tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14182509040279176562012-02-20T00:15:43.161-07:00Scientific Romances in a Bygone AgeCory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.comBlogger5341100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-45675637172703482532012-02-19T00:00:00.000-07:002012-02-18T22:43:57.332-07:00

In honour of Tarzan's 100th birthday, this month's giveaway is a set of three of Dark Horse Comics' reprints of Russ Manning's adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels. These are Tarzan of the Apes, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, and Tarzan the Untamed, and for those who concern themselves with such things, they're all first editions dating back to the halcyon days of 1999 with covers by Mark

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-43217035807635676652012-02-16T00:00:00.001-07:002012-02-16T00:00:02.170-07:00

The complete 1918 Tarzan of the Apes.First, before we discuss the first silver screen Tarzan, an admission must be made: there will never be better Tarzan movies than Tarzan the Ape Man and Tarzan and His Mate with Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller. These classics of of the Golden Age of Hollywood, the first talkie Tarzans, are the archetypal Great White Hunter adventure stories, with everything

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-79870086377363502192012-02-14T00:00:00.001-07:002012-02-14T00:10:04.527-07:00

The Beasts of Tarzan, published in serial form in 1914 and full novel in 1916, is the first true Tarzan adventure. The previous two novels were all set-up, introducing us to the Lord of the Apes and the harrowing efforts by which he acquired Jane Porter for his wife. The end of The Return of Tarzan left the character ready to walk into the sunset of English country life had the public allowed it.

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-79670475350946171602012-02-09T00:00:00.003-07:002012-02-09T00:00:06.920-07:00

A year after Tarzan of the Apes was published, Edgar Rice Burroughs resumed Lord Greystoke's saga in The Return of Tarzan. That initial volume was an origin story intended to introduce us to the Lord of the Apes, only hinting at the mythic value of the character and the philosophical quandary that has enabled him to endure as one of the 20th century's most beloved characters.Thanks to Johnny

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-42033657764929172582012-02-07T00:00:00.004-07:002012-02-07T07:44:46.556-07:00

Tarzan, Lord of the Apes is one of 20th century Western civilization's most enduring characters. He is one of the best-known, most-loved, oft-portrayed heroes of fantasy. A two-fisted Pulp Fiction action hero, Tarzan is the modern day's reinterpretation of the myth of Enkidu, the Wild Man of the 5000 year-old Epic of Gilgamesh. Hardly a year goes by without some retelling of his story, and it all

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-77121764366717716412012-02-04T00:00:00.000-07:002012-02-04T00:00:04.933-07:00

Given all the options for flying cars that the past has hypothetically furnished us here in the future, I think I prefer the visions of France's Chocolats Lombart. A flying Model T? Chocolate?! Well, it's 2012 now and at least we have one of those. To see the full series of confectionary cards, look at The Fanciful, Chocolate-Filled World of 2012 on the Paleofuture blog.

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-69146646358464065802012-02-02T00:00:00.004-07:002012-02-02T00:00:03.717-07:00

The 1912 is a critical one in retrospect for the appreciator of Scientific Romances, with 2012 a consequent year of significant centennials. For events notable and ignoble, 1912 shines as some of the genre's greatest achievements and some of the world's most harrowing disasters.Edgar Rice Burroughs burst onto the literary scene in 1912 with two pulpy novels introducing readers to two of fiction's

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-55744608694486870472012-01-31T00:00:00.002-07:002012-01-31T00:00:00.794-07:00

As the penultimate serial of Doctor Who's third season, The Savages sees the first of three departures in rapid succession. This is the last appearance of Steven Taylor, to be immediately followed in the season three finale by Dodo Chaplet and in The Tenth Planet by the original Doctor himself.After suffering through the Gunfight at the OK Corral, the TARDIS materializes on a futuristic planet.

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-75095683695565145932012-01-29T00:00:00.000-07:002012-01-29T01:13:42.369-07:00

I'm clearing a few things out around here, and amongst them is a suite of advance review copies I've received of publications by Tachyon. One of them is Joe R. Lansdale's Flaming Zeppelins collection. To understand that, you're going to need a short story found in the Steampunk anthology. And if you're going to get Steampunk then you might as well get Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded. One lucky

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-55419065142896628012012-01-28T00:00:00.005-07:002012-01-28T00:10:56.956-07:00

If you have not yet heard of Black Coat Press, consider this the voice crying out in the wilderness. Created in 2003 and edited by renowned writers Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficer, Black Coat specializes in English translations of classic French Science Fiction, Horror and Mystery. The earliest work they've gone back to is Charles de Fieux, Chevalier de Mouhy's Lamékis from 1738 and range up to

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-42313173770068211132012-01-26T00:00:00.001-07:002012-01-26T00:00:06.811-07:00

Bidding farewell to the infamous Doc Holliday and turning to enter back into the TARDIS, Dodo stops for a moment. She overhears the saloon piano belt out another round of The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon, but the refrain dies away as the Doctor comments: "My dear Dodo, my dear Dodo... you know you're fast becoming prey to every cliché-ridden convention in the American West." That is a very

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-57202556861277554532012-01-24T00:00:00.002-07:002012-01-24T00:00:02.032-07:00

The tenure of the First Doctor is noteworthy, of course, for introducing the character and his means of conveyance, as well as two of his most persistent and popular foes, the Daleks and the Cybermen. It also provided a set of villains who were regrettably seen again rarely, if ever. One of these was the Celestial Toymaker.Played by the late Michael Gough, the Toymaker is one of the Doctor’s most

