The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)

Who's In It: Vincent Price (The Invisible Man Returns, Laura) and Elizabeth Shepherd (Damien: Omen II, the 90s Silver Surfer cartoon).

What It's About: A new bride (Shepherd) begins to fear that she may be possessed by the spirit of her husband's (Price) first wife (also played by Shepherd): a woman who claimed that her will was too strong to let her die.

How It Is: It was cool to watch this so soon after rewatching Rebecca since both are about women trying to overcome the ghosts of their husbands' former wives. Only in The Tomb of Ligeia, the ghost is potentially literal.

I'd heard that Ligeia is the masterpiece of the Corman/Price/Poe series and I can see why. It's a strong story, well shot and acted in a fantastic location, with some great, creepy moments throughout. One of my favorites is a scene when the red-haired Rowena is brushing her hair and finds Ligeia's black hairs in the brush. And then there's the creepy, black cat that stalks the mansion and really doesn't like Rowena very much.

It's also cool that Price's character has enough complexity to keep me interested. Like I said before, I really don't like it when his characters are purely evil and this one oscillates between concern for Rowena and captivated by Ligeia. He's unpredictable and I dig rooting for him to overcome Ligeia's influence.

Rating: 3 out of 5 photophobic fellows.

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Who's In It: Vincent Price (Tower of London, The Hollywood Squares), Hazel Court (The Curse of Frankenstein, The Raven), and Jane Asher (The Prince and the Pauper, Alfie)

What It's About: A sadistic prince (Price) offers his castle as sanctuary from a brutal plague to other nobles willing to obey his every whim. But when he also includes and begins to seduce a young village girl (Asher), his current romance (Court) starts a scheme of her own.

How It Is: I've said before that I prefer film noir Vincent Price to horror Vincent Price. I should rephrase that, but it's movies like Masque of the Red Death that make me think it. I quite enjoyed him in The Raven and The Haunted Palace, because those roles gave him a chance to be funny, or at least complicated. In Masque, he's pure abomination and while he's good at that, I get tired of it quickly. Turns out, I want to like Vincent Price, even when he's eeeevil.

Masque is a great-looking movie though. Especially compared to other, cheaper Corman films I've seen, but I don't need to set it next to those to see its beauty. It makes glorious use of color in the castle decor and in the crimson, plague-heralding specter that gives the movie its name.

The story is compelling, too; I just don't especially like any of the characters. Francesca (Asher) is particularly frustrating, because I start off liking her, but Prospero (Price) leads her through a seduction and transformation that should be fascinating, but turns out unconvincing.

Rating: 3 out of 5 rainbow revenants.

The Haunted Palace (1963)

Who's In It: Vincent Price (House of Wax, House of Usher), Debra Paget (Anne of the Indies, The Indian Tomb), and Lon Chaney Jr (Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, High Noon)

What It's About: A married couple (Price and Paget) move into the estate of the husband's ancestors, but the ghost of the last owner isn't done with the place yet... and also has plans for his descendant.

How It Is: Spoilers for my opinion of some of the Corman/Price/Poe movies I watched after this, but The Haunted Palace is my favorite of them. Ironically, though, it's not really a Poe movie at all. The Haunted Palace is just a Poe title slapped on an HP Lovecraft story, complete with the town of Arkham and references to Cthulhu and other elder gods. The title is pure marketing, cashing in on the success of the other Corman/Price/Poe films.

I especially like Price in this one though. He's got a nice, complicated role as a good man who's gradually being possessed by the spirit of his evil ancestor. And Paget is wonderful as the only one who sees what's happening to him.

Frank Maxwell has a significant role as a local doctor who at least wants to believe Ann's (Paget) reports and I like him a lot, too. The film is ambiguous about whether he's attracted to Ann, but if he is, he's never creepy about it. He seems to legitimately want to help the couple, even though it puts him in conflict with the rest of the town and even with Price himself (depending on whether kindly Charles Dexter Ward or malevolent Joseph Curwen is in control).

