Tag: Exotica Moderne

News

2022 Accomplishments

Post author By Nicholas Diak
Post date January 4, 2023

Happy 2023 everyone!

As with 2021, 2022 was a crazy year. Lots of life stuff: got a new job after 16 or 17 years at my previous job, and bought a house – first house ever! It’s been quite a process and these last few months busy with cleaning, packing, and moving. However, that is all done (well, except unpacking and furnishing) and Michele and I get to start 2023 off in a home with our cats.

I did a 2021 Accomplishments List and looking back on those, I actually got most of them done! Some projects have been delayed, and of course I have items and reviews on my to do list that have been pending for a while.

Now that I’m all settled in in the new house, with my own office, and library of research material close at hand, I look forward to taking a big bite out of 2023!

2022 Accomplishments

Podcast Accomplishments

49Podcast Appearances
- 22 episodes of H. P. Lovecast Podcast
- 11 episodes of Scholars from the Edge of Time
- 16 guest appearances on other podcasts/vidcasts
  - 15 appearances on the Fan2Fan Podcast
  - 1 appearance on the Galactic Terrors vidcast

Publication Accomplishments

5 physical/print publications
- 2 articles for Exotica Moderne
- 3 book contributions
  - essay in The Many Lives of the Twilight Zone
  - essay and interview in the StokerCon 2022 souvenir book
19 articles at my website
- 10 comic book/book/movie reviews/write ups
- 6 interviews
- 3 cocktail articles
I also made short film called Dinosaur Joke

Conference Accomplishments

Co-chaired with Michele the 5^th year of the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference
- This is also the final year we chair this conference
1 Conference Presentation
- AnnRadCon
1 Convention Appearance
- 2 panels at CoKoCon

I’d like to give a shout out to the following folks who have given me platforms to share what I’ve been working on or given me venues to contribute to:

Bernie Gonzalez and Pete Charbonneau (Fan2Fan Podcast)
Hercules Invictus (Voice of Olympus Network)
Ken Holewczynski (Exotica Moderne)
James Chambers, Carol Gyzander (Galactic Terrors)
Jonathan Maberry (Weird Tales)
Kevin Wetmore (Twilight Zone book)
Hal and Dee Astell (CoKoCon)
Michele Brittany (partner in crime)

You are all greatly appreciated!

2023 Projections

Three days into 2023 and projects are already lining up. Some are carryovers from 2022. Some have been legacy to dos. Some will be brand new. We’ve already been in touch with folks for future episodes of H. P. Lovecast, so expect lots of cool stuff there. I got some looming deadlines for essays for anthology editors, so time to get to work!

Things to look forward to in 2023

Publishing of the debut issue of the Footage Fiends zine which contains my essay on the Mario Bava cosmic horror/exotica film, Caltiki: The Immortal Monster.
A Hero Will Endure: Essays at the Twentieth Anniversary of Gladiator is slated to be published this February. This contains my essay on industrial bands that sample the film. This book has been a long time in coming, so I am extremely excited to see it published!
My CFP for the Emmanuelle / Black Emanuelle project will be open until the spring. Submit, submit, submit!
Essay to be published in Weird Tales. Proof was done and turned in.
New episodes of H. P. Lovecast Podcast
Appearances on the Fan2Fan Podcast
Appearance on the Scaredy Cats podcast discussing the film The Final Girls.
Being on panels for CoKoCon 2023.

Projects I’ll be starting in 2023

Projects I anticipate to be starting/working on in 2023:

Essay on peplum cats for a project for Simon Bacon about cats in cinema (due early spring!)
Essay on the Front Line Assembly album Implode and how it samples the films Mimic and Event Horizon (passion idea project)
Crossing fingers – get enough submissions for the Emmanuelle project to procure a publisher and get that book off the ground
Turning my Acylum/Vikings presentation in a journal article
And other legacy items on my to do list…

Thank you to everyone who has been with my on my academic journey, who has read and shared my material or given me platforms. You all rock socks!

