Sword and Sorcery Cliche No. 2: Barbarian Bikinis [Guest Post]

By GW Thomas

I believe the movie was Spartacus (1960) with Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. In an early scene, the trainer of the gladiators is showing the new recruits how to kill an opponent. Using a large paintbrush, he dabs on color in three spots, explaining these are the three most vulnerable places on the body. With a cruel switch he cuts at the throat, the belly, and the knees. Why do I mention this? Because if you look at Red Sonja's steel mail bikini you'll see it covers none of these.

Red Sonja was created in 1973, not as an adaptation of a Robert E Howard character, but as an amalgam of Howard's Sonya of Rogotino, CL Moore's Jirel of Joiry, and just plenty of sexy '70s goodness. And who am I to argue with the commercial results of selling sexy babes to fan boys everywhere?

But it raises the question: where did such ridiculous armor come from? Whether it is Sonja's steel attire drawn by Frank Thorne or the equally common fur version for less divine opponents painted by Frank Frazetta? The fur and steel bikini is our second sword-and-sorcery cliché and it has its own history, of course.

The 1960s was a time of expansion, even explosion, for fantasy, whether in print or on the silver screen. It was also a time of changing ideas about sexuality, freedom, and identity. So for every feminist staking out more territory for women there was a paperback with a sexy lady on the cover or a movie with a semi-clad starlet in it. In this way, Ray Harryhausen was one of the first filmmakers to have a beautiful young woman as the centerpiece to the film. Not that he had to animate them. Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC (1966) was quite capable of wearing her own fur bikini. This was not a sword-and-sorcery film, but when Harryhausen would produce later films like The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974) or Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), he was sure to include Caroline Monroe and Jane Seymour in revealing Arabic garb.

In the paperback world, an area of increasing expansion since World War II, artists like Gray Morrow produced numerous fantasy scenes for novels costing only ten cents to a quarter. His work was solid, but nothing compared to the furor that Frank Frazetta would create when he began painting covers for the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs for ACE and the story collections of Conan for Lancer. Here women wore as little as possible, regardless of whether they were on the sands of an alien planet or in the snows of Cimmeria. This sounds as if I am putting down Frazetta's work. Nothing could be further from the truth. To look at a Frazetta is to peer into a frozen moment of action and magic. His work sold as many books as the thundering great words of Howard or Burroughs.

Frank Frazetta (1928-2010) was a classically trained painter. Unlike the goofy-looking SF covers of a decade before, Frank's images were so believable, so real in the moment of time in which they happen. You didn't stop to say, hey, isn't that gal a little cold standing there in the snow as she's about to be eaten by wolves? That was the power of Frazetta's brush. A power so enchanting that Betty Ballentine published best-selling collections of his work. I can't imagine the '70s without those volumes containing his paintings and sketches.

Whether they captured your imagination or not, Frazetta did perpetuate the fur bikini-ism of Harryhausen, as lesser artists jumped on the Frazetta bandwagon. What Frank could pull off in a flurry of excitement, they could not. And so the cheesy sword-and-sorcery gal with the impossibly huge sword became a favorite of artists making their money at SF conventions (along with that other fave, the gal with the incredibly large bust and a smoking laser rifle).

The transition from fur to steel occurred quite by chance. Red Sonja appeared for the first time in Conan the Barbarian #23 (February 1973), drawn by Barry Smith with a full shirt of mail and sexy hot pants. But Smith left after Issue #24, and Roy redesigned the character's attire when simple dumb luck put an image in front of him. This was an unsolicited, single page, black-and-white illustration by Spanish artist Esteban Maroto. Unlike American (or British, if we included Barry Smith) comic artists, Maroto brought a Roccocco flourish to his art. The bikini Red was wearing looked more like something you'd hang on your porch to catch the wind than a suit of armor.

Roy Thomas saw the potential and so the first issue of Savage Sword of Conan (August 1974) bore a Boris Vallejo painting with steel bikinied Red Sonja and Conan fighting a crew of undead warriors. (These Boris Conan covers are oddly important to me for as a fourteen year old I had a T-shirt emblazoned with a Boris decal that declared to the world my status as a sword-and-sorcery nut. I never quite got around to having a Frazetta painted on my van though.) The look had arrived. Red Sonja, wearing steel coins where any reasonable person would want thick leather and metal armor, danced across Marvel publications, sword in hand. Artists like Frank Thorne would draw Sonja in regular sized comics, attend conventions with steel-bikinied fangirls (including Elfquest's Wendy Pini) and even do his own racier version of Red called Ghita of Alizarr in the '80s.

