#The second jungle book novel

[kingdomoftyto]

I'm crying laughing, the DVDs are even worse than I remember... Season 1's menus are silent with a single static jpg of the same key character art they use for everything else, and the episodes on the Season 2 discs don't even match what's listed on the box! Absolutely stunning lack of shits given. Truly unparalleled. But I really shouldn't be surprised given... well... everything about how this series has been treated since the very beginning.

Time for a quick ~✨PHANDOM HISTORY LESSON✨~ to give newer/less hyperfixated folks more context for why the graphic novel being as great as it is is such a HUGE deal:

Danny Phantom was one of Nickelodeon's MAIN cartoons, in its time. It was a central pillar. One of the top three or four of their lineup, which is saying something when the competition includes the cultural juggernaut that is Spongebob.

Despite this, and despite its superhero theming making it perfectly marketable, it got basically ZERO official merch.

What little we did get was often ugly and very, very cheap. The dedication at the start of the graphic novel that jokes about collecting the Burger King toys? That's because it was some of the most notable merch the franchise EVER had. (I sadly do not have any of it. There was no BK in my hometown. Here's a pic from the internet, though, to give you an idea.)

If you think I'm exaggerating about that being the most significant physical merch to come out of the series, consider that the first video game had an entire menu option specifically for the Burger King promotional tie-in:

That video game, by the way, was one of only two ever based on the show. The first was an adaptation of "The Ultimate Enemy" in the style of a short sidescrolling beat-em-up, and the second was themed around "Urban Jungle" and (as far as I can tell--I've only played the first couple levels) was an arcade-style scrolling shooter. Both were for the Gameboy Advance, and both are...... fine, as far as cash-grabby video game tie-ins to kids' shows go. This was pretty normal for the time, so I suppose we did okay in that department, actually. They're not GOOD, but they're playable and have at least a bit of effort put into them.

But besides those two video games (plus a handful of simple, long-defunct Flash games on nick.com)? In the decade and a half since the show ended?

Nothing.

No books, no games, no comics, no web shorts--unless you count mega-crossovers with every other Nicktoon (a la Nicktoons Unite), or soulless promotional material like "Fairly Odd Phantom" (which, trust me, despite being the first new DP animation in over 10 years was not even worth the effort of watching).

...I think there was a limited edition FunkoPop once?

So yeah.

A Glitch in Time is not just the first cool, well-made thing we've seen from the franchise in a while. It's the first THING we've seen since the show. PERIOD. And arguably the first worthwhile supplementary material to EVER come out of the show, depending on how you feel about those GBA games and the Nicktoons crossovers.

This franchise is widely beloved even now, almost 20 years after it first aired, and it feels like that fact is now, finally, FINALLY getting some official recognition.

PLEASE read A Glitch in Time. Tell other people about it. The series--no, the fans--deserve this (and more of this, if the folks in charge see enough of a response and decide to grace us with any followup). It's LONG overdue, but better late than never.

#Danny Phantom #this is why I've been losing my mind repeating ''please buy it'' over and over btw #this is the FIRST and maybe ONLY time we'll ever get to directly show support for the series #it is a uniquely huge deal for this fandom #it's totally fine if you can't (or just still won't) buy it of course but I am begging folks to consider it IF they can. #not for any moral guilting or anything just.... for me. for the fandom. (for yourself because it's a cool story lmao) #long post

[petermorwood]

YA or not YA, that is the question...

This started out as a response to Diane’s post here about YA literature and its long history prior to what some people think inspired it, but got longer (Oh! What a surprise!) and wandered far enough from the initial subject that I decided to post separately.

So here it is.

*****

Many years ago my town library (in Northern Ireland, so following UK library practice, I suppose) had just two sections, Adult and Children. There was no YA section, and the Children’s section covered everything from large-format picture books through to hardback novels and the usual amount of non-fiction.

(Library books were almost always bought in hardback for better wear, and even the softback picture books were rebound with heavy card inserts.)

There were classics like “Treasure Island”,  “Kidnapped”, “King Solomon’s Mines” “Under the Red Robe” and “The Jungle Books”.

There were standalone titles like “The Otterbury Incident”, “The Silver Sword”, “The Sword in the Stone” and “The Stone Cage”.

There were series about characters like William, Biggles, Jennings and his counterpart Molesworth, the Moomins, Narnia and Uncle.

There were authors like Alan Garner, Nicholas Stuart Grey, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Henry Treece, Ronald Welch… And of course there was J.R.R. Tolkien.

The first time I got "The Hobbit", "Farmer Giles of Ham" and "Smith of Wootton Major" they were shelved in the Children's section. This was about 1968-69.

In the early 1970s the library moved to larger premises, which allowed room for Very Young Children (where the picture books now lived) and Children (everything else), still with no YA section, though with more advanced picture books like “Tintin” and “Asterix” * in a sort of no-man’s-land between them.

( * These included editions in the original French, which turned out very useful for making language lessons at school a bit more fun and gaining extra marks in exams through judiciously enhanced vocabulary.)

“The Hobbit” et cetera were still on the Children shelves, but now that the library was larger and more open-plan, volumes of "The Lord of The Rings", normally in the Adult section, occasionally got shelved there as well by well-meaning non-staff people.

I never saw “The Hobbit” mis-shelved alongside “Lord of the Rings” among the Adults, but Farmer Giles” and “Smith” sometimes turned up there, courtesy of those same well-meaning hands.

It’s probably because the first, with its sometimes complex wordplay and mock-heroic plot, reads like a humorous parody of more serious works, while the second, if read in the right frame of mind, can seem quite adult in the style of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s “Kingdoms of Elfin” - which is in fact a good deal more adult than “Smith of Wootton Major”, even if you squint.

*****

This “Hobbit” / “Rings” confusion is a lightweight version of assuming a particular author writes every book for the same age-group. This is very much not the case.

Sometimes the thickness of the book is a giveaway. Compare, for instance, @neil-gaiman’s “American Gods” with “Coraline” or indeed “Fortunately, The Milk”.

Sometimes the cover is a hint, for example the difference between “Live and Let Die” by Ian Fleming...

...and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, also by Ian Fleming...

...although the original James Bond novels are – apart from some extremely dated attitudes – a lot more weaksauce than many YA books nowadays.

(More weaksauce still now that Fleming, like Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie, has been censored to conceal the extent to which - let's call them Certain Attitudes - were a standard feature in British popular fiction. Apparently (I haven't read any Newspeak Bond so can't confirm) the redaction was done in a curiously slapdash way, removing some things while leaving others.

These novels have become, IMO anyway, period pieces as much as Kipling, Doyle, Dickens and Austen, and erasure probably has less to do with sensitivity - maybe with some "brush it under the rug and they'll forget about it" involved - than with keeping them marketable, so Fleming doesn't go the way of other once-bestselling writers like "Sapper" and Sydney Horler.)

It would also be a mistake, despite advisory wizards Tom and Carl, to think that @dduane’s “Young Wizards” books are meant for the same age-group as her “Middle Kingdoms” series – although, once again, the later YW books and all of the MK slot into what a modern YA audience expects from its fiction.

But sometimes there’s absolutely no doubt that This Book by This Author is not meant for the readership of That Book by The Same Author. I’m thinking of one example which caused a certain amount of amusement.

“Bee Hunter” by Robert Nye is a retelling of the Beowulf story for children, though IIRC occasional bloody episodes as Grendel takes Hrothgar’s housecarls apart make it more suited to older children. 

I’d brought home a copy from the library when much younger, and borrowed it again years later in company with another Nye novel, “Falstaff”...

...which was poetic, historic, melancholic, often bawdy, frequently funny and at all times most emphatically NOT for children, as indicated by some of these chapter headings - I draw your attention to XX, XXII, XXXII and especially XL... ;->

Yes. Quite... :->

*****

I was familiar with card index systems from quite early in my life, because my grandfather’s grocer’s shop had a fairly simple one for keeping track of customers, suppliers, stock and so forth, and since the library’s index card system cross-referenced in the same way, I was already home and dry.

If I could remember a title, I'd find the author, and once found I could track down other titles by that author (which, as shown above, can be educational...) Even if I could only remember the subject - historical, adventure, comedy - I'd still have narrowed my search window more than somewhat.

(This from-here-to-there mindset later became virtual train travel by way of the electronic timetables which SBB – Swiss Railways – used to issue on CD, and which let me “travel” anywhere in Europe, complete with a map. Those CDs are long discontinued, but I can still do virtual travel courtesy of the SBB website. Complete with a map…)

This is the last one we got, kept for sentimental reasons and occasional outdated train-travel on an equally outdated XP netbook.

As you do.

Or as I do, anyway. :->

*****

I also knew about title request cards and interlibrary loans, and was a frequent user - never more so than when I started reading “The Lord of the Rings” for the first time.

The town library didn’t have all three volumes, just “The Fellowship of the Ring” and “The Two Towers”, so I checked them out on a Friday to read over the weekend.

You can already see where this is going… :->

I finished “Fellowship” late on Saturday afternoon, went straight into “Towers” and by Sunday evening was all of a twitter (no, not that one) or as my mum would have said, up to high Doh, as I fretted about Not Knowing What Happened Next.

Fortunately school was no more than a brisk bike ride from the library, so I devoted my Monday morning break to zooming down and filling in one of the most urgent title requests I’ve ever made, then spent the rest of the week on tenterhooks, looking in every lunchtime and each afternoon on my way home.

Just In Case.

Some kindly librarian must have pulled strings or stamped the request "Expedite Soonest", because when I went back to school after Thursday lunch, I had “The Return of the King” burning a hole in my saddlebag.