Chaney gets third billing as basically Curwen's Ygor (or maybe Renfield). Chaney could be unreliable at this point in his career, but he's engaged this time and does a good job alternating between amiable and creepy as needed.

The makeup effects on the various creatures (including deformed townspeople) aren't awesome, but they're serviceable and the sets are all fantastic, from the palace itself to the foggy streets of Arkham.

I'm not crazy about the way everything wraps up, but based on the performances and mood, I'll be wanting to watch this one again.

Rating: 4 out of 5 mutant townspeople.

The Raven (1963)

Who's In It: Vincent Price (The Fly, The Haunted Palace, The Tomb of Ligeia), Peter Lorre (M, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca), Boris Karloff (Bride of Frankenstein, How the Grinch Stole Christmas), and Jack Nicholson (The Shining, Wolf).

What It's About: A despondent wizard (Price), mourning the death of his wife, helps another sorcerer (Lorre) who was turned into a raven by third (Karloff), drawing them all into a contest for the leadership of the entire magic community.

How It Is: I needed to finally see some of the Roger Corman/Edgar Allen Poe/Vincent Price movies and this is the year. This was a weird one to start with though, because of the humor. It's a fun, lighthearted story about rival wizards and there's plenty of room for Price, Lorre, and Karloff to ham it up as Olive Sturgess (playing Price's daughter) and young Jack Nicholson (as Lorre's son) look on in horror. And there's even a plot twist or two to keep things moving.

It's slight, but delightful. Deslightful!

Rating: 3 out of 5 bawdy blackbirds.

31 Days of Gothic Romance | The Fall of the House of Usher

Arthur Rackham

Edgar Allan Poe's work in general was heavily influenced by gothic romance in terms of mood and just the general theme of decay. We can see this really clearly in "The Oval Portrait," in which he mentions Ann Radcliffe by name and sets the story in the same mountains as her Castle Udolpho. "The Fall of the House of Usher" is another case where Poe's gone beyond influence and has written an actual entry in the canon.

It begins of course with the crumbling castle of a once-great family, with both edifice and inhabitants being the eponymous, falling "house." The last members are a brother and sister, Roderick and Madeline, both of whom are in poor health, physically and psychologically. Because of their specific illnesses, Roderick lives in fear of harming Madeline and unwillingly becoming the gothic nobleman who oppresses a young woman.

"Usher" isn't one of my favorite Poe stories, mostly because of how fantastical it is. I'm all for supernatural elements like ghosts and witches, but those are at least grounded in reality and I understand the rules about them. Poe goes too far when he mystically ties the siblings' well-being to their home, with no real attempt to explain why the house might be alive and sharing the fate of the family. It's great symbolism; I just have trouble accepting it as a plot point.

I've never seen Roger Corman's 1960 movie adaptation, but I understand that it fixes some of my problems. It disconnects the family's supernatural relationship with the castle while having their dysfunction bring about the destruction of the building in other ways. It also grounds their relationship with each other by giving Madeline a fiancé and having Roderick (Vincent Price) disapprove enough that he's willing to do horrible things to his sister in order to prevent her marriage.

22 Movies I Regret Not Seeing in 2012

Happy New Year, everybody!

One of my favorite things to do each January is look back at the movies of the previous year. I'm gonna do that every Wednesday for the rest of the month, starting with my least favorite and working my way up to a Top 10, but I realize that ranking movies that way is a flawed process. I can only talk about movies I've seen. There were a bunch that I had no interest in this year, but I also didn't get to see everything I wanted to.

So, by way of clearing the floor for my lists, here are 22 movies that I wish could have been on them. I have no idea how I might have ranked them, but I'm sorry I wasn't able to find out by Year End.

In the order they were released:

1. The Raven



I love Edgar Allan Poe and John Cusack. Not entirely confident about the plot that seems ripped off from the series premiere of Castle, but I'm willing to find out.

2. The Pirates: Band of Misfits



I have no idea how I missed a pirate movie starring Hugh Grant by the creators of Wallace and Gromit. That should've been something I saw opening night.

