Tag: Viking Metal

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Biweekly News Roundup 2023-01-29

Personal / Website News

A Game Called Quest

Digging through my archives I came across an article I wrote for my zine as part of S. T. Joshi’s Esoteric Order of Dagon APA. The article was in dire need of editing and spell checking, but it still seemed like a fun piece on retroism and sword and sorcery.

So, here it is, “Weekend Rental: 80s Sword and Sorcery and Retrogaming in A Game Called Quest.” Check it out!

Fan2Fan Podcast Appearance

Our friends at Fan2Fan podcast are doing episodes about folks’ favorite vampire movies.

My top five list can be heard here or via the embedded player below.

Nick's Favorite Vampire Movies – Fan2Fan Podcast

Michele also has an episode on her top 5 vampires which can be heard here. Sincere appreciation for Fan2Fan for having us on as guests!

Emmanuelle / Black Emanuelle CFP

The Call for Papers for Emmanuelle, Black Emanuelle, and Emmanuelle derivative films is open.

Collection of Emmanuelle comics by Guido Crepax (personal collection).

The CFP can found on this page. If you know other scholars who would be interested in this project, please share! I’d be super appreciative to get the word out.

Scholars from the Edge of Time

For our monthly appearance on Scholars from the Edge of Time, Michele and I discuss the 1959 Biblical plum film Solomon and Sheba (see below). The episode can be viewed on Hercules Invictus’ YouTube channel.

James Bond and Popular Culture Review

Michele’s book, James Bond and Popular Culture, has a brand new review online!

The review can be read at Boyce McClain’s Consumers’ and Collectors’ Corner blog. Of course, copies can be purchased over at McFarland’s product page for the book.

Forty Years a Black Metal Punk

Lex “Hugin” Karrila has an autobiography being published this year by Running Wild Productions: 40 Years a Black Metal Punk. The books covers his 40+ year musical career from his punk days to his later metal, industrial, dungeon synth, and other extreme genres with projects such as Uruk-Hai, Hrossharsgrani, BoneMachine, and many more.

Cover by Ruta Silders.

I had the honor to collaborate with Karrila on a few songs for his Ceremony of Innocence project and have done a deep analysis of his Hrossharsgrani album Pro Liberate Dimicandum Est which is part of my essay in the upcoming A Hero Will Endure collection (see below).

In conjunction with the book, a double album is being released that provides an aural sampling of Karrila’s musical career. Included on the compilation is the Ceremony of Innocence track “Our Fire Burns” which I did lyrics and vocals for, so that is very cool (note: my old website has a discography section, I might have to bring that back!).

The German edition of the book is slated to be released this April (Bandcamp page for Running Wild Productions, keep an eye there) while an English edition will be published later this year.

A Hero Will Endure Preorder

A Hero Will Endure: Essays at the Twentieth Anniversary of Gladiator is available for preorder at the Vernon Press website.

This collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling” and is slated to be released in February.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Rest in Peplum Gina Lollobrigida

Iconic Italian starlet Gina Lollobrigida passed away on the 16th this month.

My autographed 8×10 of Lollobrigida.

She didn’t star in too many historic epics, however she did star opposite of Yum Brenner in King Vidor’s Solomon and Sheba.

The barebones Blu-ray of Solomon and Sheba.

Michele and I decided to make her and this film the primary focus of our Scholars from he Edge of Time appearance this month (see above).

New Edge Sword and Sorcery Kickstarter

The folks at New Edge Sword and Sorcery will be launching a Kickstarter very soon to fund publishing of issue 1 (issue 0 can be found on Amazon).

Personal copy of issue 0.

You can sign up to be notified when the Kickstarter goes live at this link.

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Biweekly News Roundup 2022-10-23

Personal / Website News

Good day everyone! Final update for October. I hope everyone has a great upcoming Halloween!

The Many Lives of the Twilight Zone

The academic collection, The Many Lives of the Twilight Zone, edited by Kevin Wetmore and Ron Riekki has been published by McFarland and is now out in the wild!

Me!

My contributor’s copy arrived and it looks awesome. The TOC sports some great academics.

My essay is titled “Strange Realities: Twilight Zone-sploitation in Encounter with the Unknown” and is probably the most in-depth article out there on the movie. Note: this essay is eligible for various 2022 short non-fiction awards out there, so if it is a piece you enjoy, consider recommending it!

The collection is available to purchase at McFarland.

Galliano Mai Tai

I’ve got quite a handful of cocktail books from the 70s and 80s, most of them filled with recipes of a dubious nature. However, it’s fun to play cocktail archeology and try out some of the recipes in these books.