I wanted to start reading it at once, but good sense prevailed; imagine getting caught between chapters at the back of a boring Geography lesson and Having The Book Confiscated…

I didn’t pay much attention in class on Friday, due to being half-asleep after starting “Return” in the evening after prep and finishing it in the wee hours of the morning.

But being tired didn’t prevent me from starting with “Fellowship” again on Friday night, and this time being able to read right through to the end without needing to stop.

It Was Great…

#YA books #library age categories #library use #don't judge a book by its cover #don't judge an age group by author #anecdotage

[giulliadella]

Hellraiser: the Toll is dumb AF

You freaks liked my review of The Scarlet Gospels, so I'm here to deliver this short review of another garbage Hellraiser novel while I'm procrastinating with studying for the finals. Spoilers for the entire thing (and some funny fanart) below:

Hellraiser: the Toll is a novella written by Mark E. Miller that serves as a passage between The Hellbound Hearts/Hellraiser movie and The Scarlet Gospels. It sucks harder than a black hole.

Short summary (5 sentences)

Kirsty Cotton is a depressed fucked up person that is running from place to place because she's scared of "The Cold Man" which is a nickname she gave to Pinhead. She gets a letter from some random theology professor and decides to go visit The Devil's Island in French Guiana where she's told the Cenobite would wait for her. She goes to a hotel kept by an old lady and a butler named Walter, the old lady is skinned alive and the butler tries to kill Kirsty, but she smacks his face with a hammer and kills him. Then she enters the jungle prison on the Devil's Island and meets Pinhead, they chat, then argue, then start a fight which ends by Kirsty smashing his face with a hammer and taking out one of his nails. She returns home and keeps the nail in a jar on her night stand.

Endlessly confused plot

I honestly can't tell what universe does this book describe. It's a mashup of "The Hellbound Heart" and Hellraiser movie, but the second movie is not cannon, which is very weird. The author basically picked and chose whatever random thing he liked and made a senseless mashup. One of the worst things about it is the same fucking issue with the Boom! comics and that is that Kirsty hates Pinhead because he "killed her father and ruined her family". Which is pure bullshit from every angle. In "The Hellbound Heart", Cenobites only killed Frank and Julia and let her go. In Hellraiser, they also killed Frank and Julia and she barely escaped. Her father was killed by FUCKING FRANK. Pinhead didn't ruin Kirsty's family, Frank did. I don't think that Kirsty would hold any ill intent towards the Cenobites, in fact, in Hellraiser 2 she objectively doesn't. She wanted to save them for fuck's sake. And they all gave their lives for her. I really have no idea why would she have any reasons to hate Pinhead, but oh well.

Pinhead acts like a whiny little child

Seriously, what the fuck is with these books and assassination of Pinhead's character? Why the FUCK is he depicted as narcissistic, misogynistic motherfucker, when he couldn't be further from it? Also, why does he use his fists to fight Kirsty when he can summon chains with hooks by will and also has like 12 butchering knives hanging from his belt? The worst part is probably the dialogue, especially when he says "Jesus wept", like, come on, that's the dumbest thing I've ever read. Does the motherfucker who wrote this think that Frank and Pinhead have any parallels? Because if he does, he needs a hit on his head with a hammer, just to reset his brain.

Hell is shit - literally

The description of Hell in this book is even dumber than in Scarlet Gospels. It says that the floor in Hell is made of shit. And there's a hole and people in Hell worship the hole and throw babies in it. Like, what the fuck. Also, I fucking hate the fact that he described Cenobites as foul smelling. Do your research, motherfucker, they smell like vanilla! There is some stench of rot beneath, but nobody in the entire franchise never had the urge to vomit when they were close to the Cenobites, so it can't be strong. I don't know how did the author of this garbage come to the idea that Cenobites smell like shit and that Hell is made of shit, but it's literally like how a 13 year old would describe it. I don't know what is the reason, but maybe, just maybe, straight men have much different interpretation of what Cenobites are compared to queer women like myself.

Stuff I liked

There was one scene where a demon was running in the rain screaming FUCK!FUCK!FUCK!FUCK!FUCK!FUCK!FUCK! until he was struck by lightning. I laughed my ass off with that.

The fact that Kirsty kept the nail she knocked out of Pinhead's face by her bedside was so cute. Like, this book has some shipping, but it fucking sucks. Mostly because both Pinhead and Kirsty are very much out of character. But keeping the nail was definitely in character for her lol.

Overall, this entire book could be summed up by this illustration:

The Toll sucks. It doesn't suck as much as Scarlet Gospels, and, thank Goddess, it's only 40 pages long. But it still sucks. It ruins both Pinhead and Kirsty and their relationship and it's definitely not worth your time. If you want good stories about the Hell Priest and his human crush, go to AO3, there are many of superior quality.

#hellraiser #book review #rant #fanart #pinhead #kirsty cotton

[from-a-legends-pov]

Star Wars Legends Highlight of the Week: Honor Among Thieves by James S. A. Corey

This is a new feature where a fan will share one thing they love from Star Wars Legends – a book, a comic, an author, a character, an event, or anything else they want to highlight – and tell us more about it.

If you, too, love Legends, follow @from-a-legends-pov and check out our upcoming Star Wars Legends fanfiction event, From a Legends Point of View, HERE. Signups open April 28 - please encourage your favorite Star Wars writers to participate!

Today’s highlight is Honor Among Thieves by James S. A. Corey (actually the pen name of writing team Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, whom you may recognize as the writers of The Expanse), a 2014 Legends novel, and we’re talking with Dessi (@otterandterrier).

Tell us about your Legends highlight. What is it? What’s it about?

Honor Among Thieves is the second novel in the Empire and Rebellion duology (the first one being Razor’s Edge, a previous Legends highlight), and one of the last books published in the Legends universe by Del Rey. This book is Han’s story, and is told entirely from his POV.

The story is set about a year after Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, and our heroes start off scattering through the galaxy in their respective missions. Han and Chewie are sent to the Core to retrieve Scarlet Hark, a high-level spy who is after a thief in possession of secret, deadly information stolen from under the Empire’s (and her) nose – and that the Empire is willing to do anything to get back. Han doesn’t want to get involved, as this is way above his paycheck. But then he realizes that Leia is at a gathering on Kiamurr, the very same planet their thief is headed to, which means the Empire will be hot on his heels. That makes up his mind about helping Scarlet get there first!

The plot is quite the wild goose chase, and you have to suspend your sense of disbelief many times and forget specialized bits of lore in order to buy it. Even so, it’s really fun and gripping, and I appreciate the way that the main conflict is used to give us excellent insight into our favourite smuggler’s mind.

What makes this a Legends highlight for you? What do you love about it?

This is one of my favourite Legends books, because I love Han Solo. I love the intensely caring, occasionally dorky, bad at flirting, barely concealing a soft interior Han Solo that somehow we were fortunate enough to get in the Original Trilogy and, somehow, so many people missed. And that’s the Han Solo we get here! I love getting to see the narrative peeling off his self-admitted layers, contemplating his involvement with the rebellion, his new relationships, and the man he could have been had circumstances not put him on the path of an old Jedi and an idealistic farmboy, by setting up a contrast with an old acquaintance that shows up. We also get to see how competent and clever he really is, something that is often neglected.

Favorite moment or scene?

There’s this scene where the group is walking through a jungle, and a character is about to shoot at a large mud creature that scared her—but Han stops her. He explains that the creature is harmless, then he pats its snout and tells it to look out for humans. Leia calls him an animal lover, to which Han replies: “If everyone got to kill anything that looked big and scary, Chewie would never be able to leave the ship.” I love this little moment because it shows that soft, caring, yet practical side of Han that not many people get to see, and it’s also a nice moment of connection between Han and Leia. Han’s concern over creatures that are “just trying to make it through another day” also gets called back towards the end, rounding off Han’s overall spot-on characterization—although that’s all I can say without spoiling the book.

Anything else you’d like to share about it?

A few other reasons I love this book:

It develops Han and Leia’s early relationship: as a shipper, the UST and the moments of deeper understanding between them here make me squeal. We see Leia through Han’s eyes and beyond his façade, and how he goes from “I can’t stand her” to “I will kill anyone who tries to hurt her.”

Scarlet Hark FTW: This OC is a bit of a perfect male fantasy, but I like her a lot. Intelligent, badass, take-no-shit female character? Yes please! I particularly love that she and Leia get along so well and it’s never a competition between them. She’s a really interesting character to explore, and I’d love to see the OT gang teaming up with her again.

Han and Luke’s relationship isn’t forgotten: I really appreciate that the authors gave this friendship the importance it deserves, with Han thinking several times that he’s sticking with the Rebellion mainly to look after Luke (which is a better motivation than him staying because he wants to sleep with Leia).

To learn more…

If you’d like to read more about Honor Among Thieves, you can check out its page on Wookieepedia or find the novel at your favorite library or used bookstore (like Razor’s Edge, it seems to be out of print for new copies, sadly).

And be sure to check out @from-a-legends-pov and our From a Legends Point of View fanfiction event; as another reminder, signups open April 28, 2024!

#star wars legends #star wars extended universe #star wars eu #sw legends #from a legends pov #legends highlight of the week #honor among thieves #james sa corey #han solo #leia organa #scarlet hark #han x leia #luke skywalker #otterandterrier #long post

[mackerelphones]

The Politics of Oz

Now for the upsetting conclusion to my series of Oz posts.

The entire essay will not be here on Tumblr. What you see here is a preview, just the first part of the longer whole. You can read the rest on my website here.