3. Safety Not Guaranteed



Audrey Plaza is very funny and I also dig Jake Johnson from New Girl. The plot also sounded intriguing with its focus on loneliness and whether or not the time travel aspect is real or just a metaphor for regret.

Full disclosure: I actually saw this movie about half-an-hour before writing this post, so maybe it shouldn't be on this list. I saw it on DVD though and the rest of my lists are all movies I saw in the theater, so I'm keeping it here.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed by Safety Not Guaranteed. It's a funny movie and worthwhile for the performances, but the story doesn't have much to say other than "loneliness sucks" and that it's better to have someone in your life. That's a fine start to a theme, but I wanted more. There's a huge, missed opportunity in a choice Plaza makes late in the film and Johnson's subplot is only halfway done when the final credits roll.

4. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World



If there's anyone I find more charming than Keira Knightley, it's Steve Carell.

5. Magic Mike



No, wait. It's Matthew McConaughey and he's hilarious in the trailer for this.

6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days



My son turned me on to the Wimpy Kid movies and I love them. They're hilarious. I'm not watching one without him though and he'd just as soon see them on DVD.

Actually, not a big fan of seeing movies in the theater, my son. He'll go if everyone's going, but he'd prefer to be at home (and we don't even have a decent TV). I don't know if that's typical of other kids, but it makes me curious about the future of the movie industry. Not about whether there is a future (of course there is), but just about what it will look like. Will future generations value having control over the presentation more than the less convenient spectacle of the big screen and giant sound?

7. Chicken With Plums



I loved the graphic novel this is based on.

8. Dredd



My only exposure to Judge Dredd is a) those Dredd/Batman crossovers they did in the '90s and b) the horrible Sylvester Stallone/Rob Schneider movie from the same time period. None of that stuff made me a fan, but I'm as fond of second chances as I am of anything Karl Urban signs up for. Judge Dredd has a lot of fans, so there must be something to him. I'm interested in seeing the character's film potential redeemed.

9. The Perks of Being a Wallflower



Like me a teenage comedy/romance. Also curious to see what Emma Watson can do post-Potter.

10. Solomon Kane



I don't know if it's accurate to call this a 2012 movie, because they've been announcing it for about three years now and I'm not real up on why it was just now released this year to a very limited number of theaters. Probably because it's not very good, but it's such a solid concept and a Robert E. Howard character, so I'll take my chances.

11. The Oranges



Hugh Laurie and Oliver Platt. Hoping this'll take the edge off my House withdrawal.

12. Cloud Atlas



I don't have high hopes that Cloud Atlas' execution is equal to its ambition (the makeup isn't at all convincing, for starters, and that seems like a big deal), but it looks like a magnificent spectacle and I'm a sucker for these stories about how we're all connected.

13. Fun Size



A Halloween comedy with Jane Levy from Suburgatory. That's all I need to know.

14. Wreck-It Ralph



I'm not enough of a gamer to be super excited by the cameos and in-jokes, but I like a good Disney animated movie and by all accounts, this is one.

15. Lincoln



Torn between loving Daniel Day Lewis on the one hand, and not liking Spielberg's sentimental side on the other. Curiosity wins out though.

16. Anna Karenina



Another one I'm conflicted about. Adultery stories usually push me away, but Keira Knightley has the opposite effect.

17. Silver Linings Playbook



Another one I was wishy-washy about. Love Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. Pretty tired of uninspired romantic comedies and Robert DeNiro's being in them. I've heard this is anything but uninspired though, and it also features Chris Tucker's return to acting in something other than a Rush Hour movie. Honestly, it's that less element that finally draws me in.

18. Life of Pi



Didn't think I wanted to see a movie about a kid adrift on a lifeboat for two hours, no matter how pretty it is, who directed it, or how many CGI tigers are involved. Ironically, it took having the end spoiled for me to make me want to check it out. I wish now that I'd been willing to see it before and been surprised, but oh well. I'd like to see it so that I can talk with people about it. Sounds like there's a lot of discussion to be had around this one.

19. This is 40



Because I'll watch any Paul Rudd comedy. That rule has bitten me in the past, but most of the time it's trustworthy.

