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News Roundup W/E 2021-01-03

Personal / Website News

Sorry folks, I missed a few weeks on doing a news roundup: holidays, other obligations, etc. This roundup will hopefully cover the last few weeks.

New Indie Peplum Comic and Interview

Comic book creator Samuel George London is currently crowd funding his newest endeavor, the neo-peplum comic Band of Warriors. I’ve interviewed London about his comic.

As a side note, expect more posts in the next few months as I do more write ups/reviews/interviews about sword and sandal comics I’ve Kickstarted. These include: Secret Rites, Aztlan, Teoatl, Isidora and the Immortal Chains, and S.P.Q.R.

Podcast News

Two new episodes of H. P. Lovecast Podcast are online. In the first episode Michele Brittany and I discuss “You Will Never Be the Same” by Erica L. Satifka and “Weird Tales” by Fred Chappell from Wonder & Glory Forever, edited by Nick Mamatas. The episode can be streamed at Buzzsprout or your podcast application of preference.

Second, our episode discussing Jason Parent’s Eight Cylinders is also online. Later this month we will be interviewing Parent about this novella.

Both of us also appeared on two Voice of Olympus episodes in the past week. The first was an appearance on Scholars from the Edge of Time and the other on a Sword and Sandal Cinema episode.

Call for Papers

The Call for Abstracts for my collection of essays on neo-medievalism is live. The CFP can be found here.

General Neo-Peplum News

Dr. Jeremy J. Swist interviews power metal band Judicator about their concept album, Let There Be Nothing, which is about the Byzantine general Flavius Belisarius. The interview can be found at his Heavy Metal Classicist website.

Comicon.com has a preview of King Size Conan #1.

RedSharkNews honours Gladiator at 20 years old by looking at its sound design.

Screen Rant has an article called “15 Best Movies With Accurate Depictions Of Ancient History (Including Agora).” Their list (peplum and non-peplum films) is:

  1. The Fall Of The Roman Empire (1964)
  2. Red Cliff (2008)
  3. A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1966)
  4. Beowulf (2007)
  5. Spartacus (1960)
  6. Life of Brian (1979)
  7. Asterix: The Mansions Of The Gods (2019)
  8. Alexander (2004)
  9. Barabbas (1964)
  10. Hero (2002)
  11. The Trojan Women (2004)
  12. Centurion (2010)
  13. The History Of The World, Part 1 (1981)
  14. Agora (2009)
  15. Confucius (2010)

Rest in Peplum

Animator Doug Crane passed away at the age of 85. He contributed to many animated sword and sandal, sword and sorcery, and sword and planet cartoons:

  • The Mighty Hercules (1963)
  • The Mighty Thor (1966)
  • Heavy Metal (1981)
  • Various He-Man and She-Ra projects in the 80s
  • The Pirates of Dark Water (1991)

Italian actor Corrado Olmi passed away at the age of 94. He was in Satyricon (1969, Gian Luigi Polidoro).

Bond Girl Tanya Roberts passed away at the age of 65. Known for her appearance in A View to a Kill and in Charlie’s Angels, for sword and sorcery fans, she stole hearts with her appearance in The Beastmaster (1982, Don Coscarelli).

Michele Brittany, Tanya Roberts, Nicholas Diak in 2013
The Beastmaster DVD autographed by Tanya Roberts, John Amos, and Don Coscarelli.
Categories
News

News Roundup W/E 2020-10-04

Personal / Website News

Book Citation

Emily Anctil’s essay “Not a Bedtime Story: Investigating Textual Interactions Between the Horror Genre and Children’s Picture Books” from Horror Literature From Gothic to Post-modern: Critical Essays has been referenced in Children’s Literature Association Quarterly Fall 2020 Vol 45 No 3.

McFarland Book Sale

McFarland is doing their yearly October sale for their horror books. If you use the code “HORROR” (without the quotation marks) you will receive 40% off the order from now until Friday, October 16. There are numerous horror books I am a part of that you can purchase: Horror in Space, Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern, and Uncovering Stranger Things. If you want to support my academic endeavors, purchasing copies of Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern benefits me greatly.

New Episode of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast

New episode of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast is now online. In this episode Michele and I talk about two short stories from the Swords Against Cthulhu anthology: “Modu” by Mark Sims and “The Sword of Lomar” by Jason Scott Aiken. The episode has been added to the podcast appearance index.

General Neo-Peplum News

The book, Xena: Their Courage Changed Our World was recently published by AUSXIP Publishing. The large book is a collection of essays from the Xena fandom and the impact of the show on their lives. The book can be ordered from the AUSXIP web store or Amazon in a variety of formats: e-copy, soft cover, hard cover.

Per Deadline, Netflix looks to be developing a live action Conan the Barbarian series.

Paul A J Lewis has written an article at The Film Magazine called “Loincloths, Muscles, Sorcery and the Rock of Uranus: A Journey Into the Realm of the Italian Peplum (c.1958-1965).

Screen Rant ranks the 10 best gladiator films.

  1. Spartacus (1960)
  2. Ben-Hur (1959)
  3. Gladiator (2000)
  4. The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
  5. Barabbas (1961)
  6. Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)
  7. Cabiria (1914)
  8. Centurion (2010)
  9. The Eagle (2011)
  10. The Arena (1974)

Article at Deutsche Welle called “What Hollywood got wrong about the gladiators of ancient Rome.”