I sure would appreciate someone seeming to consider something I wrote. If you know people who might be interested, you could share it too. What do I have to do, grovel? What do you want from me bah whatever okay here's the preview (grumble grumble)

1. The Riches of Content: Oz as Pastoral, Feminist Socialist Utopia

In the original 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Land of Oz is fecund and full of friendly people but still a dangerous, socially unstable place. After Ozma ascends to rule the Emerald City of Oz in the second novel, she “civilizes” Oz. L. Frank Baum frames the civilized Oz not as a land of peril and adventure but as a land of wonder and delight. (“Civilizes” might seem like a questionable term for me to use, so put a pin in that.) Ozma’s “civilized” Oz is a counterpoint to the “big, cold, outside world” (Road to Oz 196). This outside world refers to the mundane labor and economic deprivation of the cruel, bleak United States and also the various analogous scary and unfriendly people and monsters who live outside Oz, including Evoldo, the Mangaboos, the Scoodlers, the Phanfasms, the Boolooroo of Sky Island, the Raks, Cor and Gos, and other tyrants and evil spirits. Chief among these is the Nome King, the only major recurring villain in the series.

A number of commentators have interpreted Ozma’s Oz as a utopia, including Sally Roesch Wagner in “The Wonderful Mother of Oz” and Suzanne Rahn in “Beneath the Surface of Ozma of Oz,” both of which I will return to below. Jack Zipes also understands Baum’s Oz as a socialist, matriarchal utopia in “Inverting and Subverting the World With Hope” in Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion. All three of these writers take Oz as a rejection or condemnation of American capitalism, though bizarrely Wagner and Zipes both interpret the Oz of the original novel, where travel is deadly and there are multiple slave-driving dictators, as already utopian. I will start by exploring what values distinguish Oz as good and correspondingly define the nature of evil in the Oz novels, concentrating on the first six books but drawing from Baum’s later work as well.

Content warning: This portion will not be on Tumblr, at least not now. But to spoil the big twist, this essay will quote and cite some very racist material. I will also discuss, with nothing graphic or detailed, genocide and other heavy topics that might be upsetting to some readers. I do not present these subjects to be shocking but hope to ultimately teach something or other.

Because Baum originally intended to end the series with The Emerald City of Oz, it serves to an extent as a statement of the series’ values overall. In this novel, the utopian, nonviolent Oz is pitted against the decidedly not-utopian Nome King and the Whimsies, Growleywogs, and Phanfasms, who want to pillage the land and enslave its people. Fittingly, for the first time, Baum describes the Ozite economy in detail. At least, this is the economy of Oz after Ozma and her allies “civilize” the land. The entire passage is relevant:

[The Emerald City] has nine thousand, six hundred and fifty-four buildings, in which lived fifty-seven thousand three hundred and eighteen people, up to the time my story opens.

All the surrounding country, extending to the borders of the desert which enclosed it upon every side, was full of pretty and comfortable farmhouses, in which resided those inhabitants of Oz who preferred country to city life. [Later novels contradict this claim, filling Oz with jungles, dangerous mountains, and other urban centers.]

Altogether there were more than half a million people in the Land of Oz—although some of them, as you will soon learn, were not made of flesh and blood as we are—and every inhabitant of that favored country was happy and prosperous.

No disease of any sort was ever known among the Ozites, and so no one ever died unless he met with an accident that prevented him from living. This happened very seldom, indeed. There were no poor people in the Land of Oz, because there was no such thing as money, and all property of every sort belonged to the Ruler. The people were her children, and she cared for them. Each person was given freely by his neighbors whatever he required for his use, which is as much as any one may reasonably desire. Some tilled the lands and raised great crops of grain, which was divided equally among the entire population, so that all had enough. There were many tailors and dressmakers and shoemakers and the like, who made things that any who desired them might wear. Likewise there were jewelers who made ornaments for the person, which pleased and beautified the people, and these ornaments were free to those who asked for them. Each man and woman, no matter what he or she produced for the good of the community, was supplied by the neighbors with food and clothing and a house and furniture and ornaments and games. If by chance the supply ever ran short, more was taken from the great storehouses of the Ruler, which were afterward filled up again when there was more of any article than the people needed.

Every one worked half the time and played half the time, and the people enjoyed the work as much as they did the play, because it is good to be occupied and to have something to do. There were no cruel overseers set to watch them, and no one to rebuke them or to find fault with them. So each one was proud to do all he could for his friends and neighbors, and was glad when they would accept the things he produced. (29–31)

The Tin Woodman also clarifies some of the economic system in The Road to Oz:

“If we used money to buy things with, instead of love and kindness and the desire to please one another, then we should be no better than the rest of the world,” declared the Tin Woodman. “Fortunately money is not known in the Land of Oz at all. We have no rich, and no poor; for what one wishes the others all try to give him, in order to make him happy, and no one in Oz cares to have more than he can use.” (164)

In “Beneath the Surface of Ozma of Oz,” Rahn draws parallels between Baum’s description of the Oz in these two novels and the socialist utopia in William Morris’s News from Nowhere (Rahn 26). The civilized Oz certainly resembles a utopian communist dictatorship but wears the clothing of a hereditary monarchy. There is no rule by the proletariat, for there are no proletariat, landowners, or bosses in Oz, yet there is a single ruler whose legitimacy rests on her being the daughter of the king who ruled before the advent of the Wizard and the Wicked Witches. Private property has been abolished through, paradoxically, the universal private ownership of all property by Ozma, who allows this property to be shared equitably among the people—how fortunate for the Ozites that Ozma stops aging. The abundance of material wealth, particularly gems and precious metals, is used in ostentatious displays, but these resources are common enough that they are ubiquitous among all Ozites. The people receive everything they desire. They work and produce of their own free will for nothing but satisfaction and the benefit of themselves and their neighbors. Baum might as well have included the famous socialist slogan “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

In the “uncivilized” Oz of the original novels, the economic system is contrary to that outlined in The Emerald City. The Wicked Witches force the Munchkins and Winkies to live in terror and perform slave labor to benefit their rulers, and even among the Ozites themselves there are property-based class differences. The law of the uncivilized Oz is exactly the opposite of that of Ozma’s communal utopia, as the fraud Wizard makes explicit: “You have no right to expect me to send you back to Kansas unless you do something for me in return. In this country everyone must pay for everything he gets” (128). Of course, the Wizard says this knowing he cannot pay Dorothy what he owes her. The contrast to this earlier Land of Oz emphasizes the utopian nature of Ozma’s socialist Oz, which rejects the harsh American “no free lunches” morality the (as yet) unenlightened Wizard carries over from his US homeland. Hence it is civilized, while what came before is not.

The existence of multiple monarchies means Oz cannot be communist in the sense leftists would usually understand the term. However, a communist ideology, as history attests, is by no means incompatible with dictatorship in the normal sense everyone uses, as is present in Baum’s Oz, rather than in the less intuitive sense of the class dictatorship that capital-C Communists intend. Furthermore, the material conditions of Oz are the most ideal version of a one-person communist dictatorship, so the dispute is only semantic, particularly because, unlike existing countries with lived complexity, none of this is real.

Another central aspect is that Oz is pastoral. Even the Emerald City, the largest urban center, has a tiny population of 57318. As Richard Tuerk points out in Oz in Perspective, this is the size of a small town and so a suitable capital for an idealized rural country (197). Note also that the above description of the economy features agriculturalists and artisans but no factories. There is metallurgy used to ornament buildings and people with the abundant gold but no industry or machines.

However, electricity is used: Ozma’s throne room contains “two electric fountains” (Emerald City 54), Oz has the infrastructure for the Shaggy Man to construct a wireless telegraph in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, the Wizard invents cellular phones decades early in Tik-Tok of Oz, and illustrations depict Jack Pumpkinhead’s house having electrical wires (Road 4) and Ozma keeping a telephone on her desk (Emerald City 192). The question of electricity generation is not explained at risk of undermining the fantasy of the redress of all social ills through mutual aid and abundance created without coercive authority. The answer is presumably magic, which Ozma strictly regulates.

In effect, for Oz, magic may correspond to industrial and electrical technology. Consider that Tik-Tok, a robot man, is explicitly a machine but is also magic, proven by how he can only function in fairy lands and not in the mundane world. “I do not sup-pose such a per-fect ma-chine as I am could be made in an-y place but a fair-y land,” as Tik-Tok says (Ozma of Oz 52). The utopian element is in the careful regulation and control of technology, preventing it from overwhelming people’s lives and destroying the idyllic natural beauty that Baum’s narration frequently describes. In the uncivilized Oz, magic runs rampant, the Wicked Witches using it to terrorize and enslave people, while in the “big, cold, outside world,” figures such as the Nome King use magic to similar ends. As Gore Vidal observed, “[C]ontrolled magic enhances the society just as controlled industrialization could enhance (and perhaps even salvage) a society like ours. Unfortunately, the Nome King has governed the United States for more than a century” (quoted in Zipes).

In “The Wonderful Mother of Oz,” Wagner argues that Baum infused his novels with feminist and theosophist concepts in conversation with his mother-in-law, the suffragette Matilda Joslyn Gage. According to Wagner, Baum modeled Oz off of the prehistoric feminist utopia described in Gage’s 1893 Woman, Church and State. Wagner writes, “Gage described a period of matriarchy in the world’s history before private property, industrialization, and organized religion introduced inequality, greed, and genocide. The female principle—the creative principle—was held sacred and supreme, and cooperation, not competition, was the order of the day” (10). While the girls in Oz are traditionally feminine save only the Wicked Witches, they also dominate the land. By the time of The Emerald City, the most powerful individuals in Oz are Glinda, Ozma, and Dorothy, later joined by Trot in The Scarecrow of Oz. Even in the “uncivilized” Oz, men such as the Wizard and Omby Amby (the Soldier with the Green Whiskers) are ineffective, whereas Dorothy, the Wicked Witches, Jinjur, Mombi, and Glinda possess genuine cunning and power.