20. Zero Dark Thirty



Didn't have much interest in a docudrama about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, but the trailer sucked me in with its focus on Jessica Chastain's character and her team. Also, the mission itself looks absolutely haunting. Should've trusted Kathryn Bigelow to do this right.

21. Jack Reacher



Looks like a mediocre Tom Cruise action flick, but I still tend to enjoy those.

22. Django Unchained



I'm not as in love with the indulgent, alternate reality of Inglorious Basterds as most people, so I'm not all thrilled at the possibility of seeing it repeated against the backdrop of the Antebellum South. I'd prefer to examine history as it really was and learn from that instead of seeing Quentin Tarantino play out his fantasies onscreen. On the other hand, I love pretty much everyone in this movie and want to judge it on its own merits instead of on my fears about it.

Maniac (1934)

Who's in it?: No one you know.

What's it about?: A former vaudeville actor kills and murders the mad scientist he's been apprenticing for; then carries on the the crazy man's legacy much too well.

How is it?: Wow. This thing, you guys. It's part mad scientist flick, part exploitation film, part homage to Edgar Allen Poe, all masquerading as sort of an educational film on psychoses. The plot about the actor and his boss is cut with intertitle cards containing clinical-sounding quotes from a journal about the criminally insane. As the actor descends deeper into madness, there are truly disturbing scenes of violence against women and animals. There are also relatively harmless, but no less ridiculous scenes of women standing around in their underwear and posing while reciting exposition. The movie is a hot mess.

The only positive thing I'll say about it is that it's kind of fun to play Spot the Poe Reference. I've no idea why the writer gets dragged into it, but part of the movie is an adaptation of "The Black Cat" and there's an explicit reference to "Murders in the Rue Morgue" at one point. Poe deserves better.

Rating: Turkey

Graphic Classics' Halloween Sale

Graphic Classics is a great line of comics anthologies that uses top-notch artists to adapt stories by classic authors. Each volume contains one or two familiar stories as well as obscure ones that you may have never read. None of the volumes I've read - and I've got most of them - have failed to entertain and educate me at the same time.

Several of the volumes are horror-related, so from now through Halloween Graphic Classics are on sale for 20% off when you buy them through the publisher's website. I'm not getting paid to advertise for them; I just really like these books and know some of you will too. Now's a perfect time to try them out.

Comics News: Prose, Poetry, and Perversion

I've been a baaaad blogger this week. I'm sorry about that.

Sailor Twain, or The Mermaid in the Hudson



Mark Siegel's First Second Books is one of my favorite publishers. The comics they publish have fun, interesting concepts presented by unique, high-quality writers and artists. I don't think I've read a single book by them that I didn't care for, so it's no surprise that I'm also enjoying Siegel's own webcomic. Especially since it's about a riverboat captain and - if the title is to be believed - a mermaid.

The Monster in the Mist and other stories



Golden Age Comic Book Stories has a whole mess of Al Williamson adventure stories, a couple of which (like the one pictured above and another about a submarine crew trying to trace Captain Nemo's voyage) are sea-based.

Pennyfarthing Press' new website



Pennyfarthing doesn't publish a lot of books, but I like the ones they do. Especially the undersea adventures of a mermaid, a kraken, an electric fish, and the daughter of the Loch Ness Monster in The Loch. There's also the pulpy Captain Gravity, the steampunk/superheroey Victorian, and a new adventure series about Middle Eastern mythology called Anne Steelyard. Anyway, they just launched a new website and it's worth browsing around to see what they've got.

Nevermore and other Steve Niles news



Steve Niles recently posted a couple of updates on his message board about some very cool sounding projects. One is Nevermore a comics adaptation of Dennis Paoli's one-man play about Edgar Allan Poe. The book will be illustrated by multiple artists including Bernie Wrightson.

Other projects include Mystery Society (which Steve describes as "a bit more action oriented [than his usual gory stuff] with lots of creatures and unexplained phenomena"), Edge of Doom (with Kelley Jones), and Doc Macabre (with Wrightson again). Also lots of updates on film adaptations of his comics, including Dark Days, which Steve says is in the editing stage.