We are stuck with the fur and steel bikinis. They are part of sword-and-sorcery's history. (As is the terrible movie version of Red Sonja starring Brigitte Nielsen from 1985. Strangely, Brigitte never wore the ridiculous steel bikini but a Romanesque leather corset with fur trim. Not sure why this was so. Red's steel attire was part of her draw. Plenty of cosplay costumes proved it was possible to make such a garment. Perhaps Nielson refused to wear it?) I like to think that we can set this cliché aside now, laugh at our simplicity back in the day, and return to something closer to what Catherine Lucille Moore conceived with her Lady of Joiry back in 1933. But if Dynamite Comics, the latest copyright holder of the She Devil with a Sword, is any indication, I'd better not hold my breath.

GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.

The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960)

Who's In It: Kerwin Mathews (The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jack the Giant Killer) and June Thorburn (Tom Thumb).

What It's About: A doctor (Mathews) goes to sea against the wishes of his fiancée (Thorburn) and winds up stranded on two fantastical islands where he learns important lessons about dreams and control.

How It Is: Jonathan Swift's novel is famous as a piece of social satire, so I wasn't sure how well it would translate into an adventure film. Having Ray Harryhausen on the visual effects convinced me to give it a shot though and I'm glad I did. Except for an impressive man vs. crocodile fight towards the end, most of the effects are about making Gulliver either huge or tiny in relation to the islanders he encounters, but there's a lot more to the film than just that. It works as an adventure film, but it works as social commentary, too.

The three worlds in the title refer to Gulliver's native England and the two major islands he visits: Lilliput (where he's much larger than everyone else) and Brobdingnag (where he's much tinier). In England, he has a serious argument with his fiancée Elizabeth. She just wants to get married and settle down at all costs, even if it means buying a dilapidated cottage and Gulliver's continuing to get paid for his medical services in livestock and produce. Gulliver has bigger dreams though. He wants to go to sea and earn his fortune so that he can Be Somebody. Only then will he feel prepared to marry Elizabeth and start his life.

What I like about the movie is that neither side is presented as absolutely correct. In fact, the islands Gulliver visits each teach him (and Elizabeth, who stows away on his ship) something about their desires. On Lilliput, Gulliver is treated as a god, but that doesn't prevent the people from trying to manipulate him into doing what they want. All that prestige and power he craved comes with a cost.

By the time he gets to Brobdingnag, he's sick of the responsibility and at first welcomes the way the giants there treat him and Elizabeth as sort of pets. But though the couple's needs are all taken care of, it's at the cost of their freedom. Lack of responsibility is both blessing and curse.

I mentioned in some of my Christmas Carol discussion that I've been thinking about control a lot lately. It's just something I'm mulling over in my personal life: how much control do we ever really have and how much should I try to maintain. The 3 Worlds of Gulliver adds some important thoughts to that conversation. Too much control/power/responsibility doesn't make you happy (not if we've learned anything from Spider-Man), but too little is just as bad. That's a theme I remember struggling with in another of my favorite movies, Finding Neverland, and it's about time I revisit that one too. There's a lot to be said for retaining a sense of childlike wonder about the world, but it shouldn't keep us from living up to our responsibilities. I don't know that I'll ever find the right balance, but until I do movies like Finding Neverland and 3 Worlds of Gulliver will continue to fascinate me and make me think.

And it doesn't hurt for them to have fights with giant crocodiles at the end either.

Rating: Four out of five enormous osteolaemi.

10 Greatest Giant Monsters of ALL TIME!

So, this started with Godzilla: Rulers of Earth. Siskoid and I got to talking on Twitter about the 1998 American Godzilla (aka Zilla) and I admitted that I like her design. It doesn't work that the filmmakers tried to put her over as the Godzilla, but as her own monster, she works for me. Siskoid replied that he wouldn't include Zilla on his personal Top 10 Kaiju list and our blogging genes immediately lit up. Personal Top 10 Kaiju lists are things that need documenting. (Spoiler: Zilla doesn't make mine either.)