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-61843701517717588952012-01-19T00:00:00.001-07:002012-01-19T00:00:03.791-07:00

Generation gaps abound in the 23rd serial of the original Doctor Who. The first plays out in the confines of the TARDIS itself. Having lost three companions in quick succession - Vicki in The Mythmakers and both Katarina and Sara Kingdom in The Daleks' Masterplan - the Doctor and Steven pick up young, plucky 1960's girl named Dorothea Chaplet, or Dodo for short. Much to the Doctor's outdated,

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-5771847121135156402012-01-17T00:00:00.002-07:002012-01-17T00:00:02.020-07:00

The Doctor cannot seem to stay away from France. Early on in the series we discover that the French Revolution is one of his favorite time periods, whatever that might reveal about his personality. The Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara had a chance to experience it first-hand in the eighth story and first season finale, The Reign of Terror. Now those three companions are long gone and The Doctor and

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-51267188487672451652012-01-14T00:00:00.002-07:002012-01-14T11:13:22.117-07:00

Edward M. Erdelac's demon-hunting Hasidic gunslinger of the Weird West returns in the third novel of the series, Have Glyphs Will Travel. The first book of the series, Tales of a High Planes Drifter, introduced our hero and the author's vision of the Biblical West. In this New World frontier straight out of the Old Testament, demons, succubi and heretical cults tempt many to sacrifice life and

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-90675301595801303132012-01-12T00:00:00.001-07:002012-01-12T00:00:00.802-07:00

What happens to Sara Kingdom now? The Guardian of the Solar System wraps up the trilogy of Sara Kingdom stories contained within Big Finish Audio's Companion Chronicles line. When we last left our protagonists in The Drowned World, our investigator has agreed to stay trapped in the mysterious, supertechnological house in which dwells the echo of Sara Kingdom. The years have passed by and his

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-64414575480204269232012-01-10T00:00:00.003-07:002012-01-10T00:27:28.592-07:00

Whatever happened to the echo of Sarah Kingdom?In Big Finish Audio's last Companion Chronicles episode to star Jean Marsh, Home Truths, they found an intriguing way to bring back the TARDIS passenger who lived and died in The Daleks' Master Plan. A high tech house has the capacity to grant wishes, but lacks judgement. As a consequence, tragedy struck once and threatens to do so again to the

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-19226435900177653202012-01-05T00:00:00.003-07:002012-01-05T00:00:01.950-07:00

Whatever happened to Sara Kingdom? Wait, we know this one: she died. The life of companion Sara Kingdom was wrapped up violently in her only appearance, the First Doctor story The Daleks' Master Plan. In the course of that sprawling epic, she executed her brother in the name of the Space Security Agency, then turned on the agency to help the Doctor foil the plans of the Guardian of the Solar

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-34217341603675936122012-01-03T00:00:00.002-07:002012-01-03T00:00:04.187-07:00

The third season return of the villainous Daleks was set along the series' longest and most sprawling Sci-Fi epic until 1986, which necessarily means that it suffered the same purge of footage that plagues the exploits of the first three Doctors. Of the original 12 episodes of the serial, only three have been recovered with a few minutes of additional footage from another three. Besides these,

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-20417911364094709782012-01-01T00:00:00.004-07:002012-01-02T11:45:49.094-07:00

In Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon, author Mark Hodder completes the cycle of his Burton and Swinburne series of novels. The first chapter, Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack, introduced us to Hodder's style of historical pastiche and the twist that transforms history as we know it, being the untimely assassination of Queen Victoria in 1840 as a consequence of meddling by a

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-12946253715554657892011-12-29T00:00:00.004-07:002011-12-31T18:35:35.756-07:00

Between the natural and economic disasters of the past year, it has not been a very good one for a very large number of people. It gives those of us who have had a productive year a moment to pause, take on our responsibility to do what we can to care for those who have not and to recount with gratitude our own blessings. For myself and for Voyages Extraordinaires, 2011 has been a very good year.

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-69331278102157914032011-12-27T00:00:00.000-07:002011-12-27T00:00:08.878-07:00

The National Geographic Society is one of the world's largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations. Founded in 1888 to "increase and diffuse geographic knowledge," the Society's mission is to inspire people to care about the planet.Throughout its 120-year history, the Society has encouraged conservation of natural resources and raised public awareness of the importance of natural

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-22983148675068768092011-12-25T00:00:00.003-07:002011-12-25T00:00:04.508-07:00

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-65869098086904793432011-12-22T00:00:00.004-07:002011-12-22T00:00:10.536-07:00

One of Paul Grimault's most successful short subjects, Le Petit Soldat adapts the famous winter fairy tale of the tin soldier. This particular version is haunting for the unmistakable dread of Europe's impending war.

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-66121336689758121292011-12-20T00:00:00.003-07:002011-12-20T00:19:13.729-07:00

Paul Grimault's 1944 short Le Voleur de Paratonnerre tells a comic tale of an incredibly skilled thief. Anointed with incredible skill and clad in domino mask, the protagonist is very much in the tradition of Arsène Lupin, Fantômas and other French gentleman thieves. This is a lighthearted cartoon, however, and Grimault's version lacks the sadism of his more serious cousins.