The Marvelous Land of Oz may appear to contradict the general feminism of the series. However, Wagner offers a feminist reading. The novel concerns a group of boys (Tip, Jack, the Sawhorse, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Woggle-Bug) who face the all-woman Army of Revolt, unserious and childish girls parodying suffragettes. The woman soldiers are frivolous and incompetent, and their leader, Jinjur, does not aim for gender equality but to rule over men, as in the ugliest anti-feminist caricature of the period. However, women are genuinely powerful. The male-dominated Oz is completely powerless and easily falls, and the Army of Revolt prove competent antagonists. When Tip and his group reach the Emerald City and find men engaged in wifely chores, the Scarecrow has this interaction with one of the exhausted husbands that highlights the value and difficulty of domestic labor:

“I’m glad you have decided to come back and restore order, for doing housework and minding children is wearing out the strength of every man in the Emerald City.” “Hm!” said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully. “If it is such hard work as you say, how did the women manage it so easily?” “I really do not know,” replied the man, with a deep sigh. “Perhaps the women are made of cast-iron.” (170–171)

Wagner takes this to mean that the men have a newfound appreciation for the value of feminine labor. Jinjur ultimately loses but not to any men, none of whom are capable of the task. Instead, Glinda defeats her with a different all-woman army. Unlike Jinjur’s comical soldiers who fight with knitting needles and want new jewelry, Baum treats Glinda’s militant women with relative respect and seriousness, demonstrating women can be effective. “[T]hese soldiers of the great Sorceress were entirely different from those of Jinjur’s Army of Revolt, although they were likewise girls. For Glinda’s soldiers wore neat uniforms and bore swords and spears; and they marched with a skill and precision that proved them well trained in the arts of war” (237).

Furthermore, in the end, the boy hero Tip must become or even mature into a girl, Ozma, to prevail over Jinjur, though Wagner overstates when claiming the story “exposes the social construction of gender in all its complexity” (11). Jinjur’s childish scheme to invert gender roles fails, but a girl, Ozma, nonetheless ends up ruling with the authentic womanly power that Jinjur wants to see enthroned. The women also celebrate liberation from Jinjur (282–283). Instead of the supremacy of women, Ozma ensures equality.

The ascendancy of kind women instead of conquering Wicked Witches and a false Wizard is pivotal to the civilizing of Oz. It is Ozma’s gender equality and feminine power that changes the bleak albeit colorful land into a utopia. Later injustices are also corrected through the elevation of women and the removal of power from ill-intentioned men. In The Scarecrow of Oz, the Scarecrow, acting on behalf of the female Glinda, deposes Jinxland’s wicked King Krewl, a man, and Gloria, a woman, ascends the throne, ensuring peace and justice. Oz is a feminist utopia, particularly by the standards of the early twentieth century, when women in most of the United States were legally barred from even voting.

The legitimacy of power in Oz stems from mutual love enshrined in metaphorical kinship ties between ruler and subject. Good rulers, in Baum’s stories, are those who keep their subjects satisfied and who rule by consent. The people are Ozma’s “children,” whom she “[cares] for” (Emerald City 30). The series furnishes ample evidence of the love and devotion the Ozites have for Ozma:

“The Wonderful Wizard was never so wonderful as Queen Ozma,” the people said to one another, in whispers; “for he claimed to do many things he could not do; whereas our new Queen does many things no one would ever expect her to accomplish.” (Marvelous Land 285)

Everywhere the people turned out to greet their beloved Ozma. (Ozma of Oz 256)

And now they came in sight of the Emerald City, and the people flocked out to greet their lovely ruler. […] Thus the beautiful Ozma was escorted by a brilliant procession to her royal city, and so great was the cheering that she was obliged to constantly bow to the right and left to acknowledge the greetings of her subjects. (ibid. 258)

Everything about Ozma attracted one, and she inspired love and the sweetest affection rather than awe or ordinary admiration. (Road to Oz 204)

They [the people of Oz] were peaceful, kind-hearted, loving and merry, and every inhabitant adored the beautiful girl who ruled them, and delighted to obey her every command. (Emerald City 31–32)

A similar order prevails for Ozma’s subordinate rulers in the individual countries of Oz. The Wicked Witch of the West rules the Winkies through terror, using the people as her slaves. After her death, the Tin Woodman becomes the Emperor of the Winkies not through coercion or hereditary power but because “they invited him to rule over them” for his role in defeating her (Marvelous Land 121–122). Baum is concise: “Every one loved him, and he loved every one” (Road 164).

Wagner claims there is no coercive authority in Oz. While Ozma maintains a military, they are a mere twenty-seven people, adults pretending to be soldiers by dressing in military uniforms. A single infantryman, Omby Amby, is present in the first three novels, but his subsequent promotion means that the Emerald City military cannot execute violence. Afterward, Omby Amby becomes the single policeman in Oz instead. For Oz does have crime and punishment.

The Patchwork Girl furnishes an example of the legal system when Omby Amby (probably—his identity is inconsistent) arrests Ojo. Baum emphasizes this is extraordinary. Ojo is the first person arrested in Oz in “a good many years” (188), long enough that Omby Amby believed there was no reason for him to be the country’s only policeman. As stated in Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, crime almost never occurs: “the people of that Land [Oz] were generally so well-behaved that there was not a single lawyer amongst them, and it had been years since any Ruler had sat in judgment upon an offender of the law” (237). Presumably, self-actualized and with their material needs satisfied, few people in Oz have any reason for crime, at least in the portions aligned with Ozma rather than “uncivilized” regions such as Jinxland.

The system that exists is humane. The prisoner’s identity is hidden from the public so that his reputation will not be damaged, and the prison itself is a luxurious house plated with gold and gemstones. Ojo receives lovelier meals than many impoverished people in the US, and the jailer, Tollydiggle, is more a kindly innkeeper than a guard. “The purpose of prison” in Oz, writes Wagner, is not “vengeance” as in the US but “helping the offender to build strength of character” (11). Ojo requires scant rehabilitation before his trial, where Ozma and the Wizard quickly find him guilty on the basis of their surveillance but pardon him no less swiftly. Ozma and Glinda maintain the peace through nonviolent means.

Furthermore, mercy and forgiveness are recurring valued traits. The good Ozites forgive not only minor offenders such as Ojo and Pipt but even seditious, dangerous enemies. Ozma spares Mombi’s life despite the years of abuse she personally endured as the latter’s slave, for instance, and Dorothy accepts Ugu’s heartfelt apology for his coup in The Lost Princess of Oz. While Oz has rulers, then, they do not possess or exercise coercive authority. “Ozma’s decision-making power rests literally and absolutely in carrying out the will of the people. Embedded in a truly egalitarian system, power comes from the people; it is not exercised over them. Respect for differences is a given” (Wagner 10).

Finally, Oz indeed respects difference, likely at least part of the reason for its lasting appeal among queer audiences, as Dee Michel describes in “Not in Kansas Anymore: The Appeal of Oz for Gay Males.” Michel primarily focuses on the MGM adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but he does not neglect the novels. In particular, he notes the presence of non-traditionally masculine men such as the compassionate, tearful dandy the Tin Woodman or the Cowardly Lion, a “sissy” who wears a bow in his mane: “they are about as un-macho as one can get and still be recognizably male” (Michel 34).

While Michel mentions the high level of physical affection present between the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, he neglects to note more overtly queer themes present in Baum’s text. Ozma is often read as transgender: seemingly a boy, she is a girl whose true nature the “uncivilized” version of Oz conceals from her until she succeeds in becoming her authentic self. Ozma and Dorothy’s mutual affection may appear to extend beyond what modern readers would take as just friendship. The two hug, smooch, and hold hands; live together; never show any romantic interest in any boys; and appear kissing each other on the lips in at least two of John R. Neill’s illustrations. Chick, originally appearing in John Dough and the Cherub before meeting Dorothy in The Road to Oz, is gender ambiguous or nonbinary, rejecting both boyhood and girlhood. Scraps reads as a queer allegory. “I must be the supreme freak. […] But I’m glad—I’m awfully glad!—that I’m just what I am, and nothing else” (Patchwork Girl 57). She rejects the birth name her oppressive parents Margolotte and Pipt intend for her, defiantly and joyfully embraces her unconventional identity, and rejects conservative gender roles in the country of the Horners.

“You have some queer friends, Dorothy,” [Polychrome] said. “The queerness doesn’t matter, so long as they’re friends,” was the answer (Road 184).

Queerness, then, is welcome in Oz—especially uncommon given that Baum wrote them from 1900 to 1919. Michel proceeds to observe that diversity is a key value of Oz and quotes other writers on the subject:

Willard Carroll notes that “[Oz is] a community that celebrates the ultimate in creativity and diversity.” Similarly, Suzanne Rahn observes that “the characters themselves…are…fiercely tolerant of the outlandish, respecting, cherishing such rickety, sagging, unlikely colleagues as the Frogman, the Shaggy Man and Prof. H. M. Wogglebug, T.E.—a community of eccentrics. In Oz, they belong” (34).