To make this a full blown blog crossover EVENT, Siskoid also recruited BW Media Spotlight and Matt Burkett of the Monstrosities vlog. I think Matt's going to join in later, but if you visit Siskoid or BW Media today, you should see their Top 10 Kaiju lists too. [Update: Here's Siskoid's list. Here's BW Media's. And That F'ing Monkey, Laughing Ferret, and Let's Rap with Cap have gotten into the action too. Yay!]

My list is below, but first, a few explanations/disclaimers:

1) I'm not as well-versed in the Tohoverse as I'd like to be. David, Diane, and I are working our way through the Godzilla films chronologically and we've only made it through 1969's All Monsters Attack so far. Some of the old Godzilla movies are surprisingly hard to find in the U.S. and we've been stalled out waiting to find a way to watch Godzilla vs. Hedorah. We're finally going to skip ahead and move on, but as of right now I've never seen a Gigan or Megalon movie. While I expect them to be awesome, they can't be on my list until I've seen them in action.

2) I decided for the purposes of this list that giant robots are a separate category. I sometimes see Mechagodzilla and Iron Giant on lists of giant monsters, but as much as I like them, they're not on mine. I've spent too much time having giant robots try to kill giant monsters, so they can't co-exist in my head.

3) These are my favorite giant monsters, not my favorite stories about giant monsters. That would be a whole different list. For example, I love Them!, but giant ants themselves didn't crack my Top 10.

4) In spite of the tongue-in-cheek, hyperbolic superlative in the title of this post, standard list-making rules apply about how these are my personal favorites. Your list will be different and I'd love if you share how in the comments.

10. Brainblob (Kill All Monsters)



This is totally self-serving and I apologize, but I really do like a lot of the monsters we came up with for KAM. Especially this transparent, gelatinous blob with a brain floating in it.

9. Kraken (Clash of the Titans, 1981)



I love that Ray Harryhausen decided against a traditional, squid-like kraken in favor of this giant, mermanoid sea monster. The only reason it's not higher on my list is because it appears so briefly and is easily defeated. As awful as the 2010 remake was, I do like how it extended the kraken's appearance into an actual battle.

8. Tarantula



I'm pretty terrified of normal-sized tarantulas, which are plenty big enough. Blowing one up to this size makes it the most horrifying creature on this list.

7. Gamera



We finally watched Gamera the movie the other night and I wasn't too impressed with it. Or Gamera the monster, for that matter, at least at first. By the time the military knocked Gamera on its back and were congratulating themselves (because turtles are notorious for not being able to right themselves from that position), I was barely paying attention. But that's when Gamera pulled into its shell, shot jets out of its leg holes, and turned itself into a flying saucer. The movie may still suck, but the monster is crazy and awesome.

6. King Ghidorah



Godzilla had sort of an identity crisis in the '60s as he waffled between villain and hero. What I like about King Ghidorah - besides his three heads and batwings - is that he's consistently evil and powerful enough that the "good" monsters have to team up to bring him down. A great antagonist.

5. Ymir (20 Million Miles to Earth)



This Harryhausen creation bears a slight resemblance to the kraken, but I love that fishy look, so it doesn't bother me. And though the Ymir isn't as huge as the other monsters on this list, it gets bonus points for being a sympathetic creature. It doesn't ask for any of the things that happen to it and is dangerous only because it's a wild creature that humans have forced into our environment. That theme goes a long way with me (see No. 1).

4. Godzilla



Speaking of themes, I'll always love Godzilla if based on nothing but the strength of that first movie in 1954. He was a perfect metaphor for the horrors of nuclear weapons and it's kind of a shame that he would eventually be known for hanging out with Minilla (aka Son of Godzilla) and dancing jigs. Still, he's the icon and it's impossible for me to put him lower than this.

3. Mothra



Mothra introduced actual personality to giant monsters in the Tohoverse. Until her, there was a vague sense of who Godzilla and his fellow kaiju were, but they was malleable to the needs of their plots. Mothra, thanks greatly to the innovation of letting her speak through the Tiny Beauties, has a consistent personality. What's more, it's a lovely one that's protective not only of her home island, but humanity in general. She's directly responsible for turning Godzilla into a legitimately heroic character, but whatever I think of that development, Mothra's asking Godzilla to make that change fits perfectly with her characterization and it's cool that she did it.

