Pastiche (Sprague de Camp Fan): I can’t quite grasp the appeal of El Borak. He doesn’t immediately grab me like a man raised by apes or a barbarian confronting civilization does. Tarzan and Conan seem special, they are unique. Apparently, part of El Borak’s uniqueness is that he is a Texan. I live in Texas. The idea that the average Texan is freedom loving makes me roll my eyes.

T.V. (Book Steve’s Library): Back in the lead-up to BATMAN’s mid-season premiere in January of 1966, the ABC publicity people made sure that EVERYONE knew Batman was coming! Oddly enough, Marvel Comics had done the same with numerous little announcement tags that “The Hulk is Coming” prior to ol’ Greenskin’s comic book debut a couple of years earlier.

Tolkien (Fairly Fictional): Discover the differences and similarities between the two dark lords of Middle-Earth. What were to motivations and tactics used by Sauron and Morgoth as they pursued very different goals.

Fiction (Paperback Warrior): Simon Ark, written and created by Edward D. Hoch, may or may not be a 2,000 year old occult detective who is endlessly searching for Satan. He teams with an unnamed narrator who normally presents each Simon Ark story in first-person perspective.

Comic Books (Fandom Pulse): DC Comics has a legitimate hit on its hand with DC All In Special and Absolute Batman #1 as a follow-up. It’s something the comic book company hasn’t had in a long time, and it appears to be changing the model of what traditional creators have to do to be successful; Scott Snyder is showing the way.

James Bond (Commando Bond): I am so incredibly thrilled to share that today, LICENSED TROUBLESHOOTER – THE GUNS OF JAMES BOND, is now available for presale via Kickstarter now until October 11th! This book has been the culmination of a lifetime affinity for the world of James Bond, and a professional life dedicated to the world of firearms. The project means so much to me. After years of research and writing, travels to private collections and to Walther Germany, we have finally arrived here.

Comic Books (Atom Valley Bulletin): The Senate comes to Town! The cameras are rolling, the microphones are live, and the Gaines hits the fan! “Are You a Red Dupe?”

Cinema (Black Gate): The Barbarian Boom of the ‘80s was the first normalization of fantasy as a mainstream genre for the movies. As the boom faded in the ‘90s (Xena notwithstanding), it seemed as if fantasy film had been just another passing phase. But then, in the early 2000s, along came The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean series: the Second Normalization of Fantasy Film had arrived, and as we’re still living with it in 2024, it looks to be permanent.

Phenomenon (Imaginative Conservative): UFOs are supposed to be the stuff of conspiracy theories and fringe documentaries. And yet many high-ranking government officials believe some of the most explosive claims about UFOs to be true. How would this potential reality affect the conservative worldview?

H. P. Lovecraft (Silver Key): October is here and I couldn’t be happier. I love this time of year. I live in Lovecraft Country. I’m surrounded by horrors.

Fiction (Dark Worlds Quarterly): Walter Archer Frost (1875-1964) is not a name that rings a bell with Mystery fans like Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler. He was one of many Pulpsters that existed before the hey-deys of Black Mask or Dime Detective. Flynn’s Weekly, later renamed Flynn’s Detective Fiction Weekly was a Munsey soft weekly devoted to detective stories. Dozens of writers produced reams of ‘tec tales for hungry readers but were never collected or even remembered in the course of the genre’s history.

Arthurian (Imaginative Conservative): Galgano’s sword in the stone is at the small rotunda at Montsiepi near the ruined Cistercian Abbey. Go here for a BBC video about St Galgano, the sword’s authenticity, and possible links to the Arthurian legend. Could the life of St Galgano be linked to the Arthurian legend of the Sword in the Stone? Scholars disagree. Some trace the tale from Tuscany through the troubadours like Chretien de Troyes and then to Britain.

Horror (Art of the Movies): If Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House ended after its opening paragraph and was published today, it could probably win one of those flash fiction contests as a remarkably lucid snapshot of an evil dwelling.

Horror (Wormwoodiana): Darkly Bright Press is open for pre-ordering their limited hardcover edition of  Arthur Machen’s The Terror. This “New Critical Edition of the Mythopoeic Classic”includes the original Daily News serial of the text (“The Great Terror” October 1916), that of the first hardcover edition of the novel (Duckworth, February 1917), and the condensed version for the American periodical The Century Magazine (“The Coming of the Terror” October 1917).

Old Radio (Archive.org): Inner Sanctum Mystery, also known as Inner Sanctum, is a popular old-time radio program that aired from January 7, 1941, to October 5, 1952. It was created by producer Himan Brown and was based on the imprint given to the mystery novels of Simon & Schuster. In all, 526 episodes were broadcast.

Comic Books (Dark Worlds Quarterly): You are probably expecting a piece on Dagar the Invincible but Donald F. Glut wrote some other stories under this title and secreted them away in Mystery Comics Digest. Unlike most of the contents of MCD, these were not reprints from Twilight Zone and Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Half of these feature Duroc (later Durak), the proto-type for Dagar. It is these small side pieces I am interested in today.

Weird Tales (M Porcius): Let’s get back to World War II-era Weird Tales and read from the December 1939 issue of the unique magazine of the bizarre and unusual edited by Farnsworth Wright.  We’ve already read two stories from this issue, an inferior Northwest Smith piece by C. L. Moore and Forrest J. Ackerman, “Nymph of Darkness,” and a better than average Frank Belknap Long story, “Escape from Tomorrow.” 

Horror (Por Por Books): ‘Junkyard’ (284 pp.) was published by Zebra Books in November, 1989. The cover illustration is one of the best of any entry in the Paperbacks from Hell era; sadly, the artist is uncredited (I can’t make out their signature). Author Barry Porter published one other horror paperback for Zebra Books; ‘Dark Souls’ (1989).

D&D (Grognardia): Like most people involved in the hobby of roleplaying, Dungeons & Dragons was the first RPG I ever played. Furthermore, it’s probably the RPG I’ve played the most over the decades, even though it’s not my favorite. I do like it and would even go so far as to say that most versions of it are fun to play. This isn’t a controversial opinion.

Art (DMR Books): Joe Jusko turned sixty-five the other day. While I have done a post on his Edgar Rice Burroughs-inspired artwork, I’ve never done a blog entry on Jusko’s covers for Marvel’s The Savage Sword of Conan, which is where I first became aware of him and his work.

Science Fiction (Vintage Pop Fictions): Frederik Pohl’s science fiction short novel Danger Moon was published in 1951. A variant of the story with the title Red Moon of Danger appeared under the name James MacCreigh.