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-81745018097314558892011-12-15T00:00:00.004-07:002011-12-15T00:00:05.784-07:00

Paul Grimault's rapacious alien from La Diamant returns as a duplicitous arms dealer in Le Chien Mélomane. In this extract from the Grimault retrospective La Table Tournante, our alien has weaponized music and sold it to both sides of a violent conflict. Things are going well until his puggly puppy gets ahold of the lethal violin.

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-52498324589855492022011-12-13T00:00:00.003-07:002011-12-13T00:00:06.230-07:00

The ins and outs of colonial exploitation are explored by Paul Grimault in La Diamant, courtesy of his top-hatted alien Snidely Whiplash. The audio is a bit off on this online video, but it is a testament to Grimault's skill at pantomime that the audio isn't even necessary. There is no dialogue through the whole short, nor is any required.

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-5492969244149576182011-12-08T00:00:00.001-07:002011-12-08T00:00:08.907-07:00

Despite being a commercial for Mazda lightbulbs (hey, a man has to eat), Le Messager de la Lumière is still a wonderful example of Paul Grimault's animation artistry. The name "Lumière" is one of the most famous French titles in the world, spread by the pioneering brothers who practically invented cinema. In this short, Grimault recalls celestial imagery given prior celluloid life by another

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-16958207979415044262011-12-06T00:00:00.003-07:002011-12-06T00:00:09.331-07:00

Perhaps one of the longest-held torches in animation history, Paul Grimault's Le Roi et l'Oiseau took nearly 30 years to complete amidst setbacks and legal wranglings that occupied the life of France's preeminent animator. The final result was worth the wait, a lavish artistic spectacle in the fine European tradition. Conceived in 1948 but not released in its truest form until 1980, The King

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-64348370915879436792011-12-01T00:00:00.002-07:002011-12-01T00:00:08.516-07:00

Though created well-within the global conflagration of World War Two, Paul Grimault's Le Passagers de "La Grande Ourse" reflects some of the technological optimism that was held shortly before it broke out. The story, such as it is, revolves around a boy and his dog who stow away on "The Big Dipper", a grand airliner in the best traditions of Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Though primarily slapstick,

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-21974648022393015192011-11-29T00:00:00.002-07:002011-11-29T00:00:05.000-07:00

The City of Lost Children begins with a young boy intently watching a chimney from the warmth and safety of his crib. A rope drops down, followed by Santa Claus. The pleasant smile on the boy's face drops when more and more Santas begin to clamber down the ceiling and through the windows. Reality appears to distort around the horrifying scene until the boy wakes up, screaming, amidst a

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-75192492923500447342011-11-27T00:00:00.000-07:002011-11-27T00:21:16.424-07:00

This month, our giveaway is a double-book offer. Thanks to our friends at Pyr, we have copies of The Society of Steam volumes one and two by Andrew P. Mayer for one lucky reader. To enter, just leave a comment on this post, remembering to make sure that your contact information is available. THe draw will be held at midnight on Sunday, Nov. 27th. Thank you everyone for your continued support of

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-9337081631993136792011-11-24T00:00:00.002-07:002011-11-24T00:00:02.322-07:00

On the heels of the successful English-language release of Jacques Tardi's The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, Fantagraphics bumped up the translation of another of his Scientific Romances, The Arctic Marauder. Originally published in 1974 and set in 1889, this bande dessinée of mad science draws from Jules Verne and Gustave Doré to add dimension to the world of his more famous

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-35623048808826904682011-11-22T00:00:00.004-07:002011-11-22T00:00:08.718-07:00

Purporting to offer a "cryptic" take on Jules Verne's creative process, Voyage Into the Deep: The Saga of Jules Verne and Captain Nemo is a bit of a narrative mess. Author Francois Riviere has an obvious love of the Voyages Extraordinaires and infuses his bande dessinée with a number of "easter eggs" spanning Verne's body of work. Artist Serge Micheli excels in his original depictions of the

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-46031552385970373962011-11-17T00:00:00.003-07:002011-11-17T07:36:51.629-07:00

La Mécanique du Cœur is a wonderfully conceived concept album by the French band Dionysos, joined by a novel of the same name by band leader Mathias Malzieu, which trails the story of young Jack who has a clock for a heart. According to the band:Edinburgh, 1874. Jack was born on the coldest day in history and his heart has been frozen ever since. Half-witch, half-shaman, the midwife who brought

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-83189032621016007652011-11-15T00:00:00.004-07:002011-11-15T00:00:03.212-07:00

Published in its native French as La Mécanique du Cœur, The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart is half of a multi-media narrative concept penned by Mathias Malzieu of the band Dionysos. The other half is the contemporaneous album La Mécanique du Cœur, which reflects the story of the novella. Both draw from the world created by Malzieu in Dionysos' previous album Monsters in Love and together they

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-2855493202931817632011-11-12T00:00:00.002-07:002011-11-12T00:00:02.707-07:00

Due to some unfathomable oversight, I let the 100th birthday of the King of the Cowboys, Roy Rogers, pass by on November 5th without any sort of recognition. I'm not the only one though: RFD-TV is saving their big celebratory float for the 2012 Tournament of Roses Parade. Thankfully the latest issue of the magazine Cowboys & Indians was more on top of things.Why does Roy Rogers matter? Last year

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-81395814396547262352011-11-10T00:00:00.001-07:002011-11-10T07:40:02.737-07:00

