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Blogging Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Part Nine – “The Tusk Men of Mongo”

Blogging Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Part Nine – “The Tusk Men of Mongo”

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tusk-men-12flash“The Tusk Men of Mongo” was the ninth installment of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon Sunday comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally printed between February 7 and April 18, 1937, “The Tusk Men of Mongo” picks up the storyline where the eighth installment, “The Forest Kingdom of Mongo” left off with Flash and Dale unknowingly venturing into Tusk Men territory. The Tusk Men are a Neanderthal-like race of blue-skinned men with prehensile tails. They live in tribes and have fashioned crude tools such as axes. One of their scouts spies Flash and Dale and despite Flash carrying a makeshift spear, they are quickly overwhelmed by five of the Tusk Men.

Flash and Dale are bound and led many miles away to a vast network of caves where the Tusk Men dwell. There, we learn that the Tusk Men can speak a simple form of English as well as their own bestial language, and that they are cannibals who have captured Flash and Dale to devour them. The tribe is ruled by One-Tusk who claims Dale for his mate. Dale pleads for Flash’s life is to be spared to no avail. Just as he is about to be pitched into the flames, Flash breaks free of his bonds and fights against his captors. The Tusk Men greatly outnumber him and the Earth man is quickly recaptured. Death appears unavoidable.

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Marvin Kaye to Edit Weird Tales

Marvin Kaye to Edit Weird Tales

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weird-tales-358Marvin Kaye, author and editor of 28 genre anthologies, including Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies, Masterpieces of Terror and the Unknown, and the World Fantasy award-winning The Fair Folk, has reportedly purchased Weird Tales from John Betancourt of Wildside Press, with the intention of editing it himself.

Current editor Ann VanderMeer reported the news on her blog:

I am very sad to have to tell you that my editorship at Weird Tales, which has included one Hugo Award win and three Hugo Award nominations, is about to come to an end. The publisher, John Betancourt of Wildside Press, is selling the magazine to Marvin Kaye. Kaye is buying the magazine because he wants to edit it himself. He will not be retaining the staff from my tenure. I wish him the best with the different direction he wants to pursue, including his first, Cthulhu-themed issue. The current issue of Weird Tales is #358, just published. My last issue will be #359, which Kaye plans to publish in February…

The past five years reading fiction for Weird Tales magazine has been an honor for me. I had a blast doing this but I have also contributed to the canon of “the weird tale”— a responsibility I take seriously, not only for the readers of today, but for the readers of tomorrow. This iconic magazine originally blazed a trail for new approaches to dark fantastical fiction, and I did my best to return to that legacy.

Technically the Weird Tales name is owned by Robert Weinberg and Victor Dricks, who purchased it in the late 1970s, and who have licensed it to multiple publishers over the past three decades, including Terminus Publications, DNA Publications, and Wildside Press.

While VanderMeer’s tenure at Weird Tales was occasionally controversial — especially among sword & sorcery fans — she took some brave risks with the magazine. With Stephen H. Segal she presided over an ambitious and successful redesign in 2007, brought home the first Hugo Award in the history of the magazine in 2009, and she assumed his post as editor-in-chief when Segal departed in January of last year. I thought she did a fine job, and she will be missed.

On the other hand, always glad to see a good Cthulhu-themed issue. I’m looking forward to seeing where Kaye intends to sail with Weird Tales.  I expect it will be places both strange and familiar.

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Venus, Part 1: Pirates of Venus

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Venus, Part 1: Pirates of Venus

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pirates-of-venus-first-edition-coverNext year brings the hundredth anniversary of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s first two published novels: A Princess of Mars and Tarzan of the Apes, as well as a big-budget film version of A Princess of Mars from Disney. (The film is saddled with the unfortunately bland title of John Carter. Fear of a Red Planet?) The effect these novels had on popular cultural was immense: they created a whole medium, they altered the nature of reading for pleasure. Pulp magazines existed before Edgar Rice Burroughs had the idea he could write better than the tripe found in the publications where he was working to place ads; but it was the success of first Under the Moons of Mars (the serial title for A Princess of Mars) and then Tarzan of the Apes in 1912 that made the pulps into the artillery of the Reader Revolution. The pulps turned the U.S. into a nation of readers, and ERB fired the first two shots in the revolution.

Then, twenty years into the revolution, he fired off the few rounds of his “Venus” series.

I have planned some festivities for the upcoming centenary of the Burroughs Upheaval. One is an ambitious project I have wanted to try on Black Gate for the last two years. But as a prologue to my 2012 ERB projects here in 2011, I’ve chosen to present a look at Burroughs’s least popular series, the last one he started before his death.

These posts will have a different structure from my usual free-form analysis style. Inspired by columns I’ve seen on the movie review sites I frequent (particularly “Franchise Me” on CHUD.com), I’ve laid out a template for tackling each of the five installments of the Edgar Rice Burroughs “Venus Saga.” An experiment? Or an admission that trying to go academic on this series feels like the wrong approach? I’m not sure myself, but here it goes….