2. Belloc (Firebreather)



The main character in Phil Hester and Andy Kuhn's Firebreather is the son of a human woman and a giant monster named Belloc. Hester has talked about how Belloc was inspired by Marvel's Fin Fang Foom (who just barely missed my list), which explains not only his general look, but also his intelligence. What I love about Belloc is that he's actually a complex character with conflicting motivations that lead him to do interesting things. Of all the monsters on this list, he's the most fully realized.

1. King Kong



I won't be surprised if I get some grief for featuring Peter Jackson's version of Kong instead of Ray Harryhausen's, but though I love the original film from 1933, Kong was just a monster to me in it, and one with a goofy smile. The story was all great, but as cool as that stop-motion gorilla was, I never connected to it.

Jackson's version - thanks to Andy Serkis' performance and Naomi Watt's reactions to it - turned Kong into a character I felt something for. He's not as complicated as Belloc, but he's no less relatable and the end of Jackson's film breaks my heart (in a good way) every time. I truly don't get the hate for it.

Really though, almost any version of Kong could make the top spot on my list just for being a giant gorilla who fights dinosaurs on a jungle island shaped like a skull. Does not get any better than that.

Elsewhere...Harryhausen's Sinbad sails without Harryhausen

In lieu of actual content today, I hope you're okay with my pointing you to this week's Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs post:

Bluewater sent out a press release last week to announce that Morningside Entertainment has optioned the film rights to Bluewater’s Sinbad: Rogue of Mars comic from 2007. There are several interesting things about that.

According to the press release, Morningside has optioned the comic in order to adapt it into a feature film for 2012. Not a reboot, the movie is intended to be an extension of the Sinbad films that started with 1958’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and continued into the ‘70s with The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.

The release went on to quote Executive Producer Barry Schneer as saying that Rogue of Mars would be the first film in a new trilogy. “I’m thrilled to continue the amazing legacy my uncle, Charles Schneer began with 7th Voyage and to bring to the screen the Sinbad movie that he and Ray Harryhausen never got to make.”

Since Bluewater published Sinbad: Rogue of Mars as part of its Ray Harryhausen Presents line of comics, I started wondering how this fit together and who owned the rights to what. I assumed that Morningside already owned at least a portion of the rights to the Sinbad films. Since Rogue of Mars was based on those movies, why would Morningside need to option the story from a comic book company that had bought the license from them in the first place? What exactly was Morningside optioning? And how does Ray Harryhausen himself fit into all of this?

I asked questions and got some answers, all of which you can read in the link.

And Now the News: So Many Ways to Take a Life

Here's the rest of the news from last week that (mostly) wasn't about Disney's buying Marvel.

Meandering Aquaman

The Stonechat Museum - a Hawkman blog - picked up a quote I missed from Dan Didio about the difficulty of finding a spot for Aquaman in the current DCU:

Where is Aquaman: Rebirth? It’s hard for us to do a Rebirth because Rebirths stand for something to us. It’s a particular character returning who had the lead mantle of that character, and him being re-established in the world. Aquaman has never been removed from the role, with the exception of maybe what we did with the One Year Later. It’s a different sensibility going on there.

The other thing with Aquaman is he never got the level of traction the other characters did. He never broke free. Most people’s references to Aquaman really are the cartoon series from the 1960s and Super Friends. We look at Aquaman a lot of times and say "What is the iconic interpretation?" When we do that, you have 15 different answers because the problem with Aquaman ... is that every time he was rebooted, the origin was moved a little bit to the right, moved a little to the left, moved around half way and then it came back three quarters. He never really had a clear change and his story just meandered along. Our goal following Blackest Night, if there is an Aquaman, would be to make sure to get clear what the iconic interpretation is and present it in the best light possible.

I don't have any real concern that DC's going to leave Aquaman dead at the end of Blackest Night, but what this does sound like is that there are no definite plans for him yet. They're still feeling their way around, trying to get to that "iconic interpretation." Which is strange, since Didio says what the iconic interpretation is right there in his comments: the '60s and '70s cartoons. Maybe those are what I should be checking out instead of old issues of Justice League.