Occasioned by the feature film adaptation by Luc Besson, Fantagraphics' 2010 volume of The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec reprints the first stories of the classic French bande dessinée heroine. These two stories - Pterror over Paris and The Eiffel Tower Demon - were first published in 1976, issuing from the hand of Jacques Tardi, and Adèle has enjoyed consistent publication through

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-78029200147828832772011-11-08T00:00:00.003-07:002011-11-08T00:00:12.182-07:00

A living pterodactyl, a beautiful girl immobilized by a hatpin stuck through her brain, a mysterious black-clad archaeologist, a pompous big-game hunter, a resuscitated mummy in a bowler hat, a love-struck young scientist, a master of occultic rituals, and a lady adventurer named Adèle Blanc-Sec. Set in 1912 Paris, the film named for our lady adventurer presents itself in trailers and

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-80719001294699917512011-11-03T00:00:00.003-06:002011-11-03T00:00:00.132-06:00

Paul W.S. Anderson's The Three Musketeers - aka: Air-Pirates of the Caribbean, aka: Assassin's Creed the Movie - is the latest adaptation of the classic tale by Alexandre Dumas. It has been nearly a decade since the last version of any note, being Disney's adaptation starring Kiefer Sutherland, Tim Curry and a pre-win Charlie Sheen, and it has been long overdue. This new version is a practically

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-79400243961961904712011-11-01T00:00:00.010-06:002011-11-01T00:00:03.185-06:00

Towering high above the centre of the northern French city of Amiens is the cathedral of Notre-Dame. So large is this rendition of a chapel devoted to Mary the Mother of God that it could fit the famous Notre-Dame de Paris inside it. And from the moment he took residence in this home town of his wife, Jules Verne could be seen in its pews most Sundays. Though rebellious as a youth and enamoured

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-19630728023160972192011-10-30T00:00:00.000-06:002011-10-29T23:50:37.484-06:00

It's October, Halloween month, which means I should pull a vampire book off the giveaway pile. In this case, it's The Vampire Empire - Book Two: The Rift Walker by Susan and Clay Griffen.Princess Adele struggles with a life of marriage and obligation as her Equatorian Empire and their American Republic allies stand on the brink of war against the vampire clans of the north. However, the

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-37065591789213490182011-10-29T00:00:00.002-06:002011-10-29T00:00:02.703-06:00

Once more, Pyr has sent us an array of new novels in their Steampunk line-up, and once again Mike Resnick makes one of them worth reading. Last time around it was his Weird West reiteration of the Gunfight at the OK Corral in The Buntline Special. This time around it is the sequel, The Doctor and the Kid.As before, The Doctor and the Kid blends Resnick's alternate history with real personalities,

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-52456300848279959932011-10-27T00:00:00.009-06:002011-10-27T07:38:13.624-06:00

The Universal Studios Monsters movies are a rich repository of truly chilly scenes. Too many to recount, in fact. But here, for your Halloween enjoyment, are a few of my favourites as I could find them online.The Mummy goes for a little walk...Frankenstein learns what it feels like to be God...Dracula listens to the children of the night...Petty criminal Karloff tries to coerce doctor Lugosi and

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-47105282062161620972011-10-25T00:00:00.003-06:002011-10-25T00:00:10.472-06:00

Frankenstein (1931)Son of Frankenstein (1939)The Raven (1935)Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-27127945587811563572011-10-20T00:00:00.000-06:002011-10-20T00:00:02.880-06:00

The following clip from the Colgate Comedy Hour adds one more to Abbott and Costello's list of monster encounters. Though Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula, The Wolfman, The Invisible Man and The Mummy were yesterday's news, The Creature from the Black Lagoon was just getting warmed up! The comedy duo heads to Universal's prop department to prepare for their sketch on the show, echoing many of the

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-10135100635819854342011-10-18T00:00:00.001-06:002011-10-18T07:51:41.853-06:00

Perhaps one of the most perfect horror-comedies ever committed to celluloid, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a bittersweet piece of Halloween candy. One of the best films of either series - Universal Studios Monsters and Abbott and Costello - it failed to reinvigorate them. Instead, it was the final act of petrifaction, preserving Hollywood icons through fossilization as the next

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-16646767150180961892011-10-13T00:00:00.001-06:002011-10-13T00:00:00.271-06:00

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)The Black Cat (1934)The Old Dark House (1932)The Invisible Man (1933)

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-28251335435313653342011-10-11T00:00:00.000-06:002011-10-11T00:00:07.322-06:00

The second monster movie meeting of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff was once again under the umbrella of Edgar Allan Poe, this time as The Raven. Once again, however, any resemblance to the actual work by Poe is nearly coincidental. Not an adaptation per se, The Raven is much more of a tribute to the great author. A monstrous tribute that tried demure audiences to the breaking point. Lugosi plays

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-74981876713307310682011-10-06T00:00:00.003-06:002012-01-02T11:45:49.098-07:00

Any film that stars Bela Lugosi as the hero is prepared to descend to ever deeper depths of horror, abomination and depravity. This unlikely casting of Dracula himself in such a role was forced by his costar, the even more monstrous Boris Karloff. The Black Cat of 1934 is the first film to pair the two horror icons, who to this point had starred separately in Universal's Dracula, Murders in the

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-4576725211001763502011-10-04T00:00:00.005-06:002011-10-06T18:24:09.737-06:00

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)Dracula's Daughter (1936)The Cat and the Canary (1927)Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-7002705665306450932011-09-24T00:00:00.010-06:002011-09-24T00:26:17.390-06:00