War-Gods of the Deep (1965)

War-Gods of the Deep is a pretty misleading title, but then, almost everything about this movie is misleading. It has some really awesome parts, but there's also a fair bit of disappointment.

For one thing, there are no war-gods. In fact, there's no war. That part of the title is apparently meant to disguise for US audiences that this is a British adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's "The City Under the Sea." Which is itself a bit of subterfuge because it stars Vincent Price and is clearly meant to cash in on Roger Corman's series of Price-starring Poe adaptations. The sad part is, it doesn't even need a war or any gods. The story is just fine on its own, though it could use some tightening up in places.

The movie starts off brilliantly with a creepy voiceover of Price reading Poe's poem and the discovery of a body washed up on the British shoreline. The corpse is discovered by some fisherman and a visiting American engineer named Ben (Tab Hunter) who recognises it as the lawyer for Jill Tregillis (Susan Hart), the only other American in the village. For some reason, Miss Tregills (which I kept mis-hearing as Mister Gillis) stays in a creepy old mansion on the cliffs overlooking the sea. I think it's supposed to be a hotel, but that was never made real clear.

Anyway, Ben goes to tell Jill that her lawyer's dead, but when he sees her he's distracted by such important concerns as the presence of a painter named Harold Tufnell-Jones (played by David Tomlinson from Mary Poppins and Bedknobs & Broomsticks) and his pet chicken. Even with the murder mystery and the creepy mansion, I was concerned about the story because Ben just kept forgetting to tell Jill what he'd gone there to tell her. He manages to mention the lawyer's name at some point, so Jill thinks that Ben wants to visit the lawyer and escorts Ben to the lawyer's room. It's not until they reach the bedroom door that Ben suddenly decides to blurt out that he found the poor guy on the beach.

Tab Hunter's not exactly bad in the movie, but he doesn't do anything to raise his character beyond the unbelievable dialogue either. At another point, Ben goes on and on about how his work as an engineer requires him to be highly observent so that he doesn't miss any opportunity to seize profit for his employers. That line may have played better in 1965 than it does in 2009, but even so Ben brags about it like it's some kind of super-power.

Back to the awesome parts though: the power's out in the mansion so it's all candles and oil lanterns when Ben discovers and fights with a seaweed-covered gill-man who enters and escapes the lawyer's room through a secret panel. In a second attack, the gill-man captures Jill and disappears with her, leading Ben and Tufnell-Jones (and the chicken) to track them back to an underwater city where Vincent Price rules as captain over both the gill-men and an immortal pirate crew. Like I said, you really don't miss the "war." There's plenty of awesomeness to keep it going without that.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn't really make good use of its gill-men and immortal pirates in their Vincent Price-ruled undersea city. Ben and Tufnell-Jones are captured and the rest of the story takes it's lead from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as our heroes keep trying to escape and Price tries to prevent them (he's in love with Jill, you see, because she looks exactly like his dead wife). The gill-men are stuck in the water outside the city, basically just an obstacle for the heroes to eventually overcome if they're to get back home. There's an underwater chase sequence where everyone's wearing cool-looking deep-sea suits, but it's too long and so crappily edited that it's impossible to tell who's chasing and/or fighting with whom.

Still, some of the effects are very good, the sets are fantastic, the gill-men look great, and the exterior shots of the underwater city and the cliff-side mansion are amazing. Price is also delightful as usual and Tomlinson always makes me smile, if only because I grew up with him and it feels good to see him in something "new."

Three out of five secret tunnels to the sea.

Even the phones are dead!

Monster Week: Quoth the Raven, "Templesmith."

As long as we're on the subject of Ben Templesmith and horror, looks like he's also illustrating an Edgar Allen Poe collection.



Don't wanna wait for this one either.

Art du Jour: Killer apes and Western werewolves

Murders in the Rue Morgue



By Berni Wrightson, who has more awesome Poe illustrations here, here, and here.