Doris Danger: Giant Monster Adventures



It's like they're making this stuff just for me now.

The Three-D Musketeers

Paul WS Anderson is adapting The Three Musketeers in 3D. I have a hard time getting as upset about this as /Film does. Anderson's not a brilliant director or anything, but he's no Uwe Boll either. I've very much enjoyed the Resident Evil movies and it's not like there aren't a zillion, other, good Musketeers movies to fall back on if this one blows.

And really? I don't get what /Film is complaining about other than some justifiable concern that Anderson may not make a very good movie. He wants to make a Musketeers film that's "rich in eye-popping action, romance and adventure?" Good! That's exactly what a Musketeers film should be. And it's kind of putting words in his mouth to say that he wants to make a "non-period period film" when all that he really said was that he didn't want the "corsets and feathered hats" to be the focus. I don't want them to be the focus either. The Three Musketeers shouldn't be The Duchess.

Gripe all you want that Anderson's making another movie. I do that about Michael Bay all the time. Just don't pretend that he's ruining some sacred franchise by doing a new version of it with some cool technology.

Untitled Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz Spy Movie

Double O Section has new information about the cool-sounding spy movie formerly known as Wichita. Like most people, I've been skimming over Wichita news because of the non-descript title and missing that it's about a woman whose life is turned upside down when her blind date turns out to be a super spy and takes her on a violent, worldwide journey to protect a powerful MacGuffin.

Fantastic Four movie reboot

I think it's interesting that on the very day the Disney/Marvel deal was announced Fox let everyone know that they're starting from scratch and making a completely new Fantastic Four movie. All they have so far is a new screenwriter with a shaky resumé, but - as much as I'll miss Chris Evans - I welcome the attempt. Please please please let them get it right this time.

Half-Minute Horrors



How scared can you get in 30 seconds? Lemony Snicket, James Patterson, Neil Gaiman, R.L. Stine, and others want to help you find out.

Dark Days direct-to-DVD movie has a director



That's good news. The bad news is that Melissa George isn't returning as Stella. Not that no one else can play the role, but it would've been nice to see her back if only for continuity's sake. Hopefully they'll find someone who (with a new Eben) can stick around for a while and make future sequels like Return to Barrow and Eben and Stella.

Still, Dark Days is my favorite of the 30 Days of Night books and I'm looking forward to seeing how this comes out. Especially since Steve Niles has a co-writing credit on the screenplay. The director (and other writer) is Ben Ketai, who's been involved with the 30 Days of Night web shorts.

Rambo V: The Savage Hunt

This story on the proposed next film in the Rambo series sounds like it's trying very hard not to say the word "werewolf," but I totally hope that's what it's about.

Trick 'r Treat review



I've been hoping that Trick 'r Treat is as cool as that poster makes it look. According to /Film, it is.

Inglourious Wizerds



"That’s why every sonofabitch we find wearin’ a Death Eater mask, they’re gonna die."

It gets said often, but still not enough: Chris Sims is a genius.

No more Harryhausen comics



Ray Harryhausen and Bluewater Comics have parted ways, each saying that they're the party who made the decision to leave. The only disappointing part of that news is Harryhausen's statement that there are "no plans to move the properties to another publisher," because frankly the world needs Harryhausen comics. We just need some with a professional level of art that Bluewater hasn't been providing.

Of course, "no plans" doesn't mean that Harryhausen wouldn't consider other offers; just that there aren't any attractive ones on the table right this second. Hopefully someone will step up and make some comics worthy of the man's imagination. Of course, I'd rather have no Harryhausen comics than deal with the frustration of constantly seeing ones on the shelves that I have to pass up because they're awful.

Steampunk Art at Oxford



Brother Calvin's turned up a steampunk art exhibit at Oxford University. Reason #5,695 that I need to visit Britain.

Adventureblog Theater: Odds and Ends

Japanese "We Are the World"



Via.

I don't care if you don't like ballet...

'Cause frankly, I'm not a big fan either. But this presentation of Swan Lake is more acrobatics than ballet, especially right around the 3:30 mark where you will -- I'm not kidding here -- need to change your pants. (Oh. And Swan Lake of course gets bonus points for having the theme from the Lugosi Dracula.)



Via.

Ray Harryhausen's Rapunzel



Via.