Comic Strips (Flashback Universe): I’ve been enjoying the latest incarnation of the Flash Gordon comic strip in digital format on the Comics Kingdom website. Cartoonist Dan Schkade relaunched the series on October 22, 2023, and has been doing daily and Sunday installments ever since.

Science Fiction (Fandom Pulse): The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction used to be the gold standard for short stories in mainstream publishing. Still, it’s had a tremendous fall in recent years due to diversity hire editor Sheree Renee Thomas. An industry insider spoke with Fandom Pulse and told us exactly how bad it is for the former sci-fi juggernaut.

Games (Bounding Into Comics): An alleged leaked content creator agreement regarding Black Myth: Wukong has revealed that its dev studio, Game Science, is purportedly requiring that any and all coverage of the game avoid discussing “content that instigates negative discourse”.

Conan (Grognardia): Long ago, I discussed my own thoughts about the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie. In issue #63 of Dragon (July 1982), Gary Gygax offers his own.

RPG (Monsters & Manuals): We are, all of us, used to thinking about our influences in the sense of substance and the creation of mood and atmosphere. We are generally easily able to reel off lists of books, films, TV series, pictures and so on that we have tried to emulate in some way or which have exerted some effect on how we approach content creation in the context of DMing.

Men’s Magazines (Men’s Pulp Mags): TRUE STRANGE was published by Joe Weider and his brother Ben, the “Brothers of Iron.” Joe and Ben are best known for the bodybuilding empire they created. In the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, most MAMs, many other men’s magazines, and even comic books carried ads for Weider bodybuilding equipment and books.

Edgar Rice Burroughs (Edgar Rice Burroughs): Tuesday, July 30, 2024 (Tarzana, California) Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., the company founded by the creator of Tarzan®, and Pocket Universe Productions™, the audio production company behind EC Comics Presents, are excited to announce the launch of John Carter of Mars®: The Audio Series on Kickstarter! This officially authorized production kicks off with A Princess of Mars®, the timeless novel that introduced John Carter to millions of readers worldwide.

Conan (Sprague de Camp Fan): “The Halls of Immortal Darkness” starts with vultures and crows anticipating a good meal. A battle ensues, its purpose unknown, but definitely staged so that Conan can hoist a head on a pike. Conan has to get out of Dodge and the ladies are heartbroken as he leaves.

T.V. (Movies, Music, and Monsters): Whatever Happened to BUCK ROGERS in the 25th CENTURY?

Fiction (Reactor Mag): The earliest mentions of fabled lost Atlantis were, as you know1, in two essays by Plato, Timaeus and Critias. The context of these mentions suggests that Plato invented Atlantis out of whole cloth, as an illustration of certain philosophical points. However, many have wondered if perhaps Plato had some real-world basis for his Atlantis. Others, Ignatius L. Donnelly for example, have firmly insisted that Plato did.

Science Fiction (Fantasy Literature): Symmes Chadwick Oliver, the chairman of the Dept. of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin, who also wrote a half dozen sci-fi novels under his pen name, Chad Oliver. I have already written here of three of those six novels – 1954’s Shadows in the Sun, 1960’s Unearthly Neighbors and 1971’s The Shores of Another Sea – all perfect examples of that curious subgenre known as “anthropological sci-fi,”

Science Fiction (Adventures Fantastic): This was announced a couple of days ago, but I missed it. Starship Sloane Publishing is reviving Galaxy Science Fiction. A bit of history. Back in the 1940s, the top science fiction magazine was Astounding Science Fiction, edited by John W. Campbell, Jr., although arguments can be made that Thrilling Wonder Stories and perhaps Startling Stories were more entertaining.

D&D (ArchCast): DnD and Wizards of the Cost have been desperately bending over backwards to appease the woke. A hopeless endeavor… as even the full scale removal of race as a concept is not enough to protect them from the accusation of racism. They will merely find a body to dig up and now it’s Gary Gygax entertainment has many lessons to learn from the left and Wotc is stubbornly refusing to do so

Conan (Silver Key): The good news is if you own Hither Came Conan you don’t have to wait a year for a similar experience. Imagine a bunch of folks gathered around a proverbial campfire with an assignment: “Why is this Conan story Howard’s best? You’ve got 10 minutes. Go.” That is the premise of this volume, published in 2023 by the nonprofit publishing house Rogue Blades Foundation.

Comic Books (Nick Caputo): Perhaps the greatest tribute I can pay Roger Hill is that I didn’t immediately draw a connection to the name when my pal, Timely/Atlas historian Michael J. Vassallo, announced the news of his passing on Facebook. This may sound like a back-handed compliment, but it’s exactly the opposite. Although Hill’s contributions to the world of comic book scholarship in general – and the EC comic book line in particular – spans six decades

Horror (Dark Worlds Quarterly): I have been a fan of Horror fiction for most of my life. Even before I was a strong reader I liked Horror comics and films. All of this is a way of saying: I’ve always liked Horror. Weird Menace or Shudder Pulp is a much more recent thing for me. I came to it through Hugh B. Cave and his book, Murgunstrumm and Others (1977). Some of the tales in that book are Horror while others are Weird Menace.

Paranormal (Axis Mundi): It is also worth noting that the US area has always lent itself well to a process of “supernaturalization” of the unknown: in upstate New York was born Charles Fort, “investigator of the Uncanny and the Extraordinary”, as well as John Keel, standard bearer together with the Frenchman Jacques Vallée of the so-called “paraphysical hypothesis”, which we have already talked about on these pages.

Art (DMR Books): I have a fair amount to say regarding ‘Dream-Quest’ (and the Dreamlands tales in general), but that is for another day. Tonight, I want to look at an artistic tribute to HPL’s novel: Tom Sutton’s 1978 portfolio, “The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath”.

Fiction (Fantasy Literature): I originally picked up this hard-to-find book after reading of it in Newman & Jones’ excellent overview volume, Horror: The 100 Best Books. Widdershins is a collection of Oliver Onions‘ short stories, and was first published in 1911. Onions was supposedly a meticulous writer, writing and rewriting and rerewriting, changing words repeatedly until he felt that things were just right.

H. P. Lovecraft (Egregoric Times): “Dagon” is one of H.P. Lovecraft’s earliest stories, often thought to be the precursor to his classic tales “The Call of Cthulhu” and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”.  According to S.T. Joshi¹, Lovecraft wrote “Dagon” in July of 1917, following a nine-year hiatus from his earlier attempts at fiction writing.  The story was first published in the Vagrant, a publication of the National Amateur Press Association, in November of 1919.  

Chesterton (Interesting Literature): The English novelist, poet, essayist, and Christian apologist Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) is revered by many readers – and fellow writers – for his wit, his insight into human nature, and his brilliant storytelling. His Father Brown stories are often compared with Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tales, while he remains one of the most quotable English writers of the last century or so.

Tolkien (Ink and Fantasy): We explore Tolkien’s views on Francisco Franco, as well as the historical context of the Spanish Civil War and Tolkien’s connection to it, that may have impacted his opinions!

Cold Steel (Scholagladiatoria): Why were STRAIGHT SWORDS chosen in places where CURVED SWORDS were more normal?

History (Frontier Partisans): Real pirate duels were shorter and far less balletic than choreographed fights staged for drama. Interestingly, Little argues, with evidence, that pistol duels were far less deadly than those with swords. It was pretty easy to miss with a pistol, and, as JMR noted, when you close with blades, blood is going to be spilled.

Popular Culture (The Fourth Age): Why We Are Starved for Beauty (And What We Can Do About It)