This past week, the Internet howled in outrage at the latest news released by Disney Parks. Bob Iger, Tom Staggs and co. have brokered a deal with James Cameron to bring his blockbuster feature film Avatar to their themeparks. Disney fandom responded with a collective “Wait, you're serious!?”The first expression of this partnership is slated to be a recreation of the alien world Pandora in Walt

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-28725116641488898442011-09-10T00:00:00.000-06:002011-09-10T00:00:00.328-06:00

A slow news week drew attention to this NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day from September 4th, 2011. Taken by the Cassini probe, the photographic montage seen above was taken with the sun behind the planet, illuminating every ring and speck of dust orbiting it. Via NASA:This marvelous panoramic view was created by combining a total of 165 images taken by the Cassini wide-angle camera over nearly

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-7589809467018235742011-09-01T00:00:00.001-06:002011-09-01T00:00:05.045-06:00

As per annual tradition, I am going to be taking September as my month off of posting on Voyages Extraordinaires. Though summer has passed, I need the break to prepare the next few months of posts. Yes, I work them out that far in advance. Our regular schedule will resume in October with the return of Universal Monster Month. In the mean time, if you have not yet subscribed to the VEx Facebook

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-73517659396965337922011-08-30T00:00:00.000-06:002011-08-30T00:00:03.031-06:00

The problem with doing the impossible is that sometimes you run out of money. That issue faced Walt Disney as the July 17, 1955 opening date of Disneyland loomed ever closer. A new concept in entertainment, something beyond a simple amusement park, was relatively virgin territory and a challenge to explore. Right up to "Black Sunday" the asphalt was still drying and the water pipes still being

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-68510412832071858072011-08-27T00:00:00.000-06:002011-08-27T00:23:12.594-06:00

In keeping with this month's theme of Disney and my contests' ongoing theme of getting rid of clutter that I never really wanted to begin with, our August giveaway is for an authentic Jim Shore sculpture of Mickey Mouse as Steamboat Willie! Tell your friends and neighbours, spread it around the Disneysphere! To enter, leave a comment to this post and ensure that I have some way to contact you

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-13259775365138846572011-08-25T00:00:00.000-06:002011-08-25T00:00:01.265-06:00

As yet, neither Disney nor anyone else has braved a serious, animated version of H.G. Wells' classic invasion story The War of the Worlds. However, Ward Kimball dabbled briefly in it during the course of the Disneyland television episode Mars and Beyond. Like the previous two installments of the Man in Space trilogy, Mars and Beyond introduced the subject of interplanetary travel by recounting

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-4022592371363774662011-08-23T00:00:00.000-06:002011-08-23T00:00:06.459-06:00

Unfortunately for film fans, Walt Disney's forays into the source material provided by Jules Verne ended with 1961's In Search of the Castaways. The company didn't stop there, finding ample inspiration for theme park attractions like Disneyland Paris' Space Mountain and Tokyo Disneysea's Mysterious Island. For celluloid, however, we are limited to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Castaways.Yet he

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-72474986321618190722011-08-18T00:00:00.001-06:002011-08-18T00:01:49.401-06:00

Most readers would, like myself, probably come around to reading Ian Cameron's 1961 novel The Lost Ones by way of it's Disney film adaptation Island at the Top of the World. In fact, the copy that I was finally able to find at a used bookstore was the 1974 reprint retitled Island at the Top of the World, decorated with the Mouse's artwork. If so, one would be very surprised by what they read.

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-10395657178542519592011-08-16T00:00:00.001-06:002011-08-16T00:00:02.964-06:00

As a rather large souvenir of the Swiss Alps and the first tubular steel roller-coaster ever built, the Matterhorn Bobsleds was one of the celebrated attractions added to Tomorrowland in its 1959 refurbishment. When Disneyland USA opened in 1955, Tomorrowland was piecemeal, with only two real signature attractions: Rocket to the Moon and Autopia. The remainder tended towards corporate showrooms

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-73908891762045278652011-08-11T00:00:00.002-06:002011-08-11T00:06:50.394-06:00

Welcome to Tomorrowland '98. Foreground: the Astro-Orbiter. Detail of the Astro-Orbiter. The dedication plaque. To the right, Star Tours. To the left, Rocket Rods, whose track encircled the Observatron. The fantastic mural decorating Rocket Rods. At the rear, Innoventions. Details of the dimensional mural adorning Innoventions. To the left of Innoventions,

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-45676824200498300752011-08-09T00:00:00.001-06:002011-08-09T00:00:02.738-06:00

Few attempts to reinvigorate the original Disneyland in Anaheim, California, have been as universally condemned as the 1998 remodelling of Tomorrowland. Inspired by Disneyland Paris' Discoveryland and Walt Disney World's "future that never was", this would-be Retro-Futuristic masterpiece was hampered by budget constraints and poor management, resulting in controversial choices and broken down

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-35680756842078403082011-08-07T00:00:00.000-06:002011-08-07T00:00:07.343-06:00

Don't forget! Starting tomorrow is Network Awesome's series on Early Japanese Animation, presented by yours truly!Every day in the coming week we will spotlight classics of the traditional art-form, from the pre-war period, during World War II, immediately post-war and the birth of modern anime. It will include such luminaries as Kenzo Masaoka and Osamu Tezuka, and such movies as the first