I have a new old school recipe exploration written up. It is on the Galliano Mai Tai. It can be read here.

H. P. Lovecast Transmissions

This month’s Transmissions episode for HP Lovecast will feature interviews with Erika T. Wurth and Chris Philbrook. This episode will publish on the last day of this month – Halloween!

Galactic Terrors Vidcast

Galactic Terrors is a monthly YouTube midcast from the Horror Writer Association’s New York Chapter. Each episode features three authors doing readings followed by Q/A. I’ve been invited to appear on the program, which will stream November 10th.

If you want to know more about Galactic Terrors, check out their Facebook group or have a look at their episode archive on their YouTube channel. Michele was a guest last month, so check that episode out for sure!

Miscellaneous Tidbits

New Edge Sword and Sorcery

Issue 0 of the new magazine, New Age Sword and Sorcery, it out.

Personal copy of the hardback edition.

The magazine looks like a great endeavor to make the S&S genre more inclusive. The digital copy is free (link here), while the paperback and hardback iterations are available at cost (Amazon link here). Consider plucking up a copy, show interest, so the magazine can get a great start.

Amon Amarth Album Review

Hal C. F. Astell has a new review up at his Apocalypse Later website.

It is on the Viking metal outfit Amon Amarth’s new album, The Great Heathen Army. Check it out here.

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News Roundup W/E 2021-12-19

Personal / Website News

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.

Gladiator Book Status

I received an email from my editor that the Gladiator book’s manuscript is finally in the publisher’s hands. This is fantastic news. It’s looking more optimistic that the book will be published next year and my essay, “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling,” will finally be unleashed upon the world. This is my second major contribution to peplum scholarship and I am extremely excited for this essay.

Cats: A Companion

Simon Bacon has submitted a proposal off to some publishers for a book called Cats: A Companion:

If the book gets a green light, then I’ll be contributing an essay about cats in pepla, so get ready lots of movies about lions in the arena!

General Neo-Peplum News

Horns Ablaze Magazine

Hal C. F. Astell has launched a new digital magazine called Horns Ablaze that collects his metal reviews at his Apocalypse Later website. Issue #0 is available in PDF format and contained reviews for Viking metal albums such as Enslaved’s Caravans to the Outer Worlds, Nidhoeggr’s Arise, and Aexylium’s The Fifth Season. Bonus: there’s even an advert for our own H. P. Lovecast Podcast in the magazine!

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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 2021-11-21

Personal / Website News

Eaters of the Dead

Kevin Wetmore’s newest book, Eaters of the Dead: Myths and Realities of Cannibal Monsters, has just been published by Reaktion Books.

We interviewed Dr. Wetmore about this book on episode 6 of our H. P. Lovecast: Transmissions podcast, which can be streamed at Buzzsprout. Michele and I are honored that we are both mentioned in the acknowledgments of the book – thank you so very much Dr. Wetmore!

Exotica Moderne #13

Issue #13 of Exotica Moderne is out now!

This contains my review of the book Cuban Cocktails. The magazine can be ordered at the House of Tabu website.

General Neo-Peplum News

Nidhoeggr Arise Review

Hal C. F. Astell has reviewed the new Nidhoegger album, Arise, at his Apocalypse Later website.

Nidhoegger sounds like a mixture of folk metal and Viking metal. Since I’ve just got done doing my Vikings presentation at MAPACA, I am kinda in a Viking metal mood, so I’ll definitely be checking this out.

Fascist Receptions of Antiquity in Metal Music

Dr. Swist gave a talk at Harvard back in October called “Fascist Receptions of Antiquity in Metal Music.”

That presentation has been uploaded to YouTube can be be watched here or in the embedded link above.

The Bible on Film 40th Anniversary Retrospective

Matt Page will be doing a retrospective on Richard H. Campbell and Michael R. Pitts book, The Bible on Film: A Checklist 1897-1980 at his Bible Films Blog. He’s planning a series of posts to celebrate the book, including an interview with one of the authors, so keep checking his website.

Recent Acquisitions

While at Barnes & Noble today I plucked up two items of interest.

The first is a National Geographic issue devoted to gladiators, which should be an interested research piece.

The next is a hardback edition of Lore Olympus. I became aware of the webcomic way back in 2019 when I was covering the Eisners for Fanbase Press (my overview of the webcomic Eisner nominees can be read here) and I fell in love with the neo-peplum aspects and the art style. However, I only read it back in 2019 but lost track. Now with this hardback I can submerge myself with the comic.