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Dark Orbits

Dark Orbits

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Space vampires!

Barbarian babes!

Psychedelic murder!

Dark Orbits is an animated science fiction series brimming with so many ideas that a rift had to be opened to another universe just to make room for them all. The only thing more amazing than the fact that this whole series is apparently produced by one person is the number of Youtube views it’s garnered. And by that I mean … way too few. Seriously, the first episode, Arrival, hasn’t even broken the 1,000 mark. The number of subscribers hasn’t even broken the 500 mark.

And this is absolutely the sort of show I’ve wanted to see for years. There are shades of Aeon Flux, Ralph Bakshi, and 1981’s Heavy Metal in every episode. What’s it about? Like Aeon Flux, the series is largely dialogue-free, leaving the viewer to work out exactly what’s going on. But basically, a rift in spacetime has been opened near an alien planet. Ships drawing too close to the rift encounter … strangeness. Meanwhile, inhabitants on the planet’s surface have to deal with all of these bizarre visitors.

Like Heavy Metal, there are several different stories and each episode focuses on either the spaceship crew sent to investigate the rift, the primitive pseudo-Amazon tribes on the planet’s surface, or what appear to be several different alien vampire cults vying for hosts. After ten episodes, there are hints of how the stories are connected, making it a series that rewards repeat viewing.

As for the animation, I have trouble believing that this series was done by one person, since the quality is consistently high. The animation style lends itself to action-focused storylines with bizarre alien creatures. Nothing is meant to look realistic and the plot, music, and animation come together to give the whole thing a dreamy, trippy vibe.

If you just want a taste, check out the promo trailer. The whole series (ten episodes at the time of this article) can be viewed back to back in less than an hour’s time. While it’s free on Youtube, you can also support the creator through Patreon. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Hammer Horror Historicals!

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Hammer Horror Historicals!

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Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960)

Hammer Films was a London studio founded in 1934, but it didn’t really make much of a mark until the mid-Fifties, when they hit their stride with a revival of the Gothic horror genre. With dependable leads in Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and (later) Oliver Reed, they just about owned the horror category from 1955 through 1965 but were successful enough to branch out into other genres as well, including historical swashbucklers, all with that distinctive Hammer look and feel. Let’s take a look at how they did with outlaw rogues, pirates, cavaliers, and roundheads. Batten down the hatches, it’s Christopher Lee in an eyepatch, swabs!

Sword of Sherwood Forest

Rating: ****
Origin: U.K., 1960
Director: Terence Fisher
Source: Columbia Pictures DVD

For a low-budget movie made by a small studio just establishing its style — the U.K.’s Hammer Films — this is quite good. The marquee draw is Richard Greene as Robin Hood, coming off his four-season star turn in the same role on the popular Adventures of… TV show; at the time, starring in a feature film, even a modest one, carried far more prestige than even a hit television series, so in some ways this movie is the capstone of Greene’s career. However, this is a standalone Robin Hood movie whose story is unconnected with the show, and none of the other TV cast members appear in it — which is a bit of a shame, because their replacements in the corresponding parts aren’t always better. There’s one conspicuous exception: Hammer stalwart Peter Cushing plays the Sheriff of Nottingham, and his cold, blue stare brings a menace to the role never seen in the TV show. Indeed, the tone of this production is two shades darker than that of the series, grimmer and with higher stakes.

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Rogue Blades Presents: All Good Things Must Come to a … Change!

Rogue Blades Presents: All Good Things Must Come to a … Change!

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All good things must come to an end. Sort of. Kind of. But not exactly.

This will be my last Rogue Blades article for Black Gate. This doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere. No. One of my articles will still be here every other Friday. And no, I’m not stepping down as vice president of the Rogue Blades Foundation, a non-profit which focuses on all things heroic, especially heroic literature.

What is changing is that the Rogue Blades Foundation and its for-profit publishing side, Rogue Blades Entertainment, will be coming together on a new Web site, Rogue Blades. The new site will not only feature news about both sides of this publishing venture, but will also present weekly articles from a variety of writers, including myself. So I’ll be penning articles about the heroic over at Rogue Blades.

As for my future here at Black Gate, as mentioned above, I’ll keep writing articles here, but now I’ll have more freedom to write about other topics, many which might be related to heroic literature but not necessarily.

