Tag: Cavewoman

News

News Roundup: March 2026

Post author By Nicholas Diak
Post date March 31, 2026

Personal / Website News

Vanya #9 Review

A new Vanya review is now up and online at my website! Check out my write up of issue nine right here.

Cover is a scene at night. Vanya stands over a campfire, spear in hand. On a tree root next to her is a saber tooth tiger with a scar across its right eye. Beams of moonlight filter through the jungle foliage. — Vanya #09 cover by Zoran Jovicic.

This effectively puts me back to being current with all the published Vanya issues so far (digital and physical), so that means my next review won’t happen for quite a few months as issue ten gets made. In the meantime, to fill that gap, I’ll be busting out reviews for three other comics: Death Nell, Becca Boo, and Budd Root’s Cavewoman. Death Nell is a completed series, so I will get that reviewed soon (think I have three issues left?). Becca Boo is ongoing, but I am a few issues behind. For Cavewoman, I have a stack of issues I collected back in the 2010s that I want to revisit, do reviews/retrospectives of, and have those parallel published both here at my website and at the National Capital Panthans Journal.

Cavewoman: “Extinction”

And with the above in, here is a Cavewoman review!

Cover shows Meriem being grabbed/surrounded by tentacles. She has her knife out ready to slash one. — Personal copy of Cavewoman: “Extinction”.

I’ve got a whole stack of Cavewoman in my collection from when I was collecting it from 2011 to 2014, though I have many gaps. I am going to try to cover them chronologically as they were published. With that in mind, my write up of the single shot issue “Extinction” is online and can be read here.

The next Cavewoman issues I’ll be jumping on is the four issue “Snow” series. I am going to be ambitious and shoot to publish one a month along with my other articles and projects. Cross fingers!

Hercules and the Captive Women Blu-ray Compares

A final article for my website this month (three articles in a month! wow!) is comparing the new Blu-rays of Hercules and the Captive Women.

Two blu-rays side by side. Both show the same poster art of a Hercules with legs apart and a woman framed between them, on her knees, with flames behind her. — The two Blu-rays of Hercules and the Captive Women.

It has been a hot minute since I’ve actually did something sword and sandal related, time to rectify that! Check out my write up here.

Panthans Journal #346

The March issue of the National Capital Panthans Journal has been published. This issue contains a re-print of my micro fiction/short story “Journey to Agharti”. This story was originally published in Trickster’s Treats 3: The Seven Deadly Sins back in 2019, however that anthology has been out of print for quite a while now. It is nice that the story has a second life in the Panthans journal.

Cover is called "The Land that Time Forgot" by Mark Whetley. It shows a man, crouched on one knee, holding a rifle, with safari attire, but shirt open. Next to him he has a barking dog that kinda look like Benji. Behind there is a roaring T-rex, a triceratops, and pterodactyls flying. — National Capital Panthans Journal #346.

Paraphrased from the zine: The National Capital Panthans Journalis a monthly publication issued as a .PDF file on the Saturday before the first Sunday of each month. Contribution of articles, artwork, photos, and letters are welcome. Send submissions to the editor: Laurence G. Dunn at laurencegdunn AT gmail.com in a Word document for consideration.

Sincere appreciation to Laurence for the opportunity to have my work published in the journal.

Scholars from the Edge of Time

For the March Scholars from the Edge of Time Michele and I discuss the mid 90s fighting mecha film Robo Warriors (1996).

Cover has the synthwave colors of lots of purple on darkness. It shows 2 giant robots fighting amount power lines, with bolts of electricity flying everywhere. — Personal copy of Robo Warriors on Blu-ray.

Giant robots fighting each other gladiator style? How can one go wrong? Well……

The episode can be watched on YouTube. As a side, one of the villains in the film, Quon, was played by James Tolkan (probably best known from Back to the Future). Tolkan passed away on the day we recorded this episode. RIP sir. 🙁

For April we are going to be discussing the new Deathstalker (2025) movie, so we are excited about that.

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my external publishing endeavors so far in 2026.

Cover is by Mark Wheatley and called "The Beasts". It is red hued. It shows Tarzan riding atop of an elephant. Below the elephant are two gorillas and a lion. Behind them is a tree and a setting sun. — National Capital Panthans Journal #344.