Michel states, “All minorities would likely find Oz’s diversity compelling” (36). Put a pin in that. In addition to social outcasts, however, Baum treats Oz specifically as offering freedom from the capitalism of “the big, cold, outside world” in both The Road to Oz and The Emerald City. The former involves an American vagrant, the Shaggy Man, who “[has] slept more in hay-lofts and stables than in comfortable rooms” (196). In the mundane US, he is shunned and disliked, presumably for his frightening appearance and poverty. He steals the magical Love Magnet to force people to like him: “no one loved me, or cared for me, […] and I wanted to be loved a great deal” (208). The “big, cold, outside world” forces him to commit crime to have any hope of receiving love. However, in Oz, Shaggy is astonished to be welcomed into palaces and receive the treatment of a royal, for Oz “[has] no rich, and no poor” (165) and the people value only love, not money. So he chooses to remain there, though continues to wander the land for fun.

Similarly, in The Emerald City, Dorothy’s Uncle Henry and Aunt Em receive liberation from their poverty and debt in Kansas by moving to Oz. Baum depicts US life as brutal and withering. In The Wonderful Wizard, Dorothy, Henry, and Em inhabit a one-room shack. Henry “[works] hard from morning till night and [does] not know what joy [is]” (13). This life literally removes hope and happiness from Em: “[The sun and wind] had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray […] She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled, now” (12). After the cyclone destroys the house, Henry builds a new one, yet his health declines until he can no longer work. With the mortgage unpaid, the family is doomed to lose their home. In Oz, however, Henry and Em are overwhelmed with gold and gems and dressed in regal Munchkin clothing, with merry servants sparing them from ever working again.

“I’ve been a slave all my life,” Aunt Em replied, with considerable cheerfulness, “and so was Henry. I guess we won’t go back to Kansas, anyway” (269–270).

Slavery and freedom are major preoccupations throughout the series. The chief crime of the Wicked Witches, Nomes, Queen Cor and King Gos, and other powerful antagonists is the enslavement of others. Given the Em’s above comment, then, life in the economic conditions of the ordinary world is tantamount to slavery. The assorted evil forces outside of Oz correspond to the mundane violence of real societies, as Jack Zipes observes: “Baum draws a parallel between the bankers, who are merciless and crush old farmers who can no longer be employed because of bad health, and the Nome King and his allies, the Whimsies, Growleywogs, and Phanfasms, who want to enslave people to attain wealth and power.” Recall that Vidal similarly takes the Nome King to suggest the prevailing economic order of the US.

In The Emerald City, when the invasion of the Nome King and the evil spirits is imminent, Ozma and Oz further demonstrate utopian values in a nearly suicidal commitment to nonviolence. Ozma refuses to flee, believing she must share her subjects’ fate, and though the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and the Shaggy Man advise Ozma to fight the Nome King, she rejects violent solutions because “No one has the right to destroy any living creatures, however evil they may be, or to hurt them or make them unhappy” (268).

The Scarecrow peacefully outwits the evil legions, deceiving them into drinking Glinda’s Water of Oblivion that reverts these miserable backstabbers to childhood innocence. Importantly, the Lethe-like Water of Oblivion makes them happier by erasing their greed and hatred: “The frowns and scowls and evil looks were all gone. Even the most monstrous of the creatures there assembled smiled innocently and seemed lighthearted and content merely to be alive” (284). The wicked Nome King himself becomes kind, at least until Tik-Tok of Oz, when he reverts to cruelty as a consequence not of his nature but of his office. Instead of plundering, enslaving, or scolding her now-harmless enemies, Ozma sends every one of the invaders back to their homes unharmed.

This nonviolence is fantastical and has no practical analogue to the real world—maybe, put a pin in that—yet serves as an ultimate statement of values. In the tradition of (stated) Christian ethics, Oz not only responds to violence with love but also redeems the wicked: “[T]o have reformed all those evil characters is more important than to have saved Oz” (289). The Wizard, Jinjur, Ugu, and eventually the Nome King himself, who drinks the Water of Oblivion a second time in The Magic of Oz and lastingly becomes innocent and happy, all receive similar second chances.

In the conventional and probably intended reading, Ozma’s Oz is an agrarian utopia representing progressive values: the end of private property, women’s power, tolerance and acceptance, and even police and prison abolition. But to what extent do the Nome King and the Whimsies, Growleywogs, and Phanfasms really represent greed, exploitation, and mercilessness?

Find out the answer to this question (and much more!) by reading on over at my website...

#oz #wizard of oz #ozma #nome king #baum #utopia

[obsidian-sphere]

Because of the films featuring the character of Tarzan, most people think of him as a guy in a leopard-skin loincloth swinging around the jungle while barking out barely understandable bad English.

The novels, however, were another thing altogether, with him far more complex and even speaking whole sentences not just in English but in at least three or four other languages.

This is most obvious in the second book in the series, The Return of Tarzan (1913), the first third of which is spent in Paris, where he introduces himself by handing out cards printed “M. Jean C. Tarzan” and amuses himself with smoking, drinking absinthe and going to the musical theater.

Take this bit from Chapter Three of The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Quote

Tarzan shook his head. “You do not know her,” he said. “Nothing could bind her closer to her bargain than some misfortune to Clayton. She is from an old southern family in America, and southerners pride themselves upon their loyalty.”

Tarzan spent the two following weeks renewing his former brief acquaintance with Paris. In the daytime he haunted the libraries and picture galleries. He had become an omnivorous reader, and the world of possibilities that were opened to him in this seat of culture and learning fairly appalled him when he contemplated the very infinitesimal crumb of the sum total of human knowledge that a single individual might hope to acquire even after a lifetime of study and research; but he learned what he could by day, and threw himself into a search for relaxation and amusement at night. Nor did he find Paris a whit less fertile field for his nocturnal avocation.

If he smoked too many cigarettes and drank too much absinth it was because he took civilization as he found it, and did the things that he found his civilized brothers doing. The life was a new and alluring one, and in addition he had a sorrow in his breast and a great longing which he knew could never be fulfilled, and so he sought in study and in dissipation—the two extremes—to forget the past and inhibit contemplation of the future.

He was sitting in a music hall one evening, sipping his absinth and admiring the art of a certain famous Russian dancer, when he caught a passing glimpse of a pair of evil black eyes upon him. The man turned and was lost in the crowd at the exit before Tarzan could catch a good look at him, but he was confident that he had seen those eyes before and that they had been fastened on him this evening through no passing accident. He had had the uncanny feeling for some time that he was being watched, and it was in response to this animal instinct that was strong within him that he had turned suddenly and surprised the eyes in the very act of watching him.

Before he left the music hall the matter had been forgotten, nor did he notice the swarthy individual who stepped deeper into the shadows of an opposite doorway as Tarzan emerged from the brilliantly lighted amusement hall.

Had Tarzan but known it, he had been followed many times from this and other places of amusement, but seldom if ever had he been alone. Tonight D’Arnot had had another engagement, and Tarzan had come by himself.

As he turned in the direction he was accustomed to taking from this part of Paris to his apartments, the watcher across the street ran from his hiding-place and hurried on ahead at a rapid pace.

Tarzan had been wont to traverse the Rue Maule on his way home at night. Because it was very quiet and very dark it reminded him more of his beloved African jungle than did the noisy and garish streets surrounding it. If you are familiar with your Paris you will recall the narrow, forbidding precincts of the Rue Maule. If you are not, you need but ask the police about it to learn that in all Paris there is no street to which you should give a wider berth after dark.

End Quote

Later, after tearing apart a dozen Paris street toughs set on him in an ambush devised by the book’s main villain and then beating the crap out of four policemen who try to arrest him for doing this, (he escapes by jumping out of an upper story window and gets back to his apartments in Paris by swinging from lamp post to lamp post) he even becomes an agent of the French Ministry of War.

Why has no one ever felt the need to write any pastiches based on Jean C. Tarzan, International Man of Mystery?

#tarzan #paris #Edgar Rice Burrough

[chernobog13]

The Sunday, April 2, 1942, Tarzan page by Burne Hogarth.

No slight intended to any of the other excellent artists who worked on the Tarzan comic strip, but Burne Hogarth is my favorite. He took over in 1937 after the original artist, Hal Foster, left to create his own strip, Prince Valiant.

The Sunday, May 10, 1942, Tarzan page by Burne Hogarth.

Hogarth would draw the Sunday pages for Tarzan from 1937 to 1945, and again from 1947 to 1950. During his second stint, his assistant was future comic book artist Ross Andru.

The Sunday, May 17, 1942, Tarzan page by Burne Hogarth.

After 1950, Hogarth gave up drawing comic strips and began teaching at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School (later renamed the School for Visual Arts), which he co-founded. Among his students were such names as Joe Sinnott, Wally Wood, and Al Williamson. Hogarth remained as a teacher at the school until 1970.

The Sunday, May 24, 1942, Tarzan page by Burne Hogarth.

Hogarth returned to comics in 1972 by creating the graphic novel Tarzan of the Apes, an adaptation of the first novel in the Tarzan series. Four of the twelve short stories from Jungle Tales of Tarzan, the sixth book in the series, were the basis for Hogarth's second graphic novel in 1976.

The Sunday, May 31, 1942, Tarzan page by Burne Hogarth.

Additionally, Hogarth authored several reference books that you will still find on many artists' shelves to this day: Dynamic Anatomy, Drawing the Human Head, Dynamic Figure Drawing, Drawing Dynamic Hands, Dynamic Light and Shade, and Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery.

#Burne Hogarth #Tarzan #Tarzan of the Apes #Edgar Rice Burroughs #comic strips

[wormwoodandhoney]

As a follow up to my favorite books of the first quarter of the year, here are some of my favorites from April, May, June! In no particular order, just in the order I read them.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty is a fun, pirate fantasy adventure featuring one of my recently realized favorite tropes: getting the band back together. A retired female pirate just wants to live a quiet life raising her young daughter, when she is recruited to rescue the child of a former crewmate. She must reunite with her old crew and save the day. Killer cover, fun story.

