Tag: The New Peplum

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News

News Roundup W/E 2022-05-01

Personal / Website News

Interview with V. Castro

Last week was LV-426, aka Aliens Day! I love to celebrate Aliens Day by writing articles that help spotlight the Aliens mythology in different and interesting fashions.

Later this year a new novel, Aliens: Vasquez will be published. I had the honour to interview author V. Castro about her book. It can be read here.

New Episode of HP Lovecast

Michele and I have a brand new episode of our Transmissions programming on HP Lovecast Podcast.

Thumbnail by Michele Brittany

In this episode we interview David Rose about his novella, Lovecraft’s Iraq, and Jonathan Maberry about his upcoming Dark Fantasy book, Kagen. The episode can be streamed at our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.

This Is Horror 2021 Nominations Open

The publication nominations for works for consideration for the 2021 This Is Horror awards are open.

HP Lovecast Podcast qualifies for the non-fiction award category. If you feel our podcast is meritable, consider nominating it. The rules and nomination process can be found at this post at the This is Horror website. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

StokerCon 2022 Souvenir Cover Reveal

The cover art for the souvenir book for StokerCon 2022 has been revealed!

The book is edited by Cynthia Pelayo and the cover art done by Kealan Patrick Burke. Michele and I have two articles in this book: one is a quick essay about the five year anniversary of AnnRadCon and the other is an interview with one of the guests of honour, john Lawson.

Writing in the Dark Spring 2022 Appearance

Michele and I appeared as guests at the All Access Con’s Writing in the Dark Spring 2022 event. For an hour starting 2:00 pm PST on Saturday the 30th we talked about AnnRadCon and being academic writers.

The conference can be found here. If you register for All Access Con you’ll get access to archival presentations. Check it out!

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

100 Bible Films vs. The New Peplum

Matt Page’s (interviewed by me here) 100 Bible Films and my The New Peplum are neck and neck on one of Amazon’s sales ranking book categories:

Help Matt not only blow past my book, but to have a super successful debut book launch by pre-ordering his book! You can order at copy at Amazon and Bloomsbury.

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News

News Roundup W/E 2022-03-20

Personal / Website News

D. J. Kirkbride Interview

My interview with D. J. Kirkbride about the release of the trade paperback edition of his Errand Boys comic is now online.

It can be read here.

New Citations and Acknowledgments

Valerie Estelle Frankel’s essay from The New Peplum, “Hercules, Xena and Genre: The Methodology Behind the Mashup,” has been cited in Jonathan L. Friedmann’s book, Goliath as Gentle Giant: Sympathetic Portrayals in Popular Culture.

Ed Glaser has a new book titled How the World Remade Hollywood: Global Interpretations of 65 Iconic Films.

I’m honored to be mentioned in the acknowledgements!

The book can be purchased at McFarland’s website.

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

Recent Acquisitions

My pre-order of The Sword and the Sorcerer arrived!

I have not seen this sword and sorcery film before. I’m an Albert Pyun fan, so I got good feelings about this one.

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News

News Roundup W/E 2021-12-12

Personal / Website News

General Life/Project News

This weekly news report is a bit on the lighter side. Part of that is its the holidays, but the main reason is Michele and I are knee deep in projects that will bear lots of fruit in 2022:

  • Michele and I are conducting a top secret interview with another person for a book to be published in 2022.
  • Prepping for an interview with another author for my website.
  • I am starting an essay for a magazine that’s due at the end of January. My biggest magazine writing gig yet!
  • Knee deep in coordinating the interviews for this month’s HP Lovecast Podcast which is focused on the book Attack From the 80s.
  • Plotting the first three months of HP Lovecast in 2022 (take a look at the podcast page for a sneak preview).
  • AnnRadCon coordination.
  • Editing a previous essay of mine to submit to a journal.

So as you can see, there is lots of big stuff going on behind the scenes! Stay tuned as these projects come to completion. In the meantime, here is some general personal and peplum news.

McFarland Mythology & Folklore Book Sale

My publisher, McFarland, is having a sale on their books classified as mythology and folklore. Until December 19th, if you use the code MYTHOLOGY25 during check out, you’ll get a 25% discount on these books.

The New Peplum
Cover art for The New Peplum

Included in this sale is my book, The New Peplum. If you’ve been curious about the book, (maybe as a Yuletide gift?), check it out at McFarland’s product page.

AnnRadCon CFP December Deadline

The CFP for the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference closes at the end of the month.

AnnRadCon Logo by Greg Chapman

Details of the CFP can be found at the StokerCon website.

General Neo-Peplum News

Frozen Shield’s Ínia Review

Hal C. F. Astell has reviewed the new Frozen Shield folk/Viking metal album, Ínia, at his website, Apocalypse Later.

