Black Gate

I just stumbled upon this spin on a subscription plan to support Clarkesworld Magazine, which has been providing its content online for the past three years. For a $10 or more donation, you can become a citizen; although the privileges of citizenship are still being defined, the folks at Clarkesworld suggest it might include discounts on their print publications, as well as the satisfaction of supporting an endeavor that publishes authors such as, in the current January issue, Peter Watts and Megan Arkenberg. Clarkesworld hopes to naturalize 400 citizens out of the 10,000 or so it counts as regular readers to reach its financial goals.

On another note, Torque Control has published the 2009 BSFA (British Science Fiction Association) Awards shortlist. The nominees for short fiction are:

“Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” by Eugie Foster (Interzone 220)
The Push by Dave Hutchinson (Newcon Press)
“Johnnie and Emmie-Lou Get Married” by Kim Lakin-Smith (Interzone 222)
“Vishnu at the Cat Circus” by Ian McDonald (in Cyberabad Days, Gollancz)
“The Beloved Time of Their Lives” [pdf link] by Ian Watson and Roberto Quaglia (in The Beloved of My Beloved, Newcon Press)
“The Assistant” by Ian Whates (in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction 3, ed. George Mann)

I just saw some news via SFSignal and SciFi Squad about plans to create and animated version of Harlan Ellison’s A Boy and His Dog, with a tentative 2012 ETA. As a fan of the Hugo-winning 1975 film with Don Johnson (yes really, Don Johnson) and the original Nebula-winning Ellison novella, I think this could be a terrific project. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it’s a post-apocalyptic tale featuring a misogynist young man and his super-intelligent telepathic dog, with a skewed, satirical edge that one expects from the best Ellison.

It isn’t really clear if the film, to be helmed by David Lee Miller, is taking the original 1975 script as its starting point, or planning a fresh adaptation of the Ellison novella. Either way my rule of thumb has always been that the more post-apocalyptic films, and the more movies based on works of the giants of the field, the better off we as a society are. Plus it just looks cool.

To read earlier chapters:

– Type SKULLS into the search field at the left and the earlier chapters will pop up. Enjoy…

For best viewing:

– Scroll to the right to see the entire comic page

– Hit your F11 key to maximize your viewing area

– Scroll down to read from page to page

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Hi, All,

The first three chapters of the SKULLS webcomic are available for reading right now.

Just type SKULLS into the “Search” field to the left and all three chapters will pop up.

Chapter 4 goes live this Wednesday, with 7 more chapters to follow, one each Wednesday after that.

Cheers,

John R. Fultz

R.E. Howard and Conan made the Wall Street Journal back in 2006, courtesy of John J Miller, who also profiled our friend Howard A. Jones.

From Pen To Sword

(Mr. Miller’s recent debut novel, The First Assassin, is a fine Civil War historical thriller.)

This past week I saw both Avatar and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Now, ordinarily, you might be struck by the special effects of the latter (I particularly like the scene where Tom Waits as the devil unfurls his umbrella and casually steps off a cliff, at which point little white clouds appear to support each of his steps so he doesn’t plummet to the ground), except now it (and maybe everything else) pales in comparison to Avatar, which is as visually stunning as all the hype suggests, assuming  all you expect from going to a movie is a cool light show. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But, for my money, the better movie, even with its flaws is The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.  Why?

Because it has a story. Moreover, it celebrates the whole idea of story.

Yeah, sure, Avatar has a story. A simplistic one that’s 1) predictable, 2) done better before (Apocolypse Now, not to mention that movie’s source material, Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”),  and 3) largely besides the point since it exists solely to prop up the computer-generated world-building that is virtually (that’s the key word here) indistinguishable from real people. The Imaginarium, with all its fantastic images (e.g., a horse drawn coach which is bigger on the inside than the outside dimensions, as well as a cartoonish fantasy land — i.e., the Imaginarium — entered via a cheap stage mirror), is not trying to persuade you (or trick you) of a convincing depiction of reality, but rather it is trying to convince you just how shaky “real” reality is. The special effects are in the service of the story — which is all about the importance of stories, a theme you might expect from director Terry Gilliam — not the other way around, as you expect from director James Cameron.

While The Imaginarium also tells a familiar story of the deal with the devil, the power and humor of the storytelling (in other words, the humanity of it) makes us want to hear (see) it all over again. It seeks to show us that life is a sometimes dangerous funhouse comprising smoke and mirrors that maybe sometimes we can manage to peer beyond into the depths of our selves; not rely on smoke and mirrors to fool us into an experience primarily concerned with making us forget ourselves for a few hours before we have to leave the movie theater and return to humdrum everyday existence.

“One of the greatest monster epics of all time!”  

— Cover text from Supernatural Thrillers #3, 1973

The work of Robert E. Howard inspired a lot of great comics. Yet one of Howard’s more obscure tales served as the basis for what just might be the best REH-inspired comic ever made: Supernatural Thrillers #3 featuring “Valley of the Worm.”

When it comes to sword-and-sorcery comics, Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian set the gold standard by adapting Howard’s most famous creation with roaring success. Roy Thomas, who was helping Stan Lee run Marvel Comics in the late 60s, had the idea to adapt a swashbuckling, sword-swinging pulp character into comics. Little did Roy realize at the time he was inventing a whole new genre of comics. Conan the Barbarian’s success spawned a glut of sword-and-sorcery comics including Howard’s other famous barbarian Kull the Conquerer. There was also Claw the Unconquered, Beowulf, Thongor of Lemuria, Warlord, Red Sonja, and plenty of others. It even spawned a line of black-and-white “mature readers” magazines so the barbaric battles could be seen in all their gory splendor, and the comely maidens could go unclad whenever they pleased.

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