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News Roundup W/E 2022-03-06

Personal / Website News

Troy Director’s Cut Boxset Unboxing

New article up at my website, right here!

I plucked up the Troy Director’s Boxset from Zia’s Records in December and was nostalgic back to the 2000s when I was hardcore collecting DVDs and special editions. Since folks seem to like unboxing articles and seeing contents inside of stuff, I did one for the Troy boxset. Check it out here.

Highlander Call for Papers

Michele has an active CFP on the Highlander franchise. She is looking for essays on the Highlander movies, the television show, comics, everything.

If you’re interested, check out the CFP at her website and please share with others. With a possible reboot on the horizon, this is definitely a book you want to be a part of. 

Unofficial Emmanuelle / Black Emanuelle CFP

Sometime in the latter half of 2022 (after I am finished with AnnRadCon 2022) I plan on publishing an official CFP calling for essays on Emmanuelle and its sequels and spinoffs, Black Emanuelle and its sequels, and all other Emmanuelle knockoffs. I already have an interested publisher, but I want to present to them a fully laid out TOC for an ambitious collection as this.

Emmanuelle 2

Though my CFP will not go live until later 2022, if you have any interest in being a part of this collection, let me know! Send me an email or social media message (see my about me page for contact info) to let me know your interest. If you have an abstract already, even better.

Upcoming Website Articles

Believe it or not, I have two interviews I’ve conducted that I’ll be publishing at my website over the next two weeks. That makes three weeks in a row of non-weekly news roundups for this website! Prepare to mark your calendars.

Matthew Page
D. J. Kirkbride

On Wednesday March 9th my interview with Matthew Page about his upcoming book, 100 Bible Films, will be published here. The following week my interview with D. J. Kirkbride on the trade paperback release of his comic series, Errand Boys, will go online. I also have some other mini-essays/interviews in the works, so stay tuned!

General Neo-Peplum News

Supporting Isidora #3

G.A. Lungaro, author of the Lovecraft/neo-peplum comic series Isidora (see my interview with Lungaro on issue 1, or check out my unboxing of issue 2) is selling new merch at his web store to help fund the production of Isidora #3.

Items include the Cute Cthulhu Collection – stickers of Lovecraftian monsters cute-ified. He will also be exploring NFTs later on. For now, check out the website at darthdaddylunga.com.

John Carter Video Game Kickstarter

In big sword and planet news, a Kickstarter to create a John Carter FPS video game has been launched by Sci-Fi-London.

Promotional image provided courtesy of Louis Savy from Sci-Fi-London.

The game is in development right now and has some promising aspects, a big one being relocating John Carter to a WW2 setting and having him a spy in the employ of Ian Fleming! Aside from the Kickstarter proper, news for the game can be found on the official game social media accounts at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and YouTube. Right now it’s only for PC release, but cross fingers for a console version.

Adrastea Kickstarter

Another Kickstarter to take a look at is for the graphic novel Adrastea.

Image from the Kickstarter. Looks like a kick-ass Cyclops to me.

The campaign’s flavor text describes it as such:

Blessed or cursed with Immortality, the ageless king of Hyperborea wakes up from a millennium of self-imposed oblivion, having watched his kingdom crumble to time, along with all those he has ever loved. He decides to travel to Mount Olympus where he will confront the gods to ask why he was burdened with such an affliction and how he can end it. The journey will be long and treacherous and filled with unimaginable men and beasts of lore, but he has no fear of harm and all the time in the world…

The graphic novel is by Mathieu Bablet and published by Magnetic.

Gladiatrix Comic

Charley and Vlas Parlapanides, the masterminds behind the neo-peplum film Immortals and animated series Blood of Zeus are coming out with a new graphic novel called Gladiatrix. Screen Rant has some preview pages of the comic.

Ultimate List of Greek Mythology Films

Over at Bored Panda, writers Miglė Ivanauskaitė and Melanie Gervasoni list out the best Greek mythology pepla and neo-pepla. Not all these films are Greek Myth in origin, but regardless, their list (45 titles!) and order is as follows:

  1. The Odyssey (1997)
  2. Troy (2004) (note: see above or here for my unboxing!)
  3. Jason And The Argonauts (1962)
  4. 300 (2006)
  5. The 300 Spartans (1962)
  6. Immortals (2011)
  7. Hercules (1997)
  8. Wonder Woman (2017)
  9. Clash of the Titans (2010)
  10. Wrath of the Titans (2012)
  11. Spartacus (1960)
  12. Hercules (2014)
  13. Agora (2009)
  14. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)
  15. Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters (2013)
  16. 300: Rise Of An Empire (2014)
  17. Minotaur (2006)
  18. The Legend Of Hercules (2014)
  19. Alexander (2004)
  20. Helen Of Troy (1956)
  21. Iphigenia (1977)
  22. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
  23. Spartacus (2004)
  24. Ulysses (1967)
  25. The Trojan Women (1971)
  26. Oedipus The King (1986)
  27. Antigone (1961)
  28. Orpheus (1950)
  29. Goliath And The Dragon (1960)
  30. Electra (1962)
  31. Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
  32. Medea (1969)
  33. Black Orpheus (1959)
  34. Oedipus Rex (1957)
  35. Hercules In New York (1970)
  36. Oedipus Mayor (1996)
  37. The First King (2019)
  38. Helena (1924)
  39. Hercules The Invincible (1964)
  40. Hercules (1983)
  41. Young Hercules (1998)
  42. Hercules and Xena (1998)
  43. The Fury Of Hercules (1962)
  44. Pygmalion (1938)
  45. The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (1962)

