A man with dark wavy hair wakes up in an iron-framed bed in the middle of a windowless room. He leaps out from under the white sheets and stares intently at a corner of the white ceiling. Suddenly, gracefully, he spins to defeat an invisible opponent in four swift motions, finally falling to his knees [...]
When humanity, subjugated by the terror of crime, has been driven insane by fear and horror, and when chaos has become supreme law, then the time will have come for the empire of crime.” –The Testament of Dr. Mabuse “[W]hatever factors come into play in the cases that we have studied, the conclusion is inescapable [...]
BBC Radio 4 presents dramatizations of Frankenstein and Dracula, as well as extras including discussions of the difficulty of performing Frankenstein’s Creature, Vitalism, and who Stoker might’ve based his Count on. Click through to The Gothic Imagination. (via @booksadventures)
The Smithsonian Magazine investigates the vampires and vampire panics of 18th and 19th Century New England. “In Manchester, hundreds of people flocked to a 1793 heart-burning ceremony at a blacksmith’s forge: ‘Timothy Mead officiated at the altar in the sacrifice to the Demon Vampire who it was believed was still sucking the blood of the [...]
The Library of Congress has an online exhibit on the history of illustration, cartoons, animation, single panel gag cartoons and comic strips in the United States. (via @fantagraphics)
Possibly the world’s first old dark house movie, The Haunted House (1908) by Segundo de Chomón and the first vampire/Satanic castle movie, Le Manoir du Diable (1896) by Georges Méliès. (Thanks, Keith and Teleport City!)
In anticipation of The Elephant Man Joseph Merrick’s birthday next month, Abebooks’ Avid Reader has compiled a short history of John Merrick’s life and a gallery of books about Merrick, sideshow histories and biographies as well as a few promotional cards from the late 19th century.
Peter Gutierrez writes about Sherlock Holmes and John Watson and asks, “[S]hould a fan allow for the fact that the archetypal nature of a beloved character naturally, even inevitably, leads to updates that a purist might object to?”
Over the holidays, I participated in the Mysterious Order of the Skeleton Suit‘s Secret Santa Exchange. I sent Tars Tarkas, Apocalypse IV: Judgment. And Permission To Kill‘s David Foster sent me two comics : Vampire! Featuring Fire Fang and Vampire! #2: The Brothers of Fire Fang (Meteor Comics, 1995). Together they reprint five of Australian [...]
Characters from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest perform transcripts from The Jersey Shore, showing an amazing continuity in dandyism society life in-fighting and the importance of trivial comedy for serious people from Wilde’s time to today. (Thanks, Mark!)
As a follow up to “The Yellow Curse,” Grady Hendrix has posted a gallery of images offering a tour of racist stereotypes of Chinese people from 1881 to the present.
Pornokitsch writer (and Kitschies judge) Jared Shurin writes about fairies as fuel and the vast potential of Steampunk as a resource for discussing industrialization.
In the 1998 New York Times Review of Science Fiction, Samuel Delany writes about the history of African-American writers of science fiction, race and racism in science fiction and why Octavia Butler might wonder, “Why, when you invite me, do you always invite that guy, Delany?”
Illustrator Claire Hummel reinterprets Disney princess costumes to make them more historically accurate. (via The Bookshelves of Lesser Doom)
‘It seems to me,’ said Booker T.– ‘I don’t agree,’ Said W.E.B. –Dudley Randall In February, I wrote a piece about how much I like Dwayne McDuffie’s writing. Sadly, a few days later, he died. I’m still stunned . I feel like I’ve just begun exploring his work, so I decided to look for his [...]
“A murder is somehow more quintessentially English when committed on the cobbles of a foggy East End alley. If there’s a silhouetted top hat, a rustle of crinoline and a scream cut short with straight razor, all the better.” The Guardian has more on “the Great English Slaying.”
“We have in our police reports realism pushed to its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed, neither fascinating nor artistic.”—Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Case of Identity.” When I wrote about Sherlock Holmes and Kolchak: The Night Stalker: Cry of Thunder, I wrote that I picked up that comic because of [...]
Slouching Towards Bethlehem has found tantalizing evidence of a detective agency operating in Meiji Era Japan, The Iwai Detective Agency.
“Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula” isn’t old time radio, but its old timey and fun to listen to before Halloween. The Internet Archive’s Old Time Radio collection has more, including Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the Air’s “War of the Worlds” broadcast.
Yellowback novels were pulpy Victorian reading. Emory University has a bunch of them for you to download. (via @houseinrlyeh)
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