As for what I’ll be writing here, I’ve a number of subjects I’d like to cover. For instance, I’ve long been a fan of Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct police procedural novels, and I’m considering a series on each of those books, though at 55 novels and a handful of shorter works, I have to admit that’s a rather daunting task. Other subjects I’d like to tackle are older tabletop role playing games that don’t see as much love as I’d like; Dungeons & Dragons is well covered online and even Star Frontiers has received some recent love here at Black Gate, but I’d like to take a look back at such games as Dragonquest, Lords of Creation, Car Wars and the original Deadlands, plus others as they come to mind. It’s also possible, even likely, I’ll sometimes write about fiction I’m reading or movies or shows I’m watching.

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Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: 2020 Stay at Home – Days 16 and 17

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: 2020 Stay at Home – Days 16 and 17

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So, last year, as the Pandemic settled in like an unwanted relative who just came for a week and is still tying up the bathroom, I did  a series of posts for the FB Page of the Nero Wolfe fan club, The Wolfe Pack. I speculated on what Stay at Home would be like for Archie, living in the Brownstone with Nero Wolfe, Fritz Brenner, and Theodore Hortsmann. I have already reposted days one through fifteen. Here are days sixteen (April 6) and seventeen (April 7). It helps if you read the series in order, so I’ve included links to the earlier entries. I enjoy channeling Archie more than any other writing which I do.

DAY SIXTEEN– 2020 Stay at Home

Wolfe came down from the plant rooms at the usual time Monday morning, preceded by the sounds of the elevator straining under his one-seventh of a ton. As always, he glanced at me as he walked to his desk, fresh orchid in hand. “Good morning-” He stopped. “WHAT is that?”

I intentionally muffled my voice. “It’s a mask.”

He continued to his desk, placed the orchid in the vase and sat down. “I know it is a mask. What is this flummery?”

I spoke normally. “Flummery? No, sir. You are one of the most atypical human beings on the planet. How do I know you’re not also asymptomatic as well? We spend hours across from each other, here and in the dining room.”

He frowned at me.

“You know, I was on the fence about this thing. It certainly detracts from my charming good looks. Not that anybody is really seeing them nowadays. But then I saw that our very own President, immediately after saying that his administration recommended wearing them, said he wasn’t going to do so himself, without anything resembling a valid reason. That was all I needed, so I voted yes.”

“Perhaps you could find one that mutes you as well.”

I gave him a sarcastic grin, which I then realized was completely wasted under the mask. I sat quietly after that, working on some germination records, and then reading the paper. Wolfe couldn’t seem to get comfortable in his chair, and he snuck glances at me, which I ignored, every so often. He could not get past the mask. Frankly, I was getting a little tired of just sitting there wearing it. But I wasn’t about to take it off.

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Rogue Blades Presents: The Search for Heroes Never Ends

Rogue Blades Presents: The Search for Heroes Never Ends

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The Howard House in Cross Plains, Texas.

Nearly three years ago I had the fun of spending a month driving across country in the U.S. with my girlfriend and her son. We started off in North Carolina, then made our way to Atlanta, through Alabama and down to New Orleans before heading further west to Houston and Austin before spending four days in Cross Plains, Texas, for Robert E. Howard Days 2018. From there we drove to Roswell, New Mexico, popped down to Tombstone, Arizona, for a few days and then went on our way to San Diego. From there we visited the Grand Canyon, spent some time in Las Vegas, and headed back through the beautiful state of Utah before spending a day in St. Louis. Then it was back through my home state of Kentucky and back to North Carolina through Tennessee.

In many ways this was a trip of a lifetime, and along the way I re-discovered a few things about myself. First of all, this trip brought back to me just how much I love book stores, especially used bookstores, antiquity bookstores, and regional bookstores that offer the unique. There’s nothing more I love than spending hours scouring through shelves upon shelves in hunt of the unknown. Often enough I had no particular books in mind on this trip, but allowed myself the joy of discovering books I had forgotten about or had not even known existed, or even books I had known about but were out of print and I had never expected to find one during my lifetime. The search was the thing, even if I wasn’t searching for anything in particular.

Secondly, this trip reminded me just how much I love heroes, for in many ways this trip was more than a vacation. It was a journey, an epic adventure to discover heroes, mostly heroes known to me, some heroes forgotten and recalled. Originally I didn’t set out on this trip to discover heroes, but the longer I was on the road, the more heroes I came across.