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-51052125902177016082011-08-04T00:00:00.002-06:002011-08-04T00:00:15.043-06:00

Based on the comic by the late Dave Stevens, Disney's The Rocketeer is a paean to adventure serials and Pulp fiction of the 1930's and 40's. Joe Johnston, director of the recent Captain America: The First Avenger, first tried out his hand at two-fisted action in 1991, using the picture-perfect players Billy Campbell as the pilot-hero, Jennifer Connelly as the hopeful starlet and Timothy Dalton as

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-31751655521742170852011-08-02T00:00:00.002-06:002011-08-02T00:00:00.692-06:00

When the word "Disneyland" first entered the cultural lexicon, it was not in association with a theme park. Walt Disney's Disneyland was a weekly, hour-long television program by which Disney introduced his would-be theme park to the world in the year before its debut. Through that program, which featured new content and edited feature films, he established the idea that Disneyland is more than a

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-37332499451678840402011-07-31T00:00:00.001-06:002011-07-31T00:29:10.008-06:00

Returning from a Canada postal service strike-induced hiatus, this month's giveaway contest is the for the second of Mark Hodder's Burton and Swinburne series, The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man. It is 1862, though not the 1862 it should be...Time has been altered, and Sir Richard Francis Burton, the king's agent, is one of the few people who know that the world is now careening along a very

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-49327698610076435692011-07-30T00:01:00.001-06:002011-07-30T00:01:00.109-06:00

More than one update today! In one week I am going to speaking at Animethon 18 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It's a suite of three talks, one of which is on behalf of the museum I work at and the other two being An Introduction to Kenji Miyazawa and the newly semi-revamped Beyond Steampunk Anime: Scientific Romances in the Land of the Rising Sun. The former will be a focus on my favorite Japanese

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-84438551701203229692011-07-30T00:00:00.000-06:002011-08-13T12:18:11.230-06:00

Once again I wrote an article for Network Awesome this past week, featuring the work of pioneer French animator Paul Grimault. Paul Grimault's Le Roi et l'Oiseau took nearly 30 years to complete, a labour of love and story of artistic passion that typifies the work of France's most renowned animator. After seeing the film on its release in 1980, and known in English as The King and the

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-1030398694498647172011-07-28T00:00:00.001-06:002011-07-28T00:00:02.504-06:00

If any film of the past decade has come closest to matching the tone and atmosphere of the classic adventure films of Hollywood's Golden Age, it would have to be the direct homage presented by first-time director Kerry Conran in his 2004 film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. The story features a reporter (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) embroiled in a plot by a mad German scientist (played

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-28953104209991024382011-07-26T00:00:00.002-06:002011-07-26T00:00:04.840-06:00

When Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds premiered in theatres, genre critics were confounded. What could have been an otherwise straightforward World War II film by the auteur behind Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill threw in a last-minute curve that titillated commenters. Did such a turn make this some kind of alternate history movie? A speculative fiction of a sort? Where does

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-26988775127946503582011-07-23T00:00:00.000-06:002012-01-02T11:45:49.101-07:00

Edward M. Erdelac's Merkabah Rider: Tales of a High Planes Drifter was a spot-on joy of a Weird Western novel. Written in episodic format like an old dime novel, it introduced us to The Rider, a gunslinging Hasidic mystic who fought the forces of the Adversary both in our world and the veil between this one and the next. In my review of that book, I lauded Erdelac for mostly eschewing some of the

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-45130226369590504602011-07-21T00:00:00.001-06:002011-07-21T00:00:01.264-06:00

Wolfenstein 3D is regarded as one of the early popularizers of the first-person shooter game. Dropping shortly before Doom, 3D was originally offered as shareware, lending itself to global spread. Its intriguining premise did nothing but help, as one plays American agent B.J. Blazkowicz in an attempt to escape Castle Wolfenstein, foul Nazi plans to raise an undead army, and ultimately battle a

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-11060389280982515582011-07-19T00:00:00.000-06:002012-01-02T11:45:49.105-07:00

Heir to one of the grand franchises of video gaming, 2009's Wolfenstein epitomizes the fruitful tropes of Nazi super-science and occultic-obsession. The series began in 1981 with the game Castle Wolfenstein, a stealth-type game for the Apple II, DOS, Atari 400 and 800 and Commodore 64. It garnered one sequel in 1984, and both hewed fairly close to credible World War II plots to track down mission

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-56248328981532706712011-07-16T00:00:00.001-06:002011-07-16T00:20:55.231-06:00

This past week I returned to writing articles for Network Awesome with a vengeance. There are two pieces running currently, with an additional piece of French animator Paul Grimault and a week-long series on early Japanese animation still to come! Click to read Alice's Adventures Through the Camera Lens and The Wonderful Dreams of Winsor McCay.

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-30218105111533289732011-07-14T00:00:00.001-06:002011-07-14T00:00:11.735-06:00

Excerpt from Batman (1943).In my previous (and popular) review of Max Fleischer's Superman cartoons I observed that the two greatest superheroes ever created are fundamentally Pulp heroes and work best in a setting that reflects this. Superman, first published in 1938, is most ideal against his Fritz Lang, World's Fair setting. Batman, created a year later, is also better against a Noir

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-20904278005746835252011-07-12T00:00:00.008-06:002011-07-12T00:07:39.509-06:00

Universal Monster movie scholar David J. Skal has suggested that a large part of the appeal for the first run of the franchise from 1925's Phantom of the Opera to 1936's Dracula's Daughter was their veiled capacity to deal with the costs of World War I. Thousands of men went off to war, with thousands more innocents caught between them. Worse than those who did not come back were those whose

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-60974764840939635282011-07-09T00:00:00.003-06:002012-01-02T11:45:49.108-07:00

Edward M. Erdelac's Merkabah Rider: Tales of a High Planes Drifter is without reservation one of the best Weird Westerns to roll into town in the last decade, if not the best. As unsolicited review copies go, it's the most impressive book I've read since Mark Hodder's Burton and Swinburne series, which is to say the only impressive book I've read since Mark Hodder's Burton and Swinburne series.