“All E.T.’s Aren’t Nice: Vanya 06” reprinted in National Capital Panthans Journal #344, January 2026.

Original can be read here.

Cover by David Michael Beck. It's a drawing of Tarzan atop an elephant, with 2 axes in front. — National Capital Panthans Journal #345.

“The Prehistoric Purge: Vanya 07″ reprinted in National Capital Panthans Journal #345, February 2026.

Original can be read here.

“Journey to Agharti” reprinted in National Capital Panthans Journal #346, March 2026.

New Sword and Sandal Acquisitions

The ever growing peplum research library grows with these recent sword and sandal acquisitions.

Samson and His Mighty Challenge (Crappy DVD)

From the 2000s to the mid-2010 was probably the halcyon days of the DVD. They could be made cheap, and releases ranged from ornate editions to bottom of the barrel bargain releases. Companies like Alpha Video, Sinister Cinema, Something Weird Video, Mill Creek Entertainment, Brentwood Home Video, and many, many others released low cost, quasi-bootleg-ish genre videos on home video. Sometimes these were single DVDrs with a generic graphic design, sometimes they were mega multiple movie pack boxsets with names like “50 sci-fi greats”.

Right, wrong, indifferent, this was a thing and it filled a void. Sometimes the only way to see an old genre film was via these means. This, unfortunately, perpetuated shoddy releases of films that deserve better. Heavily cropped and edited films, ripped from five generations of VHS tapes was the norm.

Those days are gone. With streaming services as the dominate medium to watch films, physical releases are the exception. In order to compete with streaming services, physical editions have turned to being released by boutique labels, like Vinegar Syndrome and Severin Films, to stand out form the crowd. This means there is really no market for the inferior, made on the cheap, DVD/DVDr releases from 15 years prior.

Some companies still (kinda) hold on to this old model, and CFV Ent. (no website that I could find) is one of them. I say kinda because instead of making cheap releases to sell at a budget price, they are making cheap releases to sell for much higher markups.

The other month Michele and I did a Scholars from the Edge of Time episode on Hercules Returns (link here). The Vinegar Syndrome release of the film already had an original version of Samson and High Mighty Challenge on it, but I wanted a solo release. I turned to eBay and saw a copy from CFV Ent. (slide show below).

Samson and His Mighty Challenge, CFV version, how it really looks.
Samson and His Mighty Challenge, CFV version, how it really looks (back side)

Looking at the eBay picture, it obviously is a mockup, but it presents itself as a DVD in a slipcover. Though if you look at the bottom right of the image, the artwork and the sleeve appear to veer away from each other. I knew this was a cheap affair, but I was actually curious how cheap would it be. Was there a company out there actually putting care into releasing peplum films and giving them a modicum of dignity?

Heck no. Click through the slide show above to see what I got. Definitely not a slipcover. The DVD is in a red, rather flimsy case. The exterior insert is made from a home printer. The copyright notice on the back is hilarious:

This film (or version of film) has never been released on digital media in the United States. It is therefore considered public domain.

I am not expert on copyright law, but I am 99% sure that is not how that works.

Anywho, I wanted to share this release. This is sort of a caveat emptor post, I do want to highland the difference between how product is depicted vs. how product really is as there are a lot of these releases on eBay. But mostly to illustrate how the market has changed, especially on these old peplum films. Still no love on physical release, but at a higher price tag for even dodgier editions.

Wizards of the Demon Sword

During my research for Robo Warriors I fell down a Wikipedia rabbit hole and somehow ended up discovering cult film director Fred Olen Ray made a sword and sorcery film. It’s called Wizards of the Demon Sword (1991) and stars Michael Berryman – hells yea!

Personal copy of Wizards of the Demon Sword on DVD.

He was in The Barbarians (1987) which was a great 80s S&S film, so I could not pass plucking this one up! Though it does have Troma literally written all over it, so this could be rough.

News from Friends

Cool kids I know have been busy lately! Here are some signal boosts I’d like to give out.