Kara Cooney’s Afterlives New Episode

If you have not been listening to Kara Cooney’s podcast, Afterlives, you should!

New episodes drop every Monday. Last week’s episode is called “A Leaders Power and Trickle Down Economics” and can be heard on Apple Podcasts and other platforms.

Recent Acquisitions

I’ve scored lots of neo-peplum and adjacent loot this past week! Hey, it’s Yuletide season, I can treat myself, right?

First up, arriving in the mail last week, is a vinyl copy of the Ex Der album, The Thirteen Years of Nero, autographed by Maurizio Iacono. I love it! The new album is stellar and I love the song “Imperator.” Both Ex Deo and Warkings are the two prominent metal acts that are just slaying the neo-peplum genre when it comes to music.

Next up, we had a friend and academic colleague visit us on their road trip. We decide to treat them by taking them to one of the Zia’s in Phoenix, which of course we love to go to and scavenge for cool loot. First up, got some new Blu-rays to upgrade my copies of 300 and 300: Rise of an Empire.

For only $9.00 I plucked up this Troy DVD boxset. This was too good to pass up, it full of so much swag. I think I’ll do a separator unboxing post showing off its stately contents.

Lastly, I purchased King of Kings by Leaves’ Eyes and The Witch of the North by Burning Witches.

Leave’s Eyes is symphonic Viking metal that, to me, sounds like a cross between Corvus Corvax, Qntal, and Die Prophezeiung-era E Nominee. I really dig it.

Burning Witches isn’t really peplum-metal, but there’s trace elements of Norse, Viking, and Medieval, so I’ll allow it. Very catchy all-female heavy metal.

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News

News Roundup W/E 2021-10-24

Personal / Website News

Gold Ninja Video’s Fury of Achilles Write Up

I recently interviewed Justin Decloux about his release of Fury of Achilles via his Gold Ninja Video imprint.

Copy 77 of 500!

I’ve compiled his responses with my impressions into a nice write up of the Blu-ray. It can be read here. I strongly encourage purchasing a copy of the Blu-ray, it’s limited to 500 numbered copies.

H. P. Lovecast Podcast

New episode of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast is now online! In this episode Michele and I talk about “Every Hole in the Earth We Will Claim As Our Own” by Gemma Files and “Eye of the Beholder” by Nancy Kilpatrick both from the Dark Regions Press published, Lynne Jamneck edited anthology, Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror.

Thumbnail by Michele Brittany

This episode can be streamed from our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.

McFarland Horror Book Sale

McFarland Publishing is doing a promotion during October for their horror books: if you use the code SPOOKY25 during check out, you’ll get a 25% discount.

There are three books I am involved with that are part of this promotion:

This is a great opportunity to pluck these books up!

Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference CFP

The CFP for the 2022 AnnRadCon is now LIVE! Open until the end of December, AnnRadCon 2022 will be hybrid, both online and in person. The CFP can be found at the AnnRadCon page at the StokerCon website. Please share far and wide!

Michele at HWA Halloween Haunts

Michele has an article up at the Horror Writer Association’s website for their Halloween Haunts series going through the month of October.

Thumbnail created by the HWA.

Michele’s article is a “how to” feature called “How To Make a Spooky Zig Zaggy Mini Halloween Journal.” There is a contest open as well: if you leave a comment (you don’t need to be an HWA member) you have a chance to win the journals Michele made.

General Neo-Peplum News

History of the World Part 2

Looks like a sequel to Mel Brooks’ History of the World: Part I is in the works! Per this article at Variety, it sounds like it will be a series on Hulu with Brooks writing and producing.

For those curious, Tatiana Prorokova writes extensively about History of the World: Part I in her essay “Laughing at the Body: The Imitation of Masculinity in Peplum Parody Films” that appears in The New Peplum.

Women in Classical Video Games Cover Reveal

Bloomsbury will be releasing a new book called Women in Classical Video Games edited by Jane Draycott and Kate Cook. Here is the cover reveal:

Salomé Footage Found

Per an article at Benzinga, 2 minutes of footage of the 1918 lost, porto-peplum film Salomé has been found.

Theda Bara in Salomé.
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News

News Roundup W/E 2021-06-27

Personal / Website News

Scholars from the Edge of Time

On Thursday Michele and I had our monthly Scholars from the Edge of Time segment on the Voice of Olympus program. In this episode Michele discussed the mummy anthology Spirits Unwrapped while I talked about the classic peplum film Ursus in the Valley of the Lions. The episode can be listened to at Blog Talk Radio.