Tags Accomplishments, Event Horizon, Exotica Moderne, Fan2Fan, Front Line Assembly, HP Lovecast Podcast, Mimic, Podcast, Twilight Zone, Weird Tales

News

News Roundup W/E 2022-08-07

Post author By Nicholas Diak
Post date August 8, 2022

Personal / Website News

Exotica Moderne 16 Is Out

Issue 16 of the tiki magazine Exotica Moderne has been published!

This issue contains my review of the forthcoming coming bizarro novel Dead Monkey Rum by Robert Guffy. This issue can be ordered at its product page at the House of Tabu website.

Republishing Zeena Schreck Interview/Review

I am working on consolidating my writing I’ve done for other websites and my old neofolk blog into one location. This also gives me an opportunity to edit or remove content as well.

The first article I’ve brought over is from 2020 and it is my interview with Zeena Schreck about her debut EP, Bring Me the Head of F. W. Murnau, that also has a review as well.

The interview/review can be read at this page.

Current Projects

Back in June (on my birthday!) I did a recap of all the projects I’m juggling. Almost all those projects got completed/released, so it’s time to show what I am working on currently:

CoKoCon Prep – CoKoCon will be over Labour Day Weekend. Michele and I were asked to be on a panel about pre-code horror films. That means through August we are going to [re]watch some classic films to get some refreshers. We are also going to double stack and use one of the films we watch as a topic for this month’s Scholars From the Edge of Time episode.
H. P. Lovecast – New episode will drop this upcoming weekend and an interview episode at the end of the month. Our August focus is on Douglas Wynne’s new collection, Something in the Water and Other Stories.
Acylum/Vikings Sampling Essay – Still working on this presentation to turn it into journal format.
Exotica Moderne – My next submission for the tiki magazine will be a write up on the video game Call of the Sea. Michele and I will also use this as a subject for a future H. P. Lovecast episode.
Writing Consolidation – I’ll be moving my Awen interview/review over to this website this Wednesday.
Sylvia Kristel Book Review – This will be the next book review I’ll published here. I’m 2/3s done reading it, I’ve been reading a chapter a night.

General Neo-Peplum News

Those About to Die Series

Roland Emmerich is working on a series for the Peacock streaming service called Those About To Die, which is about gladiators. Deadline has a full article about it.

Recent Acquisitions

Went to Zia’s over the weekend which is always a fun get away that also turns up interesting treasures. My haul on music and movies was really light this time, despite being prepared with an actual list!

Aside from plucking up an MCD single (remember those?) of [:SITD;]’s Laughingstock (side note: check out my write up of the music projects that sample the original Candyman movie, which [:SITD;} is one of), I found a vinyl release of the original Hercules soundtrack and a budget DVD of Demetrius and the Gladiators (I believe Twilight Time put out a nice edition a while back, but it is way OOP).

Tags Bizarro Fiction, Demetrius and the Gladiators, Exotica Moderne, F. W. Murnau, Hercules, Roland Emmerich, Silent Film, Those About to Die, Zeena

News

News Roundup W/E 2022-07-03

Post author By Nicholas Diak
Post date July 4, 2022

Personal / Website News

New episode of H. P. Lovecast Podcast

Our monthly end of the month Transmissions episode is now online!

This is a middle grade/young adult focused episode. We interview Lora Senf about her debut, The Clackity, and Robert P. Ottone about The Triangle, the first book in his The Rise Trilogy.

The episode can be streamed at our Buzzsprout page, the embedded player above, or via your podcast app of preference.

CoKoCon 2022 Appearance

CoKoCon is a Phoenix speculative fiction conference that is being held over Labour Day weekend.

Michele and I will be in attendance as panelists. Programming is still being solidified, but keep an eye out at the CoKoCon website or Twitter as news comes in.

The New Peplum Citation

The New Peplum appears in the bibliography of the edited collection La Strada: The Cinema and Cinematographers of Italy, edited by Alexander A. Sinitsyn.

I’m not sure which specific essay(s) in the collection cites The New Peplum, or what specifically from The New Peplum has been cited, but you can see the bibliographic entry in the uploaded paper “Antiquity in the Cinema of Italy in the 1910s – 1930s” by Alexandra Solovyeva, which happens to include the bib for the entire book.