Chlorine by Jade Song is a coming of age body horror novel about a teenaged girl who will do anything to become a mermaid. Slow burn- you know what will happen from the beginning, but it's a deep dive into the mind of this queer young swimmer to watch her get there.

Malice by Keigo Higashino is a Japanese novel translated by Alexander O. Smith about a detective determined to uncover the motive behind the murder of a famous novelist. Loved this why-done-it.

We See Each Other: A Black, Trans Journey Through TV and Film by Tre'vell Anderson is a nonfiction exploration of Black trans representation in pop culture and history, as well as moments from the author's own life. Looks at everything To Wong Foo to Pose to Survivor.

Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones is the second book in the Indian Lake Trilogy. SGJ is my favorite horror author but his work and ESPECIALLY these books are not for everyone. People either love or hate this series and what can I say? I get it. Graphic here.

VenCo by Cherie Dimaline is about a young Indigenous woman who has to go on an adventure with her unusual and elderly grandmother after she discovers that she's one of seven witches to usher in a new era of power.

Madame Restell by Jennifer Wright is a nonfiction book about a famous abortionist in pre-Gilded Age New York. I found it fascinating, if not incredibly depressing, with how much we recycle the same arguments over and over again. Great read. Trigger warnings for this one, from childbirth to abortion to racism to misogyny.

Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati is a Greek mythology retelling on the titular murderer. As a Clytemnestra apologist, I really liked this. I kind of think so many of Greek retellings these days are all very similar, in writing style & theme so I feel like if you've read one of these recent retellings you've read them all, but I liked it!

Hamra & the Jungle of Memories by Hanna Alkaf is a Little Red Riding Hood retelling set in modern Malaysia, where a girl in a red hijab must help a tiger return to his human form. Really a beautiful story about humanity, grief, and what it means to make mistakes. Also just a fun adventure. Loved it. Graphic here.

You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron is another final girl horror novel. Look, I'm gonna read all of them and I'm gonna love all of them! You give me a final girl and I'm gonna eat it up. You give me a queer Black final girl trying to survive the night at her camp recreating a famous (fictional) horror movie while trying to protect her girlfriend? Yum, yum, yum.

Honorable mentions: Ayoade on Top is Richard Ayoade's definitive tome on the Gwenyth Paltrow film View From the Top. Get the audiobook for this one for sure! The Three Dahlias is a fun cozy mystery, and Saint Juniper's Folly is a fun queer modern fantasy adventure.

#books #long post #sorry it's long it was work to narrow it down to just ten!

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

what's your biggest pet peeve in jurassic park

Honestly, the fact that Sarah Harding's role in the movie of The Lost World: Jurassic Park is SUCH a terrible downgrade from her novel portrayal. I know you probably wanted me to talk about the dinosaurs but like no this is the thing that irritates me the most.

Book Dr Harding is a field biologist and predatory behaviour specialist. She is one of the only characters between both novels who actually has a background in animal science and she is smart and keeps her wits about her and is one of the only people who consistently behaves intelligently around dinosaurs for the whole book.

Her adaptation in the movie is a complete betrayal of everything that was great about her in the books, instead of acting like an expert field biologist she goes around touching a baby stegosaurus and setting off a stampede. She's consistently relegated to the role of Screaming Woman Who Must Be Saved, as opposed to the book where she pretty much ends up as one of the only team members actually saving the day while Ian Malcolm's high on morphine for the second time in as many books.

Book Sarah is portrayed as an admirable role model to Kelly, she is unapologetic about taking up space and being probably the smartest person in the group. She also gets an incredible scene where she chases raptors through dense jungle on a motorbike, and when they finally got around to adapting that scene they gave it to Chris Pratt and it's like half as cool as the original book scene.

Call me back when Chris Pratt's on a motorbike chasing a pack of feral prion-infested raptors through the jungle with a kid sitting on the back of the bike with a lethal dart gun trying to take out the raptors one at a time before they can attack another kid trapped in a metal cage. Give Sarah Harding the kickass motorbike chase she deserves you cowards

#jurassic park #the lost world jurassic park #sarah harding #dinosaurs #palaeoblr

[oldtvandcomics]

Happy Queer Media Monday!

Today: On Stolen Tides by Kay Lalock

Idk, there were a bunch that would have logically made more sense tow rite about, but this was the only one that felt right today. Pirates!

(The book cover, showing the black silhouette of a ship, surrounded by green and yellow plants of a jungle.)

On Stolen Tides is a self-published lesbian pirate novel by author Kay Lalock. It takes place in a fantasy world that mirrors closely Great Britain’s colonization of the Pacific, and the anticolonial message is at the very core of this book. It is clear that the author has put a lot of effort into getting that part of the story right, to the point that one might argue that the pirate part of the story falls short.

The plot revolves around Lydia, the daughter of the general in charge of the navy positioned o the colonized island. Lydia doesn’t want to be there, but has little choice as she is considered her father’s property. She is quietly miserable and longing to go back home to the main country, until she discovers that her father has arranged a marriage for her. So Lydia runs away, and sneaks on a ship that is supposed to head for her home, only to discover that said ship has been taken over by pirates. She strikes a deal with them: She’ll help them steal culturally significant objects from various generals, in exchange for them arranging a way for her home. While working with them, she learns more about the harm done by the colonization of the island, and falls in love with the second-in-command of the pirates, Laufitu.

Here is a link to it on Goodreads.

Queer Media Monday is an action I started to talk about some important and/or interesting parts of our queer heritage, that people, especially young people who are only just beginning to discover the wealth of stories out there, should be aware of. Please feel free to join in on the fun and make your own posts about things you personally find important!

#I'm still uncertain about this book #like it wasn't bad-bad #but I feel it failed as a pirate story #it focussed too much on the anti-colonial aspect #among others by making the indiginous pirates 100% morally right and noble #which in my opinion missed the point of pirate stories #these are SUPPOSED to be bad people! #not horribly bad but at least a little selfish and a little morally gray #but the author does have a message to say and ends up saying it #so goal acheived I guess but it is still leaving me confused about whether or not to recommend it to people #here yes of course #but I'm planning on putting together a fantasy/steampunk-y book catalogue #and I have NO IDEA whether or not to include this #books #queer books #lesbian books #indie publishing #pirates #On Stolen Tides #book rec #Queer Media Monday

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

When I was in college, I decided to read the origin books of famous stories. It was a choice I did not regret, but I do feel a lot of regrets about how so many characters have become parodies or antithesis of themselves.

The most famous is, of course, the Creature from Frankenstein. Everything related to him and his purpose in the novel has been all but lost to the green bolt-neck of modern times. Never mind how Victor went from creating the creature in a university dorm to owning a castle, a huge laboratory and even having a servant helping him to create the Creature.

The themes of neglectful parents and the cycle of cruelty manifesting in the child are completely gone. Doctor Frankenstein is more than happy to have the Creature as it is and the theme is about creating life in itself being bad.

The book and the popular culture version aren't even the same story. They have completely different messages and characters. Igor is taken from a later stage play and has nothing to do with the novel.

Another great injustice is how Dorian Gray is treated. He is often made much MUCH older and much wiser than he was in the book. Dorian is said to be hundreds of years old, indestructible and his only weakness is seeing his own painting.

None of these details are found in the book. For one, Dorian is a blond and blue-eyed twink and not a tall dark and mysterious brunette. Second, he often looked at his portrait, that is how he knew there was magic afoot. Third and most amusing; Dorian only lasted for maybe 40 years before he got himself killed. And Dorian was by no means indestructible, given he suffered from epic opium withdrawals and was often afraid for his life.

In short, Dorian Gray was an idiot and remained an idiot who could hide his addictions and vices and died an idiot who stabbed his own portrait in anger. The best part has to be, that Dorian accomplished absolutely nothing in his years of glamour. He ruined many lives and left behind nothing but trinkets.

Now, with Dracula Daily letting us meet the cast of the novel, so many assumed tropes from adapted media are shown false. Mina is clearly in love with Jonathan and has no ties to Dracula from a past life. Lucy is not a loose woman, but someone who had three people she truly liked propose to her. Even then, she made her choice very early on and let the other two know of her choice quickly.

I think one of the biggest character changes has to be Shere-Khan from the Jungle Books. You see, while Shere-Khan is a maneater, he is one through no choice of his own. Shere-Khan, nicknamed by his mother as Lungri (the lame one) was born with a deformed paw. This meant he could not hunt prey like a normal tiger and had to resort to eating carrion or humans. As Shere-Khan was basically the laughingstock of the jungle, only Tabaqui the golden jackal was his friend. Both were seen as losers.

Yet, only one adaptation has actually addressed this aspect of Shere-Khan. The rest have entirely removed his disability and so his reason for hunting humans. Often, he is made to be this dangerous and regal predator, which the book Shere-Khan wanted to be but never was.

These are only some characters changed over the years and adaptations. I hope you enjoyed my little showcase of literary history.

#dracula #frankenstein #Dorian Gray #jungle books #ableism // #artist stuff

[whatgaviiformes]

Ficlet: Cryptids and Toast

Based on the youtube channel Jazza - I Remade Monsters EXACTLY as described in the book...

And my own headcanon that Gordon’s love for Into the Unknown with Buddy and Ellie means that he also follows cryptids because one day that cryptid could be a real species discovered. Add in a bit of voracious reader John and you get the StarFishTank trifecta that I, at least, know and love. <3

This is so stupid, but I love them. 