New Ride the Stream Episodes

New episodes of Michele Brittany and Travis Lakata’s vidcast, Ride the Stream, are online. The duo continue their deep dive into the sci-fi series Falling Skies.

Here is their discussion on season one, episode four:

Episode five:

Episode six:

And episode seven:

Make sure to subscribe the Ride the Stream YouTube channel to see when new episodes drop. There is also a BlueSky social media as well.

New Fan2Fan Episodes

Brand new episodes of the Fan2Fan podcast are now online. Pete and Bernie continue their discussions on different monster movies.

First there is “Monster Mania: Atomic Age Mutants & Mayhem“:

Next is “Monster Mania: Kaiju and Cryptids“:

Then a quick break with “Rewind: Friday the 13th Franchise Part 2“:

And back to monsters with a series of episodes on King Kong, starting with “Monster Mania: King Kong 1933“:

Followed by “Monster Mania: King Kong vs. Godzilla“:

And then “Monster Mania: King Kong 1976“:

Older episodes of Fan2Fan can be found at its Libsyn page or via your podcast app of preference. There is also the Fan2Fan Facebook page.

The End is #Trending Kickstarter

The End is Trending, starring Dannie DeLisle, has a Kickstarter going.

Check out the campaign here.

Amityville Awakens

Robert P. Ottone has a brand new novel coming out called Amityville Awakens. The cover for the book just got revealed this past week:

Cover shows a screaming white face with kinda crooked teeth. The top of the person is actually the Amityville house - so the eyes are the circular/triangle windows. There is rubber underneath the house head. — Amityville Awakens by Robert P. Ottone.

A signed edition of Amityville Awakens can be pre-ordered from publisher Clash Books right here.

Michele’s Craft Books

Michele has been sharing her flip books and journals on her YouTube Channel:

A Tintin Postcard Book Junk Journal:

A Lady and the Tramp Golden Book:

And a Hug Book Golden Book:

Comics

Release the Subterranean Kraken: Cavewoman: Extinction

Post author By Nicholas Diak
Post date March 11, 2026

Plot

In Marshville, a town that has been teleported to the prehistoric past, life goes on as normal as possible, despite being surrounded by the jungle primeval and dangerous dinosaurs. Children Lumpy, Will, Miguel, and Susie are about to play a game of baseball but need an umpire. Lumpy asks Meriem Cooper, the superhuman Cavewoman who acts as a guardian over Marshville, if she would be their umpire. Meriem, with plans already made to relax in the magma-heated pools outside the town and recompose herself, asks for a raincheck.

Meriem swings on a vine. — Meriem off to relax at the hot pools by swinging on a vine.

At the bottom of the ninth, Will hits a ball that gets caught by a pterodactyl and then dropped in the jungle. The children set off to retrieve one of the many lost balls and happen upon a dark cavern. Inside they discover a nest of eggs. Will handles an egg but winds up breaking it, awakening a slumbering monster in the process. The children attempt to flee the cave as they are pursued by dozens of tentacles from the shadows. Susie becomes trapped in a crevice while the other three kids escape to seek help from Meriem.

Meriem is on the ground, pushing herself back up with her front two arms. Behind her is the cave monster. Think of a crab without legs or claws, but instead dozens and dozens of tentacles coming from it. — Meriem fights the cave monster.

Meriem braves the cave by herself to rescue Susie and pit herself against the tentacle monster who has been angered by its eggs being disturbed, encountering a powerful foe of the likes she has never encountered before. Meriem takes a battering from the monster’s tentacles, but Susie distracts it with an egg, the last one since the others in the nest appear to have broken. Deducing the monster is the last of its kind, and the egg its sole lineage, Meriem and Susie give the egg to the monster, who retreats into the darkness, allowing the duo to escape. Back at the surface, Meriem promises Susie ice cream after demonstrating her braveness and teases the three boys to stay out of trouble.

