the same name (story found here).
Coincidentally, at the same time of learning about “spear and fang” I had ordered such a film from Amazon. I never heard of it before, but it is called Alpha (2018). I learned of it while researching my In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds write up in that both films star Natassia Malthe).
I’ve never seen it, but it looks tough. I also know the poor pupper is not going to make it.
In the mood for some new peplum music to write to I plucked up off discos the soundtrack to the Conan TV series of the 90s.
This was a series that was greenlit to capitalize on the success of the Hercules/Xena shows. Conan managed to slip by me growing up, so I’ll have to hunt down the boxset of it to watch (but it’s way OOP). It does star Ralph Möller who is always bad ass, from Universal Solider to Gladiator. He looks like a good Conan on the cover of the album.
The music is fun – great background music to write to.
On the subject of Möller and music, I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up his guest appearance in the E Nomine song “Schwarze Sonnne” which has Möller wielding a sword in a post- apocalyptic city while fighting tech ninja. The song slaps hard:
Next up is In The Name of the King 3: The Last Mission.
After seeing Two Worlds, I felt obligated to complete the trilogy. I hope in this one they actually lean into the modern day soldier/merc doing stuff in Medieval times. If you want to read my thoughts on In the Name of the King 2: Two World, click here.
Also procured is Damon and Pythias (1962), another classic era sword and sandal I have not seen.
I’ve been trying to get the Warner Archive releases of sword and sandal films when I can. I heard scuttlebutt that Warner was going to wind down their production of physical media, which would be a shame because they actually took care of their films so their peplum releases actually look decent on home video.
I don’t know how I stumbled across it, but it was random on Discogs, but I had to have a copy of Inferno’s The Roman Empire.
Someone on a Sword and Sorcery Discord I go to said the cover looks like Encarta barfed all over it (they’re not wrong!). I am going to try to hunt down all the pictured that where used in the collage work on this album. I’ve identified one: The chariot and horse scene near the top left is from the Hercules Unchained poster (see bottom right):
The music is early 90s Eurodance style. It’s campy, but kinda catchy and fun. If I can find more image sources I’ll do an article proper on this album.