Very cool. I’m always humbled and honored to see other academics referencing The New Peplum.

Exotica Moderne Book Review

Turned in a book review to be published in an upcoming issue of Exotica Moderne (hopefully the next one!). In the meantime, check out the publisher, House of Tabu, who has various mugs, pins, and the latest issue, #15 with the Shag cover, still for sale.

General Neo-Peplum News

Blog Entries at DMR Books

Here a listing of genre relevant blog articles at DMR Books this past week, both are author interviews:

Recent Acquisitions

My autographed copy of Matt Page‘s 100 Bible Films has arrived from across the sea!

Personal copy now in the peplum library.

Copies can be procured from Bloomsbury or via Amazon. Also, be sure to check out my interview with Page.

Tags 100 Bible Films, Exotica Moderne, HP Lovecast, Lora Senf, Matthew Page, Robert Ottone, The Clackity, The New Peplum

News

News Roundup W/E 2022-01-09

Post author By Nicholas Diak
Post date January 10, 2022

Personal / Website News

Cover Reveal: Exotica Moderne #14

Here it is, the cover of the next issue of Exotica Moderne:

This issue contains my interview with the wonderful stockings pinup, Miss Corsair Debonair, who was gracious to provide exclusive photos. If you’d like a sneak peek of one of them, here you go:

Keep an eye on The House of Tabu website when the magazine becomes available for ordering. I’ve had the honour to write for all 14 issues of Exotica Moderne so far, but alas, I will have to skip issue 15 since that will be focused on the huge Tiki Caliente event. But no worries, I got lots more articles in the pipeline for the magazine. I appreciate all the folks who’ve read my interviews, reviews, and essays that have appeared in the magazine so far.

“Magnificent Maleficarum”

I recently did a write up on unboxing The Witches’ Bundle version of Severin Films’ new folk horror boxset, All Haunts Be Ours.I also did a mini interview with Howard David Ingham who contributed to the set (tarot cards and documentary).

The article can be read here.

Things in the Well Closing Shop

Small press publisher Things in the Well looks to be closing shop in a few weeks. This means two of their anthologies that I have short stories published in will be going OOP:

Trickster’s Treats #3: The Seven Deadly Sins which contains my story “Journey to Agharti”
Guilty Pleasures and Other Dark Delights which contains my story “Seamed Stocking Summoning Circle”

Amazon links to buy both books are in the links above. Thank you all who have been curious about my fiction work and who have bought these books. I’ll find a home for these short stories in the future.

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

La Nativité Write Up

Matt Page has a new write up/review at his Bible Films Blog.

It’s on the Biblical silent proto-peplum film La Nativité from 1910. The review can be read here. Check it out!

Tags Biblical Peplum, CFP, Emanuelle, Emmanuelle, Exotica Moderne, Folk Horror, House of Tabu, House of Taby, Howard David Ingham, La Nativité, Miss Corsair Debonair, Severin Films, Stockings, Things in the Well

News

2021 Accomplishments

Post author By Nicholas Diak
Post date January 2, 2022

2021 was definitely a crazy and hectic year. The global Covid-19 pandemic continues to ravage the world with multiple variants. Michele and I continue to play it safe: we mask up, limit us going out, and received our vaccines, though we need boosters soon. The move from Orange to Phoenix also required some normalization. There was also personal ailments, family issues, work woes, and lots of anxieties.

Despite all this, 2021 was a successful year on many fronts. I didn’t have any books published and outside my regular contributions to Exotica Moderne, nothing else saw physical print. However, Michele and I really ramped up the focus on our H. P. Lovecast Podcast. We launched an additional show and tweaked the format a little bit and the results so far have been quite positive. In 2022 we are going to concentrate on growing our audience, which right now as a cult following. But with 30 episodes published this year plus other podcast appearances, we were both successful on this front, and we hope the books and authors we featured also received a spike in promotion.

What follows is a break down of all major 2021 accomplishments.