Categories
News

News Roundup W/E 2022-02-13

Personal / Website News

New Episode of H. P. Lovecast Podcast

A brand new episode of H. P. Lovecast Podcast is now online!

Thumbnail by Michele Brittany

In this episode we discuss the space horror comic series Caliban, written by Garth Ennis (The Boys, Preacher) and art by Facundo Percio. This episode can be streamed at our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.

Tiki Melange Article

It has been a while, but I have a new article at my website – a cocktail article!

It’s about the Tiki Melange cocktail that can be found in the comic book Jasper’s Starlight Tavern. It’s not a good comic or drink but I had fun writing about it. The article can be read here.

Highlander Call for Papers

Michele has an active CFP on the Highlander franchise. She is looking for essays on the Highlander movies, the television show, comics, everything.

If you’re interested, check out the CFP at her website and please share with others. With a possible reboot on the horizon, this is definitely a book you want to be a part of. 

Unofficial Emmanuelle / Black Emanuelle CFP

Sometime in the latter half of 2022 (after I am finished with AnnRadCon 2022) I plan on publishing an official CFP calling for essays on Emmanuelle and its sequels and spinoffs, Black Emanuelle and its sequels, and all other Emmanuelle knockoffs. I already have an interested publisher, but I want to present to them a fully laid out TOC for an ambitious collection as this.

Though my CFP will not go live until later 2022, if you have any interest in being a part of this collection, let me know! Send me an email or social media message (see my about me page for contact info) to let me know your interest. If you have an abstract already, even better.

General Neo-Peplum News

Tarzan and the Lion of Judah

Tarzan is not a peplum property, but he is a strong man that shares imagery with a majority of sword and sandal protagonists, and he was also in the peplum novel, Tarzan and the Lost Empire, so I am counting this news as peplum-adjacent.

Cover art provided by Gary A. Buckingham

Gary A. Buckingham (Tarzan: Untamed Frontiers) is publishing a new Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. authorized book titled Tarzan and the Lion of Judah. The book contains eight stories and is available in a variety of editions: an autographed sketch letter edition with a Dan Parson Remarque for $175, an autographed limited numbered edition for $118, and a trade edition with a signed bookplate for $56. Tarzan and the Lion of Judah is slated to be released this June. For more information or ordering details, contact Buckingham at gbucking2@yahoo.com.

Recent Acquisitions

Scholar Rocky Colavito brought to my attention a magazine called The Lost Films Fanzine. The zine is focused not strictly on lost films, but films that were supposed to get made, but for a variety of reasons, did not.

Issue eight of the zine prominently features on the cover a movie called Hercules Against the Gods, with Hercules fighting a giant dragon-dinosaur-looking monster. So, of course, I had to order this.

The article, citing Peplum TV, suspects that the unmade Hercules Against the Gods film was actually, more or less, filmed, but it became The Vengeance of Hercules. It’s a fun read that gives a glimpse into the American process of importing and rejiggering Italian films for state-side audiences.

During the week Michele and I took a trip to Zia’s since she was procuring some Highlander releases. I plucked up a used copy of the Dragonheart collection. I had seen the first movie long, long ago but never any of the sequels. I’ve heard of them, and also heard that their quality is extremely lacking. But, I have a soft spot for franchise continuations (I stand by the Scanner Cop movies are legit awesome) so I decided to buy this set. It’s sword and sorcery, with the first movie having shades of Arthurian-peplum, so I’m interested.

Powerslave: Exhumed was just released digitally last week and I bought it off the Xbox marketplace and have been playing it off an on. I was a huge PC gamer in the 90s, and I still love classic DOS style FPS like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. Powerslave looks to have been released at the height of Doom clones, but I had never heard of it before (I may have seen it in a PC Gamer mag?). Regardless, it’s old school and its Egyptian antiquity (thus: neo-peplum!). I am a bit into the game and its…… I dunno. I really want to like it, but it has some questionable mechanics (no reticle, so it’s hard to hit airborne enemies), way too much platforming for a faux 3D FPS, and it is extremely, extremely cryptic at what you need to do to progress. Aside from that, I like the 90s charm and the soundtrack is banging.