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-46154282361946943282011-07-07T00:00:00.002-06:002011-07-07T22:13:36.927-06:00

49th Parallel is sometimes regarded as one of the greatest - if not the greatest - propaganda films ever made. At the request of the British Ministry of Information, producer-director Michael Powell was charged with creating a compelling tale of errant Nazis struggling to make it beneath the titular degree of latitude, all against the stunning backdrop of scenery from across the breadth of

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-70639091578131922492011-07-05T00:00:00.001-06:002011-07-05T00:00:06.189-06:00

Promotional newsreel for Things to Come.Based on H.G. Wells' 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come, 1933's Things to Come is in equal parts a benchmark of cinematic design and one of the more disturbing utopian fantasies to be put to celluloid. Much like Wells' novel, the film begins with an obvious portend of the future. It is Christmas in Everytown - a generic London - in 1940, and scenes of

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-56891419874438075702011-06-30T00:00:00.002-06:002011-06-30T00:00:01.719-06:00

Once upon a time, in that brief span between the wars, the most well-known humourist in the English-speaking world was a Canadian. Stephen Leacock, though born in England, emigrated early to Canada and became a staunch patriot in the conservative mold. The unfortunate side of this conservatism was opposition to women's suffrage and the immigration of non-whites. The fortunate side is that he was

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-53223997889645731952011-06-28T00:00:00.004-06:002011-06-28T00:00:00.169-06:00

One of Canada's earliest extant Scientific Romances, Tisab Ting; or, The Electrical Kiss is a difficult book to make sense of. It was written by New Brunswick native Ida May Ferguson under a pseudonym "Dyjan Fergus" and appears to have been the only book she ever wrote. Why this is so is evidenced by an attempt to read it.For the lion's share of the novel, Tisab Ting acts like a late Victorian

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-29172686272875618002011-06-23T00:00:00.003-06:002011-06-23T00:35:51.348-06:00

In 1883, the author "Ralph Centennius" wrote The Dominion in 1983, one of the popular "looking backwards" style of stories imprinting the writer's anxieties and Utopian visions onto the future. Par for the course, it includes some fanciful speculations, such as giving Canada's 1983 population in excess of 93,000,000 when in fact it was 25,367,000. Without saying it also alters history that had

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-9256226940594892572011-06-21T00:00:00.005-06:002011-09-09T10:31:23.168-06:00

Canada is a nation superlatively blessed nation. Possessing of exquisite beauty and sublime wonder, overflowing with a bounty of natural resources, comfortably populated with a civil society and a relatively benign history, consistently one of the best economies and highest standards of living in the world, stretching from sea to sea to sea. A popular joke has God ordaining this most blessed

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-34542141178469400232011-06-16T00:00:00.000-06:002011-06-16T00:00:02.368-06:00

Hollywood never wanted for films set in the rugged wilderness of the high north during the 1920's, 30's and 40's. Between An Acadian Elopement in 1907 and the 1975 publication of Pierre Burton's damning Hollywood's Canada: The Americanization of Our National Image, 575 films were produced featuring mountainous and snowy locales populated by trappers, loggers and the women of disrepute who loved

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-71701814406083337712011-06-14T00:00:00.000-06:002011-06-14T00:00:04.955-06:00

An excerpt from Rose Marie (1936).Based on a musical that first took to the stage in 1924, Rose Marie is perhaps one of the most reknowned of the fictional tales of the Scarlet Riders of the North, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. With music by Rudolph Friml and Herbert Stothart and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II, the original theatrical version was the longest running until it

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-67559167219582877562011-06-09T00:00:00.003-06:002011-06-09T00:49:59.034-06:00

Besides the clean-cut, scarlet figure of the Mountie, one other stands as a true pop-culture icon of Canada: Anne of Green Gables. The little pigtailed girl with straw hat and flaming red hair is world-renowned. It's even said that she's more popular in Japan than in Canada, and at the very least, Lucy Maud Montgomery's original novel is required reading in grade schools of the former. Geoff

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-47049680752287332402011-06-07T00:00:00.001-06:002011-06-09T15:32:21.096-06:00

The Fur Country, or Seventy Degrees North Latitude is the second of four novels by Jules Verne set in the wild northlands of Canada. The titular mariner of The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (1866), the first novel, merely skirts the nascent country in his quest for the North Pole. The final was written around 1896 but not published intact until 1989, entitled The Golden Volcano and discussing

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-48914405152182747182011-06-02T00:00:00.003-06:002011-06-02T00:00:03.399-06:00

Last year, Mike Perschon dedicated a month to an analysis of Canadian Steampunk literature. One of the most interesting points of it was the omission of vintage Scientific Romances. Admittedly he could not get around to a fantastic anthology of Mounted Police Pulp fiction entitled Scarlet Riders, which does have a few entries that could qualify as Northern fantasy, but the bulk of his study was