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The Many Worlds of Dungeons & Dragons (Fifth Edition, that is)

The Many Worlds of Dungeons & Dragons (Fifth Edition, that is)

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When I began playing Dungeons & Dragons as a teen in the early 1990’s, my initial few games were played in homebrew worlds of the Dungeonmaster’s creation. And, while this has always been a popular part of Dungeons & Dragons, it wasn’t long until I became enamored with the established worlds that were officially sanctioned and supported by setting materials, nor was I the only one. These worlds have been the setting of countless adventures throughout the decades.

For me, the first D&D world I fell in love with was Krynn, the world that is the basis of the Dragonlance storyline. The first trilogy of novels that introduce the world, Chronicles, is a solid adventure, but I could at times almost feel the dice rolling in the background of the combat encounters. The follow-up trilogy, Legends, has a completely different feel, with a much deeper and personal storyline, time travel, complex morality, and an overall that I was surprised to find in novels that were in a tie-in series. I’ve since read some great tie-in literature (see, for example, my reviews of the Pathfinder Tales novels by James L. Sutter, Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine), but Legends continues to stand out. And, in terms of adventure, the unusual Dark Sun setting made for some of the most memorable adventures of my teenage years.

These settings were released in AD&D 2nd Edition in the form of setting boxes, with adventures and rulebooks that gave the specific information needed to design characters and campaigns. The current edition of Dungeons & Dragons hasn’t begun releasing similar setting boxes, but they have released supplements spanning a variety of gaming worlds … though not spanning all of their traditional worlds (yet!).

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The Burroughs Boom

The Burroughs Boom

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Pages from In Part Scal’d: The 1963 Fan Poll Results, published by Dick Eney

Back in the 1960’s, the publishing world experienced a Burroughs boom.  Following Edgar Rice Burroughs’ death in 1950, the next decade saw his works fading from public view, with most out of print.  That all changed in 1962, when several publishers realized that many of Burroughs earlier works were now public domain. Donald Wollheim of Ace perhaps took the greatest advantage of this, swiftly flooding the market with paperback reprints of Burroughs books, sporting great covers by Roy Krenkel and Frank Frazetta. This caused ERB, Inc. to look into their properties, and they soon inked deals with various publishers to bring out authorized editions of Burroughs’ works, including Ballantine for the Tarzan and Mars series and Ace for the Venus and Pellucidar series.

According to Life magazine, in 1962 the Tarzan novels being reprinted in paperback were runaway best-sellers.  That year, Burroughs books sold more than 10 million copies – roughly 1/30th of the total of all paperback sales for the year.

In going through some vintage fanzines and other fan publications a few months ago, I came across a copy of In Part Scal’d: The 1963 Fan Poll Results published by Dick Eney.  Inside was a two page article by Dick Lupoff, who recently passed away.  Among his other achievements, Lupoff was a significant figure in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ publishing (including through his editorial work at Canaveral Press, which brought many ERB works out in hardcover) and scholarship.

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A Writer’s Year – 2020

A Writer’s Year – 2020

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BGers in 2019 – seems like a LONG time ago

And so 2020 comes, mercifully, to an end. We all dealt with issues that impacted our lives – beyond just ‘The Pandemic.’ In January, my wife and I separated. I also left my job of twelve years. December brought a dissolution to start the month, and a hard drive failure to finish it (and no, even though I’ve had two of them fail before, I still didn’t adequately back things up – I’m working on fixing that). For much of 2020, the Pandemic was actually my fourth-biggest daily concern. What a year!

But as you read this, 52 Monday mornings have come and gone, and my byline was there every week. With literally every single part of my life turned upside down, I didn’t miss a deadline. I managed to run A (Black) Gat in the Hand for the third straight year. With some help from various talented friends, we’re up to 68 installments. (Black) Gat is something of an adopted child here at the World Fantasy Award-winning Black Gate, but I think it’s a great addition to the world of hardboiled commentary. I can pretty much guarantee it will be back in 2021.

Discovering Robert E. Howard, and Hither Came Conan, were outstanding series’ in which I gathered a bunch of friends, old and new, to share their expertise and comments, on Robert E. Howard topics. In late 2019, I had started recruiting folks for a similar series featuring the novels of my all-time favorite writer: John D. MacDonald (REH is number two).