Word Count: <1K

~*~*~*~

“G’morngh,” Virgil grumbled, sinking heavily into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. He’d passed by the lounge on the way down to the lower floor and waved wearily to Grandma, who was working on her embroidery at their Dad’s desk, as well as John’s hologram hovering above the main table. The thing about John being up in Five and with comms access in most locations throughout the villa was that it was too easy for him to follow, and so, when Virgil stepped into the kitchen, John’s silhouette was already emitting from the center. His grin was suspiciously wide. It was too early for shit-eating little brother grins today. 

“It’s noon,” John advised matter-of-factly.  

It wasn’t John who was pulling Two into her hangar at 4AM island time that morning, so as far as Virgil was concerned Noon was lucky to see him conscious. He yawned and grabbed for his toasted bread, warmed to a healthy golden brown. As he buttered one side, he realized there hadn’t seemed to be the buzzing energy of a rescue underway, so glancing around at the mostly empty room, it seemed the Island inhabitants were all dispersed among the villa and their home’s surrounding jungle environment. All except his brother’s image and their most mechanical of family members. He gave MAX a light pat on the head as he rushed by him with the broom and a pleased whistle. 

“Gordon’s on his way back from the lagoon,” John offered, nibbling at a small finger sandwich. “Scott and Alan are working on Thunderbird One sims today. And all’s quiet on terra firma, so far. What will you be doing today?”

“Hmph.” He coughed to clear his throat of sleep. “Brains had some tests to run on Two. But no rush.” 

“I have some new descriptions if you want to warm up your hands.”

He didn’t need to ask what he meant; it was a tradition they’d started back when they were both away at college, an exercise that really warmed up his brain, clearing it of fog, rather than his hands. He nodded for John’s benefit, maneuvering his tablet to his left side while picking at his breakfast at his right. 

The rules were simple. John would provide a character description from his reading, offering only visual cues, and Virgil would try drawing based on the description only, having no knowledge of the book or the character. Virgil had appreciated it for the chance to keep his skills fresh while he was deep in his engineering coursework, and John enjoyed it as a study in the interpretation of language. And sometimes, they still played their little game just for a laugh. They’d had a good chuckle recently at the description of Aragorn that turned out to look like a musician of the hair metal variety. 

“Okay, we have a large,  humanoid silhouette. Scaly, rubbery skin with claws on both feet. Face with a mass of feelers. Long, narrow wings behind.” 

“The hell have you been reading?!”

“Can’t tell you that.” 

Virgil shook his head while he selected a digital brush, then tapped a few buttons to allow for his work to stream up in outer space so John could add his screen to the list of things he was watching. First, he wrote down the list of prompts. The easiest way to approach the challenge was to break down each of the descriptors and start sketching, so he started with roughly drawing the shape of a human in a corner and shading it. 

“So obviously we are talking monster or alien.”  He started a second silhouette, playing with the proportions to emphasize the largeness of the being. “Is this a creature out of one of your Star Trek novels?” But he knew John wouldn’t answer. No questions was a rule, otherwise once Virgil started to figure out the character, it was easy to be influenced by what he’d seen and already knew. “Okay, so we have wings and feelers.” Alone, wings were fun and varied - bird wings, bug wings, faery wings, dragon wings, and so many varieties of each of those. The word ‘feelers’ made his skin crawl, and he couldn’t help but to think of insects, the kinds of wings that adorned the types of creatures with antennae. But then... “Rubbery is a strange word.”  

John smirked, a knowing glance back over at his brother’s confusion as he glanced away from the artwork. 

He lost himself in a few wing designs, ultimately deciding on a combination that was more dragon-like, with strongly defined joints along the expanse - with more length than width. 

“What exactly is a mass of feelers?” he shuddered, softly brushing away a few crumbs that had fallen on the tablet. 

They looked suspiciously like toasted bread. He glanced over at his empty breakfast plate. 

“Dammit, Gordon!” 

The blond hovering behind him and reading his prompts, with his toast still in hand, said “You’re drawing Cthulhu.”

“Gordon!” John squawked. 

“What?”

“You’re not supposed to tell him.” John shook his head in his hand.  

“Wait, really?” Virgil scanned the prompts again.

“You’re missing that he’s octopus-like, but yeah really.” Gordon raised an eyebrow at the hologram. “Probably would’ve helped with the - ya know…” He lifted the back of his hand to his chin, his fingers dangling and wiggling. 

“Jesus, John! You had me drawing a dragon bug!”

“It was an excellent dragon bug,” he laughed. “Gordon stop with the hand thing.” 

Virgil ducked under Gordon’s mocking of face tentacles. “I’m getting more breakfast.”

It might have been a bad idea to leave the two of them together, but watching Gordon consume the rest of his breakfast had reminded him how long it had been since he last ate and his stomach had been rumbling. By the time he returned, Gordon and John both were beaming at him. 

“We have another one for you…”

“Oh no.” Between Gordon’s cryptids and John’s sci-fi novels, he was done for.

#Gavii Scribit #Gordon Tracy #Virgil Tracy #John Tracy #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds

[sol-fernan]

2024 Weeks 1-8 Reading List

My book picks for the next few weeks!

The Constant Gardener - John Le Carre: "The novel opens in northern Kenya with the gruesome murder of Tessa Quayle -- young, beautiful, and dearly beloved to husband Justin. When Justin sets out on a personal odyssey to uncover the mystery of her death, what he finds could make him not only a suspect among his own colleagues, but a target for Tessa's killers as well."

The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter: "Subversively dark and sensual versions of familiar fairy tales and legends like “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Bluebeard,” “Puss in Boots,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” steeped in the romantic trappings of the gothic tradition."

A Mother's Reckoning - Sue Klebold (not pictured): "On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. For the last sixteen years, Sue Klebold, Dylan’s mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. She chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. "

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad: "The story is narrated by Charles Marlow, recalling his obsessive quest to locate the ivory trader Kurtz, who has become ensconced deep in the jungle managing a remote outpost. As he ventures further and further down the Congo, Marlow finds himself and his surroundings become increasingly untethered."

The Pale Blue Eye - Louis Bayard: "At West Point Academy in 1830, the calm of an October evening is shattered by the discovery of a young cadet's body swinging from a rope. The next morning, an even greater horror comes to light. Someone has removed the dead man's heart. An ingenious tale of murder and revenge at West Point, featuring a retired detective and a young cadet named Edgar Allan Poe"

Between Two Fires - Christopher Buehlman: "The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village. An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm—that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has fallen behind the lines of conflict."

#booklr #bookblr #book reccs #books #reading #writers on tumblr #writblr

[sharkthe-cat]

Who's your favorite character from each arc?

Favorite arc?

Best wof book?

Aaaah i love it when i find people in multiple of the same fandoms as me :D Tysm for the ask.

Fav character from each arc, Clay from The Dragonet Prophecy because he's an absolute cinnamon roll and has an amazing personality, but honestly i love all of the Dragonets of Destiny, and most of the other characters in the arc as a whole. Tentatively Winter from The Jade Mountain Prophecy, semi-tied w/ Kinkajou/Turtle/Peril? I'm not the biggest fan of this arc ((in particular DoD)), but i love all the listed characters. I say tentatively, as though i've just read up on Winter on the wiki and remembered why i liked him so much, i haven't read the books in ages & i remember loving all these characters in addition. For the Lost Continent Prophecy ((i think that's what it's called?)), Sundew. I think i sorta liked Cricket as well, but i remember enjoyed her book and her as a character. Ooh, and Lynx! I totally forgot about Lynx, i loved her. One of those lassies.

My favourite arc is undoubtably The Dragonet Prophecy. It's just good, idk what to say about it. The characters have amazing chemistry, and there's not a lot to debate ship-wise in this series. The ships don't stand out as strongly as they seem to in the other two arcs, but maybe i didn't get as engaged in the fandom until reading the later arcs. The Lost Continent Prophecy is second, and The Jade Mountain Prophecy dead last.

I stopped reading the graphic novels after a few of them, but i have read many of the books multiple times. I might have to say Darkstalker as a general favourite because it was probably the book that had me closest to crying over a WoF book. Idk what it did but something about that book had me so much more connected to the characters than other books did. I think The Hidden Kingdom is my favourite first arc book, Talons of Power is for sure my second arc favourite ((i read full through in abt a day without putting it down)), and The Poison Jungle is likely my favourite third arc book. Prisoners is my favourite Winglet, because i think the layout with the letters is such a creative move, but Runaway is quite good because of Foxflake.

