Tag: The Void

Categories
News

News Roundup W/E 2021-12-05

Personal / Website News

Bram Stoker Award Eligibility

A reminder, as the timeframe for recommendations closes at the end of the month, my essay, “Cullzathro Fhtagn! Magnifying the Carnivalesque in Lovecraft through the Comic Book Series Vinegar Teeth” is eligible for the short non-fiction Bram Stoker award. Interested parties can read the 1,600 word essay at Academia Letters. Thank you for your consideration!

Citation News: Any Time But Now

Just discovered that back in 2019, my Stranger Things/Synthwave essay, “Lost Nights and Dangerous Days,” was cited numerous times in University of Cologne student David Hornyak’s bachelor’s thesis, “Any Time But Now: The Cultural Environment of Synthwave.” If you read German, their thesis can be read online. I am super flattered to find out I was cited 15 times!

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.

Ian Welke’s Jolabokaflod’s List

Honoured to have my book, The New Peplum, listed as a suggestion of Ian Welke’s blog as a book to contribute to the Jolabokaflod tradition. Michele and I interviewed Welke in April of 2020 on our Scholars from the Edge of Time Program, and then discussed his book, End Times at Ridgemont High on our H. P. Lovecast Podcast a month later.

PeplumTV Mention

The New Peplum gets a mention at PeplumTV. The PeplumTV proprietor is compiling a list of the various sword and sandal books and e-books in their collection, and they include mine. Check it out!

ICYMI – New HP Lovecast Episode

In case you missed it, Michele and I published a new episode of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast.

Michele at The Frida when we saw The Void back in 2016. Photo by Nicholas Diak.

Our new episode is on the cosmic horror/homage horror film, The Void. It can be streamed on our Buzzsprout website or your podcast app of preference.

General Neo-Peplum News

Aexylium’s The Fifth Season Review

Hal C. F. Astell has reviewed the new Aexylium folk/Viking metal album, The Fifth Season, at his website, Apocalypse Later.

Medusa Horror Film

Per this article at Deadline, Anna Chazelle is looking to write and direct a horror film centered on the mythology of Medusa for Fangoria Films. This will be great!

Heavy Metal & Global Premodernity Conference

Dr. Jeremy Swist will be curating a virtual conference called Heavy Metal & Global Premodernity.

Registration for the conference is free and is being held via Zoom.

Recent Acquisitions

Went to the Book Gallery in Phoenix today and plucked up this autographed book:

It’s called Gladiator: Fight for Freedom and appears to be the first book in a series. I’d never heard of Simon Scarrow before, but it looks like he has a fare share of neo-pepla fiction out there, so I’ll have to check it out. I love the autograph and the stamp in this one. Copy 50 of 100, woo!

Categories
News

News Roundup W/E 2021-11-28

Personal / Website News

H. P. Lovecast – The Void

Brand new episode of H. P. Lovecraft Presents: Fragments is online!

We start our 80s theme by diving into the film, The Void. The episode can be streamed at our Buzzsprout website or on your. podcast app of preference.

Citation News

My essay, “Meteor Madness: Lovecraftian Horror and Consumerism in the Battle for Small Town USA” which appeared in Michele’s Bram Stoker nominated collection, Horror in Space: Critical Essays on a Film Subgenre, looks to have its first citation, and in an unexpected book at that! Lisa Swanstrom references my essay in her essay, “From Protoplastics to the Plastiglomerate: Science Fiction’s Shifting Synthetic Sensibilities” which appears in the book Life in Plastic: Artistic Responses to Petromodernity.

The book can be pre-ordered at the University of Minnesota Press website. And, of course, Horror in Space, can be purchased at McFarland.

Band of Warriors #2 Interview

I interviewed Samuel George London about the second issue of his neo-peplum comic, Band of Warriors, which can be read here. You can also read my first interview with him here.

General Neo-Peplum News

Bible Films Blog: Retrospective of The Bible on Film

Matt Page has begun his retrospective of The Bible on Film: A Checklist 1897 – 1980 at his Bible Films Blog.