Commentary

“Extinction” is a one-shot, self-contained comic in the Cavewoman series, published in 2010 with the story and art done by Rob Durham. Though Budd Root’s Cavewoman series is known for its cover nudity and cheesecake portrayal of Meriem, “Extinction” is rather chaste and instead feels like an 80s/early 90s Saturday morning cartoon that revolves around children getting into trouble and then getting saved. The first few pages feel like the movie The Sandlot (1993), where a group of kids playing baseball lose their balls over the fence into a backyard guarded by “The Beast” (a big English Mastiff). In “Extinction” the children playing baseball lose their balls in the jungle, and the beast they encounter is a Cthulhu-esque monster with dozens of tentacles that protrude from a central, crab-carapace-like, body. The children are put into peril, but it is no more violent than, say, what kids encounter in cartoons like Denver the Last Dinosaur or Dinosaucers. “Extinction” is also full of kid friendly messages akin to the endings of episodes of G.I. Joe or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: don’t play in unsafe areas (dark caverns), don’t be a bully (calling one a chicken to force them to go into said cave), seek the help of adults (Meriem), leave wild animals and their offspring (eggs) alone, the importance of bravery, and so on. All of the above demonstrates that Cavewoman, or at least this specific issue, can be surprisingly kid friendly and positive.

That is to say not all of “Extinction” is without some form of titillation. Aside from her standard issue attire of a leopard print bikini that showcases her body, there is a sequence of Meriem bathing in a hot pool. All of her nudity obfuscated by lapping water or wafts of steam, yet her voluptuousness is still on full display. Late in the issue when she is fighting the underground monster, there are numerous panels of Meriem surrounded and grabbed by tentacles, veering in the direction of Toshio Maeda territory.

Naughty tentacle innuendo aside, the underground monster in “Extinction” is quite cool. The monster does not fit into the cosmic horror bucket per se, so it is not Lovecraftian in the traditional sense, but all of its tentacles give it that Cthulhu, perhaps Gla’aki (from the Ramsey Campbell story “The Inhabitant of the Lake”) vibe. The beast is extremely formidable, and its one on one battle with Meriem at the issue’s climax is a great sequence. There is a series of panels that shows the monster grabbing Meriem and slamming her from side to side, like Bamm-Bamm from The Flinstones. It is a captivating battle.

Four panels, each one shows Meriem being slammed side by side by a tentacle. — The cave monster thwaps Meriem around.

Finally, aside from the aforementioned morality messages geared toward children, there’s other themes present in “Extinction”, especially around Meriem’s character. Selfcare is important, and Meriem realizes this has she has to say “no” to the children (and sometimes, one has to feel comfortable saying “no”), to go and relax in the superheated pools. But it is a short respite and Meriem is cursed with what other superheroes have to deal with: they always must be on “on mode” and be able to save the day at a moment’s notice. Rest is extremely important to avoid burnout, but it is easily taken away.

Meriem holds Susie in her arms close to her chest. — Meriem rescues Susie.

Just like Ripley and the alien queen in Aliens (1986), there are some matronly themes between Meriem and the underground tentacle monster. Meriem takes a motherly role to the four children, especially Susie when she rescues her from the dark and gives her comfort. Conversely, the monster is trying to protect its last egg, the last of its kind (of note – how did the rest of the eggs break between the children finding them and then giving one back to the monster?). Meriem and the monster have a lot more in common with each other, both being incredibly strong and protective of their children.

Conclusion

“Extinction” is a terrific one-off, self-contained story in the Cavewoman series. It is a quick adventure, with fairly low stakes and that by the issue’s end, the narrative returns back to the status quo, with the hope that the children will stop peer pressuring each other and taking off on dangerous excursions. The issue standalone enough in that it is not too reliant on other issues to establish the universe. A general feeling of what Cavewoman is about is sufficient for reading the issue which can act as an entry point into the series proper. Meriem herself is selfless and brave, and Durham’s art renders her in a detailed and sexy style that brings these attributes to the forefront of the character.

For more information on Cavewoman “Extinction” check these links:

Amryl Entertainment Product Page

Tags Budd Root, Cavewoman, Cthulhu, Gla'aki, Jungle Girl, Rob Durham, Toshio Maeda

Comics

She’s Got the Killer Instinct: Vanya Issue 01

Post author By Nicholas Diak
Post date April 16, 2025

The Story

In the far future of 2288 AD, mankind has mastered time, dimension, and space travel. Leading humanity’s front-line conquerors are the Astral Guard, fierce warriors who are battled hardened by spending a year surviving in the prehistoric past.