Peplum Ponderings

I’ve started a new series here at my website called Peplum Ponderings. This is reserved for after I’ve watched a peplum film and I’ve taken notes, as a venue for me to share my informal observations about the film. My first one is online and it is for Ursus in the Valley of the Lions. Expect one later on this week for Messalina.

HWA CFP Board

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) Academics/Non-fiction board has been updated with a few new CFPs:

  • NEPCA – Monstrous in Disney
  • NEPCA – Northeast USA contribution to Monstrous canon
  • Call for chapters for book on horror comics

Details for these CFPs can be found on the board. If you have a CFP yourself that needs to be added, please send an email to annradcon@gmail.com .

General Neo-Peplum News

Physical Release of Ancient Greece and Rome in Videogames

The physical version of Dr. Ross Clare’s Ancient Greece and Rome in Videogames: Representation, Play, Transmedia will be published next week! The New Peplum is cited many times in this book.

The electronic version is already out while the physical version can be found at the Bloomsbury website.

Band of Warriors #2 Kickstarter News

Samuel G. London has been sending out the Kickstarter rewards for backers of Band of Warriors #1 (which you can read my interview with London here). In a news update for backers, the script for issue #2 is being worked on and the campaign to fund the issue is likely to launch in September. However, there is a cover reveal for issue #2, with art by Federico Avila Corsini:

Follow London on Twitter for more information about this comics.

New Ex Deo Album

Canadian neo-peplum band Ex Deo officially announced on their Facebook page their next album, The Thirteen Years of Nero, will be released on August 27th. They released the first video of the album, “Imperator,” on Youtube.

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News

News Roundup W/E 2021-01-10

Personal / Website News

Citations for The New Peplum

An essay from the collection Ancient Violence in the Modern Imagination: The Fear and the Fury cites Dr. Wetmore’s essay, “In the Green Zone with the Ninth Legion: The Post-Iraq Roman Film” from The New Peplum. I am not sure which, but when I find out I’ll update this citation in The New Peplum resource page.

The New Peplum also gets an extremely positive mention in the preface in Christopher Wood’s book Heroes Masked and Mythic: Echoes of Ancient Archetypes in Comic Book Characters:

“Yet we all stand on the shoulders of giants, and therefore I should like to take a moment here to give a brief nod to those scholars and thinkers who have strengthened my own resolve to write this, sometimes as a catalyst to change, and others with whom I couldn’t agree more or have said it better myself.

The New Peplum: Essays on Sword and Sandal Films and Television by Nicholas Diak is one such book. His main focus is on the modern “sword and sandal” films, and by that he means in the past 30 years rather than including the 1960s. The author views the use of technology and narrative approaches that change the end experience of the viewer as something impossible to achieve at a time earlier than now.”

– Christopher Wood, Preface to Heroes Masked and Mythic

I’m extremely flattered to receive such honour!

Call for Papers

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

Podcast News

The Podcast Section of the website has been updated with episode dates and titles for the next few months.

Note: This Is Horror has their public nomination period open until January 15th. If you like the HP Lovecast Podcast and want to show support, consider nominating the podcast for the non-fiction podcast category. Info on nominating can be found at the This Is Horror website here.

General Neo-Peplum News

Spencer Alexander McDaniel has an article online about the white domestic terrorists who stormed the Capitol last week and how they used iconography associated with ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and Germanic peoples. The article can be read at his Tales of Times Forgotten website.

Rest in Peplum

Director Steve Carver passed away at the age of 75. He directed the original version of The Arena (1974).

Hammer actress Barbara Shelley passed away at the age of 88. She was in Nero’s Weekend (1956).

John Richardson passed away at the age of 86. He appeared in lots of Italian filone, though not so much in pepla. He was however in On My Way to the Crusades, I Met a Girl Who… (1969) and One Million Years B.C. (1966).

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News

News Roundup W/E 2020-12-13

Personal / Website News

Citations for The New Peplum

I’ve finally procured a copy of The Borgia Family: Rumor and Representation and was able to confirm that Jennifer Mara DeSilva’s essay “The Secularization of Cesar Borgia and the American Motion Picture Production Code” contains my intro to The New Peplum listed in the bibliography. I’ve updated the page for The New Peplum to reflect this. The book can be found for sale at the Routledge store website.

The Borgia Family: Rumor and Representation

Dr. Hannah Mueller’s essay, “Male Nudity, Violence and the Disruption of Voyeuristic Pleasure in Starz’s Spartacus” is cited in Dr. Maria San Filippo’s book, Provocauteurs and Provocations: Screening Sex in 21st Century Media. This book can be found at the Indiana University Press bookstore.

Provocauteurs and Provocations

McFarland Sale on Viking Books

McFarland is having a sale for books about Vikings in film and pop culture. From now until December 31, if you use the code VIKINGS30 during check out, you’ll get a 30% discount. The New Peplum is part of this sale, no doubt due to the presence of Steve Nash’s excellent essay “There are no Boundaries for our Boats: Vikings and the Westernization of the Norse Saga”.