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IT’S ONLY PULP: A Fair and Balanced Review of CONAN THE BARBARIAN (2011)

IT’S ONLY PULP: A Fair and Balanced Review of CONAN THE BARBARIAN (2011)

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conan2Friends, Bloggers, Conan Fans, lend me your ears! I come not to defend the new CONAN movie, but to present an informal overview that examines what works and what doesn’t work. To begin, I’ve seen a lot better movies … and I’ve seen a LOT worse movies.

First, let’s consider the source: Robert E. Howard is a largely respected fantasy author by today’s standards. However, that was not the case in the 20s and 30s when he was publishing his lurid pulp adventure stories in WEIRD TALES and similar pulp magazines of the time. In Howard’s day, pulp fiction was considered “trash,” and it was treated accordingly. Sex and violence were common ingredients in a good pulp tale, and Howard’s work is definitely full of both. However, what was considered obscene in the Pulp Era seems rather tame compared to the graphic sex and violence we see in today’s media. You can look at this in two ways: Either we as a society have gotten less uptight about certain subjects, or we have become a more depraved society. It’s all a matter of perspective. And as many philosphers will tell you, perspective is reality.

The new CONAN THE BARBARIAN film isn’t exactly a remake, but it does borrow its revenge motif from the original (and superior) John Milius CONAN film from 1982. That was NOT a Howard plot point. The Conan of Howard’s tales is not pursuing vengeance for his slain father, his slain mother, or his slain village. However, he would certainly have not been above bringing bloody and thunderous vengeance to anybody who wronged him. It simply was not his driving ambition, as it is in the movies.

Before I talk about the movie’s failings, let me first say what works about it: The visuals. Marcus Nispel’s CONAN THE BARBARIAN is a visual triumph. The Hyborian Age has never looked so wondrous, splendid, and believable on screen. From the virgin wilderness and Cimmerian villages to the decadent, sprawling cities, the vast monastaries, and the ancient citadels with skull-shaped caves, the movie simply looks fantastic. The costuming too is spot-on and suitably grimy, evocative, and well-designed. Same goes for the props: swords, spears, armor, ships, etc.

It all LOOKS fantastic. But looks aren’t everything…

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Blogging Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Part Eight – “The Forest Kingdom of Mongo”

Blogging Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Part Eight – “The Forest Kingdom of Mongo”

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blbforestkingdom61ykafrq1zl_sl500_aa300_“The Forest Kingdom of Mongo” was the eighth installment of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon Sunday comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally printed between October 25, 1936 and January 31, 1937, “The Forest Kingdom of Mongo” picks up the storyline where the seventh installment, “The Undersea Kingdom of Mongo” left off with Flash, Dale, and Zarkov winging their way to Prince Barin’s kingdom when they are ambushed by Ming’s air fleet. Their rocket ship is shot down and crash lands in an unknown forest near Mount Karakas. Ming orders Lu Chao, the commander of the air fleet to recover Flash’s body while Flash, an injured Zarkov, and an unconscious Dale stagger off into the forests.

Flash and Zarkov seek shelter in a nearby cave where Dale recovers consciousness. Lu Chao and his fleet arrive at the scene of the crash to discover the stolen rocket ship has been consumed by flames. Taking no chances that Flash might have survived, Lu Chao orders his men to set fire to the forest before they depart leaving the trio cut off by flames at every turn.

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The Unqualified Unique: The Daily Mail Interviews Me for Clark Ashton Smith’s 50th Morbid Anniversary

The Unqualified Unique: The Daily Mail Interviews Me for Clark Ashton Smith’s 50th Morbid Anniversary

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young-clark-ashton-smith-1912Sunday was the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Clark Ashton Smith. We morbid fans of a writer with a delectable taste for morbidity love to celebrate death anniversaries as much as birth ones, and the seduction of the half-century mark is too great to dismiss.

My own celebration ended up in the hands of others, however. Two weeks ago, Jim Planck, an editor for The Daily Mail, a New York State newspaper, contacted me about doing an interview to commemorate Clark Ashton Smith’s death for a Sunday feature. He had come across my articles on Smith on Black Gate (here, here, here, and here) as well as on my website, and thought I could contribute to the article.

It’s flattering to realize that others have started to view you as an expert on one of your favorite authors. I dream that one day a publisher will ask me to edit and/or write an introduction to a collection of the works of either Clark Ashton Smith or Cornell Woolrich.

The Daily Mail Sunday edition does appear on-line, but the C-1 section of the paper doesn’t. (And unless you live in the Catskills and have access to the Daily Mail or its sister paper out of Hudson, NY, The Register-Star, you won’t be able to see it in print.) I’ve brought the full text of the interview over to Black Gate so you can hear me heap more praise on CAS.

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The Nightmare Men: “The Diehard”

The Nightmare Men: “The Diehard”

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crerarShiela Crerar, psychic investigator and adventuress, first burst into public view in the pages of The Blue Magazine in 1920 with “The Eyes of Doom”. The obscure creation of the intriguingly enigmatic Ella Scrymsour, Crerar battled ghosts, werewolves and gibbering ghouls of all types from May of 1920 to October of that same year, appearing in a grand total of six stories which vanished into the literary ether when The Blue Magazine folded not long after. Luckily for aficionados of occult sleuths, Ash Tree Press released a lovely collection in 2006, marking the first time these stories were collected or reprinted in any form.