Like i probably said so many times, i don't remember a ton so take this with a grain of salt ^^;

[darktwistdchaos-blog]

I began this short horror story years ago then writer's block won

Abigail knew her next door neighbor was not normal. She had lived on the same block, in the same house since her parents brought her back home from the hospital. Upon their arrival home with their new born, her parents noticed a sold sign on the lawn next door. Even though there wasn’t a car in the driveway let alone a moving van, Abigail’s parents gave no second thought and brought their bundle of joy inside.As a toddler Abigail would sit in their kitchen munching on strawberries, her favorite snack, and wait and watch to see if the next-door neighbor came outside. Even at such a young age she noticed oddities, their neighbor never had their front or back lawn in order unlike her own lawn that was kept in pristine green condition by her father. It over grew to such an extent Abigail sometimes imagined a tiger or lion roaming through impossible high grass. The house looked like something out of a Stephen King novel. When you looked at it, it was like the house was looking back at you, watching you. Along with an overgrown lawn, the shudders were chipping green paint and hanging in some areas. The double front door was made of a very old wood maybe oak and seemed to be literally wearing away. The only article on the lawn was an old mailbox complete with a small red flag atop to signal the arrival of mail. Once she could have sworn, she saw the shadow of a woman in the front bay window but the shadow vanished before she could be sure of what she saw.On the first day of fifth grade Abigail was walking down her driveway forward the big yellow school bus, hand in hand with her mother when she saw movement out of the corned of her eye. Turning her head slightly to the left she saw a white as bone hand moving in the front window of her neighbor’s house. That quick glance at the white gnarled hand sent a shiver down her spine but was quickly forgotten as she got on the bus. On the bus ride to school, Abigail kept thinking about the hand she saw being those curtains and who owned it.Weeks had gone by and that hand never made a reappearance. Abigail began to wonder if the silhouette she saw was in fact a real woman but most likely lived alone. How did she eat? Where did her groceries come from? Abigail never saw any cars in the driveway, neither coming nor going and she never saw a delivery truck of any kind making a stop. Circumstances changed on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Abigail was sitting on a large, technicolored quilt under a large oak tree in her back yard. Her attention had been on the book in her lap for most of the afternoon until she heard the sound of rusty hinged being pried open. At first, she ignored this, thinking it be Mr. Anderson, who lived on the right side of their house. Mr. Anderson was a bachelor who was always working on projects. He was particular fond of making bird houses so it was logical that the sound she heard came from him. Abigail went to look through the slats in their five-foot-tall fence. Mr. Anderson’s backyard was completely empty as well as the house. This realization sent shivers down her spine and caused goose bumps to appear on her arms. She had no desire to walk across the lawn and look through the slats of the other side of their fence, looking directly into that jungle of a yarn. The loud screeching of hinges long past their due for oil was still coming to her in short bursts. Abigail placed both of her shaking hands on the wood fence and peered through. What she saw next would haunt her for weeks to come. At first, she could only make out that female silhouette in the back screened door. The back of the house was just as bad as the front. The screened door was falling off its hinges with every gust of wind, the top right hinge was hanging on by a prayer and that explained where the sound was coming from...

#artists on tumblr #art #female artists #shorts #short story #story #short stories #fiction #original art #original story #poets and writers #poetsandwriters #writers and poets #women writers #writerscorner #writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #creative writing #horror #horror art #horror story #horrortale #writing community #unfinished #do you want to know more? #who is she

[bindi-the-skunk]

Movies and Tv shows for the actors and writers strike pause I am very glad that both writers and actors are taking a stand against being replaced with AI and other cheaper alternatives, and I have a list of older shows and films to recommend till everyone gets what they deserve.

Dinosaurs: Is an American family sitcom television series that aired on ABC for four seasons from April 26, 1991, through July 20, 1994,

Dinosaurs is a show I loved as a kid and still love now, and have all the episodes, it was a show that liked to insult everyone, brought up some good points and taught lessons, and of course had moments of pure hilarity for both kids and adults.

Iron Giant: is a 1999 American animated science fiction film produced by Warner Bros. Feature Animation and directed by Brad Bird in his directorial debut. It is based on the 1968 novel The Iron Man by Ted Hughes (which was published in the United States as The Iron Giant)

This movie is severely underrated, it has heart, charm, can be very funny, and even has very emotional moments at times (if the giants final line in the film does not make you cry, you are not a human being!)

The Prince of Egypt: is a 1998 American animated musical drama film produced by DreamWorks Animation and released by DreamWorks Pictures. The first feature film from DreamWorks to be traditionally animated and their second overall, it is an adaptation of the first fourteen chapters of the Book of Exodus and follows the life of Moses from being a prince of Egypt to a prophet of the Lord, chosen by God to carry out his ultimate destiny of leading the Hebrews out of Egypt.

Another gem that is FAR too underrated for how epic it is, does it get every biblical fact right? No, but it is an almost perfect film despite that, and even if you do not consider yourself religious, give it a watch and watch as miracles come to life.

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (also known as Spirit) is a 2002 American animated western film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by DreamWorks Pictures. The film was directed by Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook (in their feature directorial debuts) from a screenplay by John Fusco, based on an idea by Jeffrey Katzenberg, who produced the film alongside Mireille Soria.[4] Set in the Old West in the late 19th century, the film follows Spirit, a Kiger mustang stallion (voiced by Matt Damon as a narrator), who is captured during the American Indian Wars by the United States Cavalry; he is eventually freed by a Lakota man named Little Creek with whom he bonds, as well as a mare named Rain. In contrast to the anthropomorphic style of animal characters in other animated features, Spirit and his fellow horses communicate with each other through non-linguistic sounds and body language (albeit with many human facial expressions and reactions).

This movie was also a big part of my childhood, I loved horses (as most little girls are prone to ) and still love them, and it was nice seeing a positive native American portrayal in little creek and the fact that the animals do not talk in it, but it still puts through so much despite so little being spoken.

Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, also known as The Jungle Book, is a 1994 American adventure film co-written and directed by Stephen Sommers, produced by Edward S. Feldman and Raju Patel, from a story by Ronald Yanover and Mark Geldman. It is a live-action adaptation of the Mowgli stories from The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895) by Rudyard Kipling, alongside Walt Disney's animated feature film of the same name from 1967;[5] unlike its counterparts, the animal characters in this film do not talk.

Hellooooo childhood trauma! But all joking aside, no one ever talks about this film and I think it is an interesting change from all the spit-up Jungle book adaptions (having Mowgli as an adult for one) which tell the same story over and over and over and over and over and over and over and OVER! And in the age of so many live-action disney remakes, how about one that is actually GOOD?

Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction is an American television anthology series created by Lynn Lehmann, presented by Dick Clark Productions, and produced and aired by the Fox network from 1997 to 2002.[2] Starting in 2021, a fifth season was produced for the German market, where new episodes are released each Halloween. Each episode featured stories, all of which appeared to defy logic, and some of which were allegedly based on actual events. The viewer was offered the challenge of determining which are true and which are false. At the end of the show, it was revealed to the viewer whether the tales were true or works of fiction.

The series was hosted by James Brolin in season one and by Jonathan Frakes in seasons two, three and four.

Whooo boy was this show FUN, if you love mysteries, heartwarming stories and a good scare once and a while, give this show a go.

Gargoyles (also known as Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles for season 3) is an animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, in collaboration with Jade Animation and Tama Productions for its first two seasons and Nelvana for its final, and originally aired from October 24, 1994 to February 15, 1997. The series features a species of nocturnal creatures known as gargoyles that turn to stone during the day.[5] After spending a thousand years in an enchanted petrified state, the gargoyles (who have been transported from medieval Scotland) are reawakened in modern-day New York City, and take on roles as the city's secret night-time protectors.

I openly admit to staying up till way past when little-me should have been in bed to record the episodes of this show on VHS (remember those?) I loved it so much and the colorful characters it offered.

Elementary is an American procedural drama television series that presented a contemporary update of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes. It was created by Robert Doherty and starred Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes and Lucy Liu as Dr. Joan Watson. The series premiered on CBS on September 27, 2012. It was set and filmed primarily in New York City.

I openly admit to liking this series more than I liked Sherlock Its a fun twist on the classical tales of Sherlock Holmes, and even people who know the books back to front might be surprised at some of the twists.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, also promoted as LXG, is a 2003 steampunk[4]/dieselpunksuperhero film loosely based on the first volume of the comic book series of the same name by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. Distributed by 20th Century Fox, it was released on 11 July 2003 in the United States, and 17 October in the United Kingdom.

This movie is just epic fun, with some interesting ideas sprinkled in, not a perfect film, but it does not have to be, pop some popcorn, get your favorite pillows and enjoy the ride.

Van Helsing is a 2004 action horror film written and directed by Stephen Sommers. It stars Hugh Jackman as Dutch monster hunter Van Helsing and Kate Beckinsale as Anna Valerious. Van Helsing is both an homage and tribute to the Universal Horror Monster films from the 1930s and 1940s (also produced by Universal Pictures which were in turn partially based on novels by Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley), of which Sommers is a fan.

Again, like with LXG, this movie is just plain FUN

And along with these I can recommend the old universal horror films, from the Mummy to the Wolf Man

Francis the Talking Mule was a mule character who gained popularity during the 1950s as the star of seven popular Universal-International film comedies

These movies are just good clean fun

Tales from the Crypt, sometimes titled HBO's Tales from the Crypt, is an American horror anthology television series that ran from June 10, 1989, to July 19, 1996, on the premium cable channel HBO for seven seasons with a total of 93 episodes

Again, if you want some great fun with a few scares mixed in, give this show a watch, the crypt keeper is most welcoming! MWAHHAHAHAH!!!!

It's a Miracle is a television show that aired on PAX TV between September 6, 1998 and August 12, 2006. Initially hosted by Billy Dean and Nia Peeples and then Richard Thomas, and later by Roma Downey, it explored case studies of people who experienced miracles during their lifetime. This included stories of a pet that saved lives of family members, and the success of someone who was born drug addicted and abandoned. The show also covered the near death of a surfer who was in high water wells when they were knocked unconscious by their surf board.

This show was another that I would stay up past my bedtime to watch (personal favorites of mine are the one with the blind dog and the one with baby Sarah)

Unsolved Mysteries is an American mystery documentary television show, created by John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer. Documenting cold cases and paranormal phenomena, it began as a series of seven specials, presented by Raymond Burr, Karl Malden, and Robert Stack, beginning on NBC on January 20, 1987, becoming a full-fledged series on October 5, 1988, hosted by Stack. After nine seasons on NBC, the series moved to CBS for its 10th season on November 13, 1997

What can I say? I'm a sucker for mystery shows that also can be heartwarming.

I think that should be enough for now! Next time I hope to suggest some books to read too.

#film #recommendations #lxg #the league of extraordinary gentlemen #its a miracle #tales from the crypt #unsolved mysteries #jungle book #spirit #prince of egypt #iron giant