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-13649840681727441882011-05-31T00:00:00.003-06:002011-05-31T00:05:40.320-06:00

Ghost Patrol was one of the countless hour-long Western potboilers filmed by Hollywood in the 1930's and 40's. In the era long before televisions became household impliments, the local theatre's all-day marathons of feature films, newsreels, cartoons and melodramas were the closest thing. In 1936, a dime (or thereabouts) could have gotten one in to see Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in Rose

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-2620076231451588132011-05-29T00:00:00.000-06:002011-05-29T07:58:49.310-06:00

Our May giveaway is for a copy of Mike Resnick's Weird Western novel The Buntline Special, about a different sort of version of what happened at the O.K. Corral. To enter, just leave a commet for this post that somehow or other includes your e-mail. A name will drawn out of my cowboy hat on midnight of Sunday, May 29th.Good luck and thank you all for your support of Voyages Extraordinaires!And

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-57015290687951855582011-05-28T00:00:00.005-06:002011-05-28T00:19:46.868-06:00

By now, the informed reader is aware that Disney has altered the title of their 2012 tentpole action film John Carter of Mars to, simply, John Carter. Perhaps you rolled your eyes at the news, or screamed an outrage more shrill than when you found out they weren't calling it A Princess of Mars nor would the characters be naked.To understand the rationale behind this change requires a dark journey

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-58277456949159033542011-05-26T00:00:00.006-06:002012-01-02T11:45:49.111-07:00

Pulp fiction author Robert E. Howard is probably best-remembered for his prehistoric strongman Conan the Barbarian, but this Sherlock Holmes to Howard's Conan Doyle overshadows the tremendous breadth of his work. A writer needs to make a living, after all, and the Pulps demanded voluminous effort. He is also known for other Swords and Sorcery characters like Solomon Kane, Kull and James Allison,

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-80133000177458319022011-05-24T00:00:00.004-06:002012-01-02T11:45:49.115-07:00

For the most part, Weird Westerns are a genre that preclude genuine goodness. Usually, it's not so much a quetsion of whether a movie or story is good or bad, but whether or not it is enjoyable. Some are bad but fun, some are just plain bad. But the odd one emerges that is genuinely good. Clint Eastwood's directorial debut demonstrated an acumen that could only be gained by an already extensive

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-69317671714038111682011-05-19T00:00:00.004-06:002011-05-22T07:45:37.610-06:00

Disproportionate to its obscurity, The Steam Man of the Prairies by Edward Ellis is one of the true classics of Victorian Scientific Romances. Sci-Fi critic John Clute, after the fact, applied the term "Edisonade" to the type of story which Ellis ushered in: dime novel adventures of technological and territorial conquest on the far frontier, named for the iconic American entrepreneur Thomas

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The Monster of Lake LaMetrie is an early Weird Western tale, and do I mean "weird". Perhaps it is even the earliest extant example of Weird Fiction applied to the Western, rather than just inputting a steam-man or a dinosaur. Published in Pearson's Magazine in 1899, this short story by Wardon Allan Curtis, it is subtitled as Being the narration of James McLennegan, M.D., Ph.D. and is framed as

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The original Red Dead Redemptionby Rockstar is considered by many to be a high-water mark in video gaming. Following the "open world" format of Rockstar's infamous Grand Theft Auto series, the mean streets of major modern metropoli were replaced with the Old West of Italian cinema. Furthermore, the chain of events was given the compelling story of John Marston, a former outlaw who is forced to

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-65455397183541999722011-05-10T00:00:00.004-06:002011-05-22T07:45:37.626-06:00

Flaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned the Seal, recently published by Tachyon Press, anthologizes the two of Weird Western author Joe R. Lansdale's best known novellas: Zeppelins West (2001) and Flaming London (2006). Native to East Texas, Lansdale is highly regarded for his weird imagination and even weirder sense of humour. It was one his stories adapted into the Bruce Campbell film Bubba

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-3805275176415629212011-05-05T00:00:00.006-06:002011-05-22T07:45:37.631-06:00

One of the worst trailers in cinema...... And possibly one of the most entertaining scenes.A flashy entry into the 1990's wave of Western films, Tombstone's retelling of the Gunfight at the OK Corral was fraught with production problems. The original motive power behind it was furnished by Kevin Costner and director Kevin Jarre, but a disagreement over the tone led Costner off to make his own

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-76867273524359193412011-05-03T00:00:00.005-06:002011-05-22T07:45:37.636-06:00

The common wisdom is that you are not supposed to judge a book by its cover. That tune changes a bit when one is confronted with a stack of novels to review amidst the regular goings-on and voluntary readings of one's life. Said reviewer's comeuppance occurs when the covers of these novels end up being practically indistinguishable. Last October, our friends at Pyr/Prometheus Books were been kind

Cory Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12141983255020503557noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1418250904027917656.post-39875991750952353962011-04-28T00:00:00.001-06:002011-05-22T07:45:37.641-06:00

Leiji Matsumoto is infamous for having a loose devotion to continuity. The "Leijiverse" consisting of Captain Harlock, Maetel, the Space Battleship Yamato, and the Galaxy Express 999 is less of a chronological timeline than it is a theatrical company that he employs for whatever stories spring to mind. One of the most unique of these melodramas is Gun Frontier.A 13 episode strong series, Gun

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