Doctor Fate

A long tribute to the Doctor Fate title from the Golden Age era of comic books (it’s the DC equivalent of Marvel’s Doctor Strange title)…

“For the first 135 pages, Doctor Fate Archives [printed volume collects More Fun Comics #55-98] features some of the wildest, eeriest and most entertaining stuff the era has to offer as far as mainstream comics go. […] While Doctor Fate is generally characterized as a sorcerer hero in modern comics, he’s actually presented here as a scientist who has discovered a way to manipulate his atomic structure and the atomic structure of other things as well, thus making it appear that he can do magic. The man who gives Fate his powers is not a sorcerer, but an alien who was worshipped as a god (just like Lovecraft’s great old ones). Fate even denies the existence of vampires and werewolves in one story, just as how Lovecraft often showed contempt for such “traditional” horrors and hardly ever used them. We also have a “witch haunted Salem”, characters who speak in odd, stilted dialogue with truly bizarre tense, hidden races, abandoned megaliths, as well as half man and half fish creatures that clearly were inspired by Lovecraft’s Deep Ones. Doctor Fate may well be the first Lovecraft pastiche in mainstream entertainment.” [my emphasis]

The Revised Adolphe Danziger de Castro

Chris Powell’s “The Revised Adolphe Danziger de Castro“, free…

“The following article was published in the Spring 1997 (Number 36) edition of Lovecraft Studies, a small, academic journal for devotees of H.P. Lovecraft and fiction of the weird. It describes a phase of Danziger’s writing career where he used ghostwriters to revise and improve his writing. Most notable among those ghostwriters was horror writer H.P. Lovecraft.”

JURN

Independent scholars seeking free access to full-text articles in academic journals may be interested in my JURN search-engine. Built over three years, JURN now indexes and searches 4,336 free ejournals in the arts & humanities. These are a mix of full “open access” journals, and serious publications that simply put some or all of their content online for free.

I also have a JURN Directory, an organised single-page display of 3,000 links to all the English-language titles indexed in JURN.

Both resources are kept free of link-rot via regular automated checks.

Graceless No.1

Graceless : a journal of the radical gothic. It’s a 116-page goth subculture journal, but it looks a serious endevour. No fiction, but rather a mix of interviews, photography and articles on aspects of the gothic subculture scene, plus occasional more serious-sounding articles such as “Jeepers Creepers!: The Dark Side of Victorian Childrens’ Literature”. May interest photographers and Lovecraftian goths.

Gothic Science Fiction: 1980-2010

An interesting sounding new book from Livepool University Press in the UK, Gothic Science Fiction: 1980-2010 (Liverpool Science Fiction Texts & Studies) (Nov 2011)…

“This timely book explores what might be termed Gothic science fiction of the last three decades, 1980-2010. Identifying texts by this category may at first appear contradictory, as the Gothic’s connotations of the irrational and supernatural seems to conflict with science fiction’s rational foundations. However, this collection demonstrates that the two categories have rich intersections.”

New Polish zine

Super Lovecraft-portrait cover illustration, for the first issue of a new Polish zine…

“Available in February for distribution via online ebook shops, and also at selected retail sales outlets in Poland! The first issue of [Something On The Threshold], dedicated to horror, crime and amazing stories. The zine will have 64 pages in A5 format, and between the covers will be many excellent texts, both Polish and foreign. Including previously unpublished [in Polish?] works of H.P. Lovecraft. For more information, also about how to submit texts, can be found on the Facebook group page.”