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Biweekly News Roundup 2024-03-03

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.

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Peplum

Maiden Voyage: Hearteater #1

Kimona, better known as the Hearteater, is an adventurous pirate lass, who along with her talking raven companion Zephyr, have had their fair share of encounters with treasures, riches, and near death misses. Their newest adventure brings them to Port Harmony, where a magical voice compels Kimona to rescue Finn, a handsome scoundrel of a thief, sentenced to be hung at the gallows. After getting intimately acquainted with each other during the night at an inn, a mystical bell that Kimona wears around her neck begins to glow, signifying a new adventure for the trio.

PDF Cover.

Hearteater is crowdfunded, erotic pirate comic set during the Golden Age of Piracy. Published by the women-owned Laguna Studios, (an offshoot/successor of Unlikely Heroes Studios), the comic is written by Laurie Foster (The Surgeon, Super!), with Cari Salviejo (Xenogeist, Hypergeist) on line art, Patty Arroyo (cover artist for Bombshell & Atomica,Roseblood Manor) on colours, Saïda Temofonte (Number of the Beast, DCeased) on lettering and Brian J. Lambert (Wingless Comics founder) and Sarah White (The Surgeon) as editors.

Genre waves come in cycles: rising, cresting, and retreating every few years. The pirate genre is no exception. After a period of cooling from the numerous Pirates of the Caribbean films, the last few years have seen pirates remerging in all corners of media: television (Our Flag Means Death), video games (Sea of Thieves, and Ubisoft’s freshly released, though somewhat maligned Skull and Bones), music (Visions of Atlantis), and comic books (The Pirate and the Porcelain Girl). Laguna Studios’ Hearteater definitely contributes to the pirate genre canon while overtly embracing the erotic angle promised by tales of swashbucklery. 

Kimona is a fun character, who knows what she wants and is always on the prowl for the next promise of adventure, be it by the sword or between the sheets. She is also a liberated character, both in race and gender, which gives her the agency and mobility to do her pirating deeds. Her raven familiar, Zephyr, acts as her voice of reason, but Kimona is the type of character who does not always give into reason.

Issue one of Hearteater is fairly short, there is no seafaring or sword fighting to be found, but there is an escape attempt and a steamy love scene. Kimona proper gets her character foundtations fleshed out and it is easy for readers to latch on to her.

While the narrative sets up the chess pieces as is traditional in first issues of a new series, the art of Hearteater tells a different story: great characters but forgettable backgrounds.

The expressions and details on characters such as Kimono and Zephyr are great.

The characters, especially Kimona, in Hearteater, look great. Kimona has the best facial expressions that compliment her speech bubbles and make transparent her emotions. Her seductive poses are sultry (with some breast jiggle onomatopoeia thrown in for good measure) while her other depictions show her in command, perhaps with air of mystery as readers are learning more about her.

Opening panel of the comic.

The background art, on the other hand, falters a bit. The opening shot of the comic, designed to lure readers in right from the get go, is an aerial shot of Port Harmony, filled with nondescript, featureless, flat buildings. Hearteater may actually be aware of this limitation because subsequent panels focus on closeups of Kimona and other characters, rather than have backgrounds shown in detail. It’s a shame since in the pirate genre, setting is important as readers want to be whisked away to tropical islands and port cities. The look of the characters nails it, but the world proper needs a bit more love.

Hearteater’s Kickstarter campaign concluded in the autumn of 2023 with backers receiving their rewards in February 2024, a pretty quick turnaround. As with many crowdfunded comics, Hearteater sported a variety of alternative covers – both in normal and risque formats – and came with a handful of extras from meeting stretch goals.

Zheanhmeart risqué cover – personal copy.

Artists who contributed covered are Cari Salviejo, Ian Richardson, KodiArt, Dravacus, Zheanhmeart, and Katy Rewston. All the covers are great, making choosing one a difficult process. Salviejo’s cover though, showing Kimona surrounded by green tentacles, hints at the eldritch elements stated in the Kickstarter campaign but not shown in issue one (something to look forward to in the next issue).

Rewards for the campaign included a metal bookmark and a chibi-esque sticker of Kimona.

Backers also received both digital and physical prints done by Mike Watson and Veronica Smith.

Pirates are awesome and Hearteater is looking to be fantastic as well. The erotic elements are definitely sexy, Kimona and company look to be fun characters to invest in and see their adventure continue, especially if it might venture down into Lovecraftian/Eldritch horror territory while maintaining the pirate atmosphere. A Lovecraftian-Erotic-Pirate story? Yes, please!

Links to know more about Hearteater:

Categories
News

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)