Photo by Matt Page

First he has an interview with one of the authors, Richard H. Campbell. Next he has a list of ten factoids and trivia about the book. Keep checking back at the Bible Films Blog for more articles!

Recent Acquisitions

It was a Black Friday weekend and I decided to head to Zia’s Records and search around for any cool finds. I did come back with am armful of neo-pepla media that perhaps will make it onto my website as an essay or review or something!

First, here is a Blu-Ray for Ruggero Deodato’s The Barbarians. I am a fan of Deodato’s non-cannibal films, with Cut and Run being my favourite. This Italio sword-n-sorcery flick has been on my wish list to watch for a long time.

Michele and I went to the metal section, and working from both ends, tried to find any metal albums that had the most peplum-looking covers as possible. We wound up finding three along with the Gladiator soundtrack.

I only took a quick listen of all three albums, and none of them are really my cup of tea metal-wise (I prefer power metal and adventure metal personally) but all are pretty fascinating, at least from my nursery listen and looking at the art.

Stillbirth’s Revive the Throne has crazy cover art that is a gory parody, complete with pop culture cameos, of Gérôme’s Pollice Verso. Guttural death metal isn’t my thing, but I am digging that cover. Dark Quarterer’s Pompei also has great art, but the prog-rock vocals are a little too old school for me. I was really optimistic for Upon This Dawning’s To Keep Us Safe for some odd reason, but again, metal core not my cup of tea, but I dig the Spartans on the cover and I am not detecting the usual right-wing/eugenic nonsense on this album as found in other Sparta-centric projects/albums.

Categories
News

News Roundup W/E 2021-11-07

Personal / Website News

The Best Horror of the Year Volume 13

Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical Essays, the academic anthology that Michele and I edited that is based on presentations from the first two years of our Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference, is listed in the non-fiction section of Ellen Datlow’s book, The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 13.

The book can be pre-ordered at Amazon.

Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association Conference

I’ll be presenting a paper called “Victory Or Valhalla: Violence via Vikings Sampling in Acylum’s Kampf Dem Verderb” at this year’s MAPACA conference.

I am scheduled to present Thursday the 11th at 3:15 pm. I am not sure if the Zoom link to it is public or not, but here it is: https://zoom.us/j/94879057020?pwd=MzRjWEZwVDB2UnZ1Q2JqZ0pIU2F1QT09. More information about the conference can be found at the MAPACA website.

H. P. Lovecast Podcast in November

For November we will be doing an 80s-themed month for the H. P. Lovecast Podcast. We will be watching the film, The Void, and then looking at the Raw Dog Screaming Press anthology, Attack from the 80s. Keep an eye out for these episodes at our Buzzsprout website or on your podcast app of preference.

NanoWriMo

Michele is doing NanoWriMo! She’s working on a novel called Land of the Riverbank.

If you want to support her or follow her progress, her username is Mbrittany at the NanoWriMo website.

General Neo-Peplum News

Band of Warriors #2 Kickstarter

Samuel George London has officially launched the Kickstarter to fund issue #2 of his neo-peplum comic series, Band of Warriors.

I had the honor to interview London back in January. Stay tuned to this website for a follow up interview about issue #2. In the meantime, check out the Kickstarter campaign for the second issue.

Recent Aquisitions

Here are some new sword and sandal and neo-peplum artifacts I’ve procured.

Physical releases of sword and sandal films are drying up. These used to be very plentiful in the 2000s and early 2010s from budget companies. However, these mostly skipped the Blu-ray format and now exist on YouTube in even worse edits. Had an opportunity to pick up this 50 movie back of sword and sandal films which plugs a lot of gaps on my collection.

I really enjoyed Warkings’ Revolution that I bought from Zia’s Records a few weeks ago. I decided to buy their first two albums, Reborn and Revenge. Very nice power metal, though the lyrics at times are a little silly.