Beginning with the aforementioned “The Eyes of Doom”, in which Crerar confronted the eponymous vengeful spirit, the series progressed with “The Death Vapour”, “The Room of Fear”, “The Phantom Isle”, “The Werewolf of Rannoch”, and “The Wraith of Fergus McGinty”. Unlike her masculine counterparts in the occult detective business, Crerar is a two-fisted phantom fighter, wading into supernatural situations with little more than guts, brains and a distinct lack of fear bolstered by harsh economic necessity. Not for her the remote recordings of Dr. Hesselius or the psychical solutions of John Silence. Instead she pounced willy-nilly on lycanthropes and luminescent manifestations, sinking her teeth into matters both mundane and malevolent with equal determination.

Say hello to Shiela Crerar, the Scottish terrier of the psychic set.

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The Nightmare Men: “Physician Extraordinary”

The Nightmare Men: “Physician Extraordinary”

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john-silence

‘Rich by accident and a doctor by choice, John Silence took only those cases which interested him.’

The above is from “A Psychical Invasion” (1908), the first of Algernon Blackwood’s stories to feature Dr. John Silence, the ‘psychic doctor’.  Blackwood chronicled six of Silence’s cases, though only five appear in the initial collection, John Silence (containing “A Psychical Invasion”, “Ancient Sorceries”, “The Nemesis of Fire”, “Secret Worship”, and “The Camp of the Dog”; “A Victim of Higher Space”, the sixth story, was included in later collections) released in 1908 (then re-issued in 1942). Even if you can’t get your hands on one of the many reprint collections (or on the 1942 re-issue as I was lucky enough to do), you can rest easy…Blackwood’s work is in the public domain and is freely available from a variety of electronic sources.

The stories themselves are in the inimitable Blackwood style, seen at its most effective in “The Wendigo” and “The Willows”, and display the author’s interest in the occult. The horrors that Silence faces are nebulous things, at once more vast than the horizon and smaller than the inside of a cupboard. They range from nightmare assaults out of deep time to unrequited yearnings gone impossibly savage, originating in both human action as well as from events far outside of human understanding. Time and space are suggestions at best, and as in the works of Hodgson and Lovecraft, reality itself comes under assault from outside entities which seek to impose themselves on their victims.

Enter John Silence, MD.

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Sword Noir: A Role-playing Game of Hardboiled Sword & Sorcery

Sword Noir: A Role-playing Game of Hardboiled Sword & Sorcery

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conan-cityImagine Conan in Shadizar, meeting with a beautiful woman calling herself Fortuna who pays him to find Thuris, the man who kidnapped her younger sister. Conan accepts the woman’s coin but finds himself in the middle of double and triple crosses as Fortuna — known as Brigid the Bold in the underworld — seeks for the Falcon of Maltus along with her betrayed confederates, Jubliex Cairo, Wilmer the Younger, and Gutmar.

Think of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser hired by the powerful merchant Sternwood to scare ne’er-do-well Geiger away from the merchant’s daughter Carmen, only to be caught up in blackmail, murder, kidnapping, and family secrets.

Yes, those were the plots of The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep using three of the iconic characters of sword & sorcery. That’s what I’d call Sword Noir, and that’s what I called the role-playing game I just published, subtitled A Role-playing Game of Hardboiled Sword & Sorcery.

Sword Noir is a game now, but it started as something a little more than a conceit and little less than a genre. Basically, I attempted to give some kind of short-hand to the stories I wrote.

sword-noirAs usual, the kind of stories I was reading and writing bled into the kind of games I was playing, and this took me down a path I did not expect. I ended cobbling together a system that was purpose built to play “sword noir.” In order to do that, I had to define the term.

This is what I came up with: Characters’ morals are shifting at best and absent at worst. The atmosphere is dark and hope is frail or completely absent. Violence is deadly and fast.

The characters are good at what they do, but they are specialists. Trust is the most valued of commodities – life is the cheapest.

Grim leaders weave labyrinthine plots which entangle innocents. Magic exists and can be powerful, but it takes extreme dedication to learn, extorts a horrible price, and is slow to conjure.

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UFO TV Presents: Pulp Fiction – The Golden Age of Sci Fi, Fantasy

UFO TV Presents: Pulp Fiction – The Golden Age of Sci Fi, Fantasy

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So I recently stumbled upon this terrific, hour-long documentary on the Golden Age of Science Fiction and Fantasy pulps, produced by UFO TV.

I admit I’ve never heard of UFO TV before (um, is it a cable station I don’t know about?), but this is a fun offering. Some of the folks interviewed include Ray Bradbury and Kevin J. Anderson (with a large variety of L. Ron Hubbard paperbacks prominently displayed over his shoulder, from every angle), and the mix of old movies clips and spot animation is top-notch.

Plus they pack in what must be a record number of SF pulp covers for a documentary. Seriously.

YouTube offers the entire video for free, although it’s interrupted occasionally by (skipable) commercials.  It’s just like TV used to be!