Western Werewolves



Guy Davis has made a killer bookplate in promotion of Matt Maxwell's Werewolf Western Strangeways.

Graphic Classics: FCBD

Sorry about the last couple of days. I'm changing my writing schedule around a bit and there are still a couple of bugs to get worked out.

I do have a review for you today though. It's just not here. But if you'll hop over to Blog@Newsarama you'll find me talking about the Free Comic Book Day edition of Graphic Classics, including stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Mary Shelley.

Sometime in the next couple of days I'll follow it up with Gothic Classics, which has that Jane Austen story I was talking about.

Also: Keira Knightley in Princess of Thieves. Hoodalicious.

Happy Rue Morgue Day!

Guess who's 199th birthday it would've been today?



Happy Birthday, Edgar!

Movie and TV Stuff

Okay, I've got a lot of catching up to do today, so some of this is old.

Writers' Strike

I don't have a lot to say about the strike except that I support the writers, naturally. I'm getting most of my info about it from Mark Evanier, and though I'm concerned about some of my favorite shows -- especially this final season of Scrubs -- I'm totally into what the WGA is trying to achieve.

Superheroes

A while back I wondered if The Rock was going to play Captain Marvel or Black Adam in the upcoming Shazam! movie. It's Black Adam.

Spies

I agree with Jeff Parker. It's not fair that Britain gets James Bond stamps and we get Yoda.

Paramount is making a movie based on Matz and Luc Jacamon’s The Killer, which is unbelievably exciting to me.

Horror

Sweeny Todd trailer.

An Underworld prequel is coming together, but it doesn't have Kate Beckinsale in it, so do I care? Surprisingly, yes. Beckinsale's my main attraction to the other two movies, but Rhona Mitra has the right look to play a similar character. Does she have the acting ability though? Someone who watched/watches The Practice, Boston Legal, or Nip/Tuck will have to tell me.

Tony and Ridley Scott are adapting Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" into a modern-day, psychological thriller.

The second X-Files movie has a release date, assuming it's not affected by the strike: July 25 of next year.

I hate these kinds of articles. In talking about his role in the upcoming Wolf Man remake, Anthony Hopkins dismisses the original as "pretty corny." Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but there's a trend of actors trying to validate their current work by disrespecting what it's based on, whether that's the original version or the genre it's associated with or whatever. Josh Hartnett made some statements early on in the 30 Days of Night publicity campaign trying to downplay the horror aspects of the movie. Maybe I'm out of touch or just like corn or something, but of all the Universal monster movies, I think The Wolf Man holds up particularly well. The themes are strong, the performances are strong, and that's the best damn werewolf makeup ever.

I watched the original Cat People not too long ago and absolutely loved it. I'm buying it, in fact. I considered writing a review of it, but Will Pfeifer has done it for me. (Incidentally, he wrote a lot of horror movie reviews last month, which gives me some serious reading to do. Adding his blog to my reading list too.)

Science Fiction

Some stuff about Pixar's John Carter of Mars movie, including that it's the first of a planned trilogy.

Giant Robot Warriors, Poe's visitor, and the Treasure of Constantinople

Kill All Monsters!-Related

I got my Amazon confirmation that Monster Attack Network is on its way. Which reminds me that I also need to check out Stuart Moore and Ryan Kelly's GRW: Giant Robot Warriors from AiT/PlanetLar.

Dust to Dust-Related

Northfield, Minnesota is kicking off its Defeat of Jesse James Days. The official festival isn't until September 6-9, but they have Royalty coronations this weekend and there was a hogroast last night to get things started.

Adventure

Delilah Dirk and the Treasure of Constantinople looks and sounds wonderful. (Thanks to Kevin Melrose for the link.)

Jungle

I'm always up for a new Jungle Book movie.

Horror

RKO is probably my favorite movie studio of all time, so I'm really hoping the revitalization effort works for them. A remake of Karloff's Isle of the Dead sounds like a good place to start. It's nostalgic, but offbeat.

I hate that I'm such a slow reader. Otherwise I'd be all caught up on the 30 Days of Night novels. Especially this one about my favorite 3o Days character Dane. Fortunately, Rod Lott is much faster and has the review.