But then my home and work life exploded like a nuclear bomb (January really was an apocalyptic month), and that project fell by the wayside. Like those movie projects which are set to go, then hit a major road bump and simply never recover (like DiCaprio’s Travis McGee project), I don’t know if I’ll get that back on track. But I’d still like to. I think that John MacD is one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century – in any genre.

And after that series was queued up and ready to go, the plan was for another group-REH series. Hither Came Conan was going to be succeeded by Flintlocks & Rapiers: Solomon Kane. Another gathering of knowledgeable REH folks were going to each be assigned a Kane story, and ruminate on what was good (and maybe a little not-so-good). But, as mentioned above, 2020 didn’t follow the script.

With my personal 2021 looking a lot less seismic, I’m weighing that project for Black Gate. The Kane Canon is chock full of interesting elements. It’s sword and sorcery. And it’s fantastic; if not exactly ‘fantasy.’ It’s REH doing it his way. I think I might be able to get this one at least underway in 2021. I want to highlight Kane (I’m a bigger Kane, than Kull, fan).

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19 Movies Presents A Welcome To 2021 Mini-Concert For Your Listening Pleasure

19 Movies Presents A Welcome To 2021 Mini-Concert For Your Listening Pleasure

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I’m doing something different this time around, a mini-concert of music videos to help ring in a new and hopefully better year. You don’t need me to tell you how all-around lousy 2020 was, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully the tunnel is not too much longer. All these videos are for one reason or another, important to me. Some are well-known, with millions of views, some are obscure. Some are both. (You’ll see.) I hope you all enjoy some of them as much as I have.

First up, BRRRUUUUCCCEE, with a fantastic live performance of NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER as kind a defiant send-off to last year, and also a hopeful anthem for the year to come. With some completely unexpected on-stage guest performers.

Next is a pair of videos that are in the way of public service announcements for fairly recent projects which should be called to your attention. One of the first movie posts I did mentioned a film called STREETS OF FIRE that I guess you’d say is something of a cult film. Shout Factory has done a recent Bluray release that has unsurpassed in clarity and quality. See for yourself.

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Rogue Blades Author: Robert E. Howard: A European Perspective

Rogue Blades Author: Robert E. Howard: A European Perspective

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The following is an excerpt from Michael Moorcock’s essay for Robert E. Howard Changed My Life, an upcoming book from the Rogue Blades Foundation.

Robert E. Howard wrote directly in a tradition going back to the first great American hero Natty Bumppo and the first great American novelist, Fenimore Cooper, who shared the same puritanical suspicion of ‘civilization’ and authority with Conan and most of Howard’s other heroes. Based firmly on the legend of Daniel Boone, already fictionalized in broadsheets and shilling shockers published everywhere in America and Europe, the Romantic American was soon established as a popular figure of fiction and folklore. Indeed, on occasions the American ‘noble savage’ often sold better in what would be considered over-civilized European nations than he did in his native land (where the reality might have been at closer proximity to readers in Saint Louis and Memphis than to those in London or Moscow). This explained the massive bestsellers featuring ‘free spirits’ often found in the Gothic novels which were frequently selling at the same time! Romance of this kind would often be pilloried by more sophisticated authors of the day but not by the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson, Alexandre Dumas or Karl May (whose Old Shatterhand continued his career, like the others, in films well into the 20th century).

After Mowgli, Tarzan, of course, was probably the most famous popular noble savage to sniff warily at the over-fed minions of a greedy and uncaring civilization and indeed, until he was rather poorly translated into a variety of romance languages in particular, Conan was not widely well-known in Europe outside Britain (where Howard’s A Gent from Bear Creek had been published in 1937) until the 1970s via his Marvel Comics incarnations. In fact, he became better known in the UK than he was in the US, thanks to a young man in London named Tom Boardman, a popular figure at English fantastica conventions during the 1950s and ’60s, who had begun his career in his father’s firm at a very young age. His father liked publishing Westerns and Western comics in a very recognizable style, including a yearly hardback Buffalo Bill Annual with one distinctive artist doing all the drawing and writing all the scripts. He published through the Woolworth chain of stores a sepia reprint version of full-color comics from the Fawcett publishing chain. These fantasy comics revealed a niche in the market. He began to put out Captain Marvel, Ibis, Bulletman and a whole range of ‘science heroes,’ superheroes, and wizards. As a schoolboy I bought his publications wherever I could find them.

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