Blog Archives
sSensor Sweep: Derleth, Elemental Evil, Tarzan, Weird Tales
Monday , 4, May 2020 Sensor Sweep 1 CommentCthulhu Mythos (Innsmouth Free Press): August Derleth has been the whipping boy for HPL fans since 1939, when he created Arkham House with Donald Wandrei, a publishing concern specifically created to get the works of H.P. Lovecraft into hardcovers. Like many Mythos fans, I have read the “posthumous collaborations” and find them middling-to-dull. What I […]
Comic Books (Paint Monk): Copyright. Public Domain. Cease & Desist. Not the words one would normally think to associate with a battle featuring Conan of Cimmeria and yet here we are. Now that the smoke has cleared, Ablaze is finally able to deliver translated versions of French Glénat’s Conan comics. Let me see if I […]
Sensor Sweep: Conan Companion, Star Trek, Necromancers, Stanley Mullen
Monday , 20, April 2020 Sensor Sweep 3 CommentsNew Release (Amazon): By Crom! At long last the definitive history of Conan the Barbarian paperbacks that fans have clamoured for. 107 pages with detailed chapters devoted to each of the mighty Cimmerian’s publishers. Heavily illustrated with many rare images. Plus complete cover galleries of every US and UK Conan title ever issued. In full […]
Sensor Sweep: Haggard Art, Paperbacks, David Drake, Lankhmar RPG
Monday , 13, April 2020 Sensor Sweep 2 CommentsBooks (Wasteland & Sky): The common Joe was abandoned for fandom. Unfortunately for them, pocket paperbacks is the key to reaching the largest possible audience. This was part of the secret to the form’s success. Pocket paperbacks were meant for normal people. Abandoning the masses is never a smart idea. D&D (Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog): […]
Sensor 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 […]