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. Ross Clare has given a presentation on Herodotus from Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey that has been published on the YouTube channel of Herodotus Helpline.

Rest in Peplum

A little late on the news for some of these folks as I’m just hearing of their passing.

Abby Dalton, perhaps best known for Falcon Crest, passed away at the age of 88 on November 23rd. She starred in The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent (1958, Roger Corman)

Romano Ghini passed away on October 25th. This guy was a prolific sword and sandal star:

  • Samson (1961, Gianfranco Parolini)
  • Triumph of Maciste (1961, Tanio Boccia)
  • The Black Invaders (1962, Franco Montemurro)
  • Fury of Achilles (1962, Marino Girolami)
  • The Fury of Hercules (1962, Gianfranco Parolini)
  • Hercules Against the Sons of the Sun (1964, Osvaldo Civirani)
  • Antony and Cleopatra (1965, Vittorio Cottafavi)

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News

News Roundup W/E 2020-11-15

Personal / Website News

Stranger Things Citation

My essay, “Lost Nights and Dangerous Days: Unraveling the Relationship Between Stranger Things and Synthwave” from Uncovering Stranger Things was cited (opens up!) in the article “GTA Vice City Created a New Wave of ’80s Nostalgia: How a video game kickstarted reverence for a decade — even for those who never lived through it” over at Super Jump.

The New Peplum Citations

The New Peplum has been cited in two essays in a new anthology published by Brill, The Modern Hercules: Images of the Hero from the Nineteenth to the Early Twenty-First Century, edited by Alastair J.L. Blanshard and Emma Stafford:

The Modern Hercules

The two essays are:

“Hercules’ Self-fashioning on Screen: Millennial Concerns and Political Dimensions” by Jean Alvares and Patricia Salzman-Mitchell

“Warriors, Murderers, Savages: Violence in Steve Moore’s Hercules: The Thracian Wars” by Katherine Lu Hsu

Unfortunately I don’t know which essays within The New Peplum these two essays cite, but as soon as I find out I’ll update the citation page accordingly.

Podcast News

New episode of H. P. Lovecast Podcast Fragments is live. This is the episode we interview Robert P. Ottone. Check it out on Buzzsprout or your podcast app of preference.

Call for Papers

The Call for Presentations for Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference is live. The CFP can be read at the StokerCon 2021 website.

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

General Neo-Peplum News

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla

The newest neo-peplum title in Ubisoft’s long running Assassin’s Creed series, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, was released this past Tuesday. Lots of news to round up.

Lakeshore records released the soundtrack via Bandcamp.

YouTube cocktail channel How2Drink has created a libation for AC:V called The Horn of Eivorr.

Blood of Zeus

Articles at Screenrant: “Blood of Zeus: 10 References to Classic Peplum Flicks You Probably Missed” and “Blood of Zeus: 5 Authentic References to Greek Mythology, 5 Things That Are Totally Made Up.”

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News

News Roundup W/E 2020-10-25

Personal / Website News

The New Peplum Citation

Dr. Claire Elizabeth Greenhalgh sites myself, Hannah Mueller, and Jerry Pierce from The New Peplum in their PhD thesis, “The Depiction of Slavery in Ancient World Television Drama: Politics, Culture and Society.” The thesis can be read here and the citation has been added to The New Peplum page.

Podcast Appearances

Michele and I interview author Janet Joyce Holden on the Scholars from the Edge of Time show.

Michele and I were interviewed on the Chatting with Sherri show. The episode will be published on 2020-10-29 at Blog Talk Radio.

Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference

The CFP for the Ann Radcliffe Academic conference is still open until the end of November. It can be viewed at the StokerCon 2021 website.

General Neo-Peplum News

New Netflix Show

Netflix premiered a new neo-peplum miniseries on Friday called Barbarians. The brief description reads: “Torn between the mighty empire that raised him and his own tribal people, a Roman officer’s conflicted allegiances lead to an epic historical clash.”

Literature

The folks at Lousy Book Covers feature a Biblical peplum book with a, well, lousy book cover: Unworthy: A Soldier. A Servant. A Savior by T. M. Hedlund.

Amy Wolf recently published The Further Labors of Nick, book 2 of their Mythos trilogy.

Immortals Fenyx Rising

A demo for Immortals Fenyx Rising is available to play online via the Stadia service. Access to the demo ends on 10/29.

Rest in Peplum

Marge Champion (better known as a model at Disney on many of their animated features) passed away at 101. She was in Jupiter’s Darling (1955, George Sidney).