The mysterious visitor to Edgar Allen Poe's grave has been revealed. Anticlimactically, unfortunately.

Fantasy

Frank Beddor's Looking Glass Wars is an exciting, fast-moving alternate take on the Alice in Wonderland story and I loved it. The sequel, Seeing Redd, comes out next week.

Thanks to Charles Raymond for directing me to artist Sarah Mensinga's wonderful work.

Stuff Nobody Cares About But Me

My son was absolutely freaked out by the scene in Ratatouille where Remy's dad takes him to the gruesome window of a rat-trap shop. We had to leave right after that. Good thing we're not planning a trip to Paris soon, because that shop is real.

I got a very nice email today from First Second about my latest review of one of their books. I didn't ask, but hopefully they won't mind me sharing this nice compliment: "You’re always seeing to the heart of the books we put out, and that’s such a fantastic thing." I love that.

Links du Jour: Happy Detective Story Day, National Treasure 2, and the '80s Shazam! cartoon

Adventure

• As a superhero fan, I love Philip José Farmer's concept that all adventure heroes share a common universe. Other fans of the idea are willing to spend a lot more time on it than I am, but it's still a cool notion. One of those fans is Win Scott Eckert who's published a collection of his essays on the subject. Ron Fortier reviews the collection here.
• I hadn't heard that they're making a National Treasure 2, but I'm in favor of it. The first one was everything that The DaVinci Code should have been. What's especially cool is that I learned about it thanks to this story about the moviemakers' having to displace a prom from its traditional location and how they made up for it.

Mystery

• Today's the birthday of the mystery novel. Or at least the detective story. It's the day that Edgar Allen Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" was published back in 1841. Garrison Keillor has a short, but excellent article about it and the evolution of the genre it gave birth to: from Holmes to Poirot to Spade and Marlowe to Perry Mason and Easy Rawlins. Happy Birthday, Detective Stories!

Science Fiction

• Anyone read any of the Star Trek: New Frontier books? I gave up on trying to keep up with Star Trek novels a long time ago, but the idea of a continuing series that features characters from all the different Star Trek shows, but doesn't have to take TV continuity into account is really attractive to me. And I like the Peter David Star Trek novels that I've read in the past. Just wondering if they're as good in execution as they sound fun in concept.
• Luc Besson was apparently frustrated by the process of making The Fifth Element, but now that special effects have sufficiently advanced, he's going to do some more scifi.

Superheroes

• I was already done with Saturday morning cartoons when Hero High was on, but I'm still kind of interested in it's DVD release thanks to Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family's occasionally appearing on the show. Apparently, Hero High was partly live action and partly animated, and I don't know which part featured the Marvels. I hope it's the live action part, because I like cheesy superhero live action more than cheap superhero cartoons, but really either would be pretty cool. Even though there was a very cool live action Captain Marvel show when I was a kid, I'm betting that the Hero High Marvels are animated, since Hero High shared a time slot with a Shazam! cartoon as part of The Kid Superpower Hour with Shazam. Either way, I'm not buying this until I learn how much Marvel Family I'd be getting. I'd rather wait for a DVD set with just Shazam!.

Other Comics

• Dust to Dust co-writer Alex Ness has a contest at his website for some original Peter Bergting art from the fantasy series The Portent.

Writing is Hard

• I've found character questionnaires to be more fun than useful, but here are some if you like that kind of thing.

Stuff Nobody Cares About But Me

• I'm a sucker for reading lists. Especially ones compiled by librarians.

Graphic Classics: Edgar Allen Poe

Just posted a review of Graphic Classics Volume One: Edgar Allen Poe over on Comic World News.

As someone who’s contributed to horror anthologies, I’m well aware of how difficult it is to put together one where each story is as strong as the next. Without exception, anthologies written by multiple authors are going to have stories that vary in quality. Pretty much the only way around that would be to get one writer – and an incredibly talented writer at that – to pen every story in the book.

Of course you see where I’m going with this.

The rest is in the link.