The standard cover for the first issue of Vanya. Vanya is armed with a bow while a triceratops charges at her. There is a full moon in the sky. — Standard cover of Vanya issue 01.

Vanya Tepanov is such a candidate for the Astral Guard, currently eight months into her year of living in four billion years in the past. Each day is a test of her skills, instinct, and luck, as she must deal with the likes of sabretooth tigers, Pteranodons, raptors, and even other Astral Guard trainees, dubbed Time Guards, that she is warned to stay away from. However, a chance encounter (and a night of passion) with a Time Guard named Reed jumpstarts Vanya’s newest escapade where the prehistoric past and the highly advanced future clash.

Commentary

Vanya issue one is a crowdfunded comic book published by Bad Bug Media, the first in a planned twelve issue run. Kickstarted in August 2021 and shipped to backers in February 2022, Vanya is an ambitious, multi-genre adult comic. The Kickstarter campaign states that the series is for fans of Sheena: Queen of the Jungle, and that it is a “sci-fi twist on the jungle girl genre.” The first issue of Vanya is written by Mike Tener (who is also the editor in chief of Bad Bug), with art by J. C. Fabul (The Dragonfly) and Zoran Jovicic (Burlap), colours by Bryan Magnaye (Militia, Twin Worlds), and lettering by Aaron Locust (Death Nell, HyperGeist).

With its multi-genre approach, Vanya is ambitious and high concept. The future scenes hint at both a Blade Runner colonial setting (replicants at off world colonies vs. Astral Guards conquering new planets) and a Starship Troopers style of fascism (levels of citizen ship). The time traveling aspect of Vanya looks to take inspiration from Ray Bradbury’s story “A Sound of Thunder” in that going to the past is business-like, matter-of-factly, mixing hunting/safari-ing and surviving. Lastly, the jungle girl aspect is greatly emphasized, combining the menacing and awe-nature that dinosaurs evoked in Jurassic Park, the agility and nimbleness jungle girls like Sheena exhibit, and the eroticism of Budd Root’s Cavewoman, but fully embracing the pornographic elements that the genre normally only hints at. This is a lot to juggle, but Vanya anchors itself with its focus on the prehistoric/jungle girl aspect of the comic.

A nude cover of Vanya issue 1. It depicts a naked Vanya emerging from the sea at night. Behind her, off in the distance, is a brontosaur. — Nude cover variant of Vanya issue #01.

Usually, the first issue of a new comic IP is unwieldy as it tries to accomplish too much (introduce characters, setting, plot, and so on) in too little space. Vanya is surprisingly quite concise in setting its game pieces: the one page pseudo-Star Wars opening text paints the big picture, while the comic proper does a succinct job at establish Vanya’s personality and goals (she wants to become an Astral Guard so her and her girl beau Serah can move to another world), establishes the risks, dangers, and day-to-day life in the prehistoric past (dodging tigers to fending off infections). As with the multiple genres, most comics would crumble under the weight of what Vanya is going for, but instead it pulls it all off effortless, at least in this debut issue.

Like the dinosaurs of the past, Vanya goes big, and its first issue is cleanly edited, drilled down to a concise story that could scatter in too many directions but does not. The action scenes are thrilling (taking down an entire Pteranodon and riding it into the ground), there is an air of intrigue that comes from unknown forces in the future, and the sex and nudity is integrated into the plot and not simply there to just be titillating.

For more information on Vanya and the comic’s creative team, check out the links below:

Also, consider checking out other reviews I’ve done of titles published by Bad Bug:

Tags Bad Bug, Cavewoman, Dinosaur, Jungle Girl, Sheena, Time Travel, Vanya

Monster Mania: Atomic Age Mutants & Mayhem – Fan2Fan Podcast

Monster Mania: Kaiju and Cryptids – Fan2Fan Podcast

Rewind: Friday the 13th Franchise Part 2 – Fan2Fan Podcast

Monster Mania: King Kong 1933 – Fan2Fan Podcast

Monster Mania: King Kong vs. Godzilla – Fan2Fan Podcast

Monster Mania: King Kong 1976 – Fan2Fan Podcast