Blog Archives
sSensor Sweep: Wanderer’s Necklace, A. Bertram Chandler, Hyperborea RPG
Monday , 6, April 2020 Sensor Sweep 1 CommentAnime (Kairos): Contrary to many anime fans’ hopes, the fanatical, totalitarian Cult that’s usurped pop culture isn’t letting a little thing like an ocean get in the way of their conquest. Funimation, the American dubbing and distribution house that made news last year thanks to a defamation lawsuit brought against them by voice actor Vic […]
Sensor Sweep: Ken Barr, Dying Earth RPG, Wade Miller, Russian Cinema
Monday , 30, March 2020 Sensor Sweep 2 CommentsWriting (Wasteland & Sky): Action, movement itself, is essential to a pulp tale. The story must get in, get out, and say everything it can in as few words as possible. Because pulp writers had to hook the audience quickly they had to pack as much as they could into magazine guidelines. Even though they […]
Sensor Sweep: Solar Pons, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jurassic Park, Topps Monster Stickers
Monday , 23, March 2020 Sensor Sweep 1 CommentCinema (Pulp Curry): Simba also depicts the various perspectives on the Kenyan side. In particular, is an amazing scene in which locals are inducted into the Mau Mau guerrilla movement, a ceremony that is replete with boy’s own voodoo type histrionics, but also shows that while some locals were keen to join the rebels, others […]
Sensor Sweep: Firefly, Black Mask, Original Adventures Reincarnated
Monday , 16, March 2020 Sensor Sweep 2 CommentsAnime (RMWC Reviews): By 1969, Japan had advanced quite far in terms of animation. Especially when a studio would put real effort behind a project, such as when Toei Animation released Sora Tobu Yuureisen in July of that year. Known in English as The Flying Phantom Ship or The Flying Ghost Ship, the film is […]
Sensor Sweep: Space 1889, Barry Windsor Smith, Tolkien, Prydain
Monday , 9, March 2020 Sensor Sweep Leave a commentPopular Culture (DVS Press): If you needed more proof that the obsession with fictional corporate franchises has a religious overtone to it, here is a major filmmaker advertising just that. When my viewers were upset about the corporate destruction of Star Wars, calling the franchise a cultural institution, I thought it a bit hyperbolic – […]
D&D (Jon Mollison): fter nearly forty years of tabletop gaming, it can get a little hard to recapture the fresh weirdness of Gygaxian fantasy. Particularly true in this day and age when the majority of D&D creatives believe that the height of creativity is something along the lines of, “just like before, only WOMEN!” or […]
Sensor Sweep: Ultraman, Riddle of Steel, William Hope Hodgson
Monday , 24, February 2020 Sensor Sweep 8 CommentsT.V. (RMWC Reviews): The plot is similar, but different from the original Ultraman. Instead of merging with a human host, this show’s Ultraman came to Earth from the Land of Light in Nebula M78 (an actual nebula and part of the Orion constellation) and rescued a guy, then took his form and calling himself “Dan […]
Sensor Sweep: Tim Truman, Mort Kunstler, World’s End, DICE Awards
Monday , 17, February 2020 Sensor Sweep Leave a commentComic Books (DMR Books): Timothy Truman grew up in small-town West Virginia. spending his childhood reading comics and Conan paperbacks. One of his favorite comics writers was–and remains–Gardner F. Fox. Little did he know at the time, but someday Tim would illustrate the last sword-and-sorcery tale that Gar Fox ever wrote and relaunch Hawkman—a character […]
Sensor Sweep: Harley Quinn, Luna, David Gemmell, Frankenstein Jr.
Monday , 10, February 2020 Sensor Sweep 3 CommentsCinema (RT.com): The new DC Universe film ‘Birds of Prey’ is populated by despicable men, and feminist women who want to be just like them. The outcome: financial losses and moral bankruptcy. ‘Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)’ opened on Friday and stars two-time Academy Award nominated actress Margot Robbie […]
Sensor Sweep: Genre Magazines, Mort Kunstler, Vampire Queen, Boris Dolgov
Monday , 3, February 2020 Sensor Sweep 4 CommentsPublishing (Forbes): Today, the number of science fiction and fantasy magazine titles is higher than at any other point in history. That’s more than 25 pro-level magazines, according to a count from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, amid a larger pool of “70 magazines, 14 audio sites, and nine critical magazines,” according […]
Sensor Sweep: Doc Savage, Gothic novels, Underwater, Appendix N
Monday , 27, January 2020 Sensor Sweep 4 CommentsHorror (Cemetery Dance): Up until the publication of The Monk in March of 1796, the Gothics mostly followed Walpole’s formula. The books usually featured a mystery or threat to the main character, an evil villain threatening the virtue of a virginal female, supernatural elements such as a ghost or an ancestral curse, and secret passages […]
Gaming (Goodman Games): To the casual RPG fan, D&D is steeped in Tolkien lore. The original game (1974) contained direct references to ents, balrogs, orcs, and of course hobbits. Due to the popularity of the game, this eventually resulted in a cease-and-desist letter to TSR. Later editions featured hobbits renamed as halflings (a more generic […]