#BlackCoatPress

[theshadowmenlounge]

I want to recommend Princess Principal to Tales of The Shadowmen fans

I want to recommend Princess Principal to Tales of The Shadowmen fans 

It was an Anime that aired during the Summer 2017 season.  I loved it.   And it reminded me of my time spent reading BlackCoatPress and Rocambole books quite a bit. It's set in a Steam Punk alternate history London.  Now maybe it's only because I've read more 19th Century French popular fictions and English that it reminds me of French stuff more.  But there are some obvious French Revolution references, and the Dukes mentioned sound like French Dukedoms. Like a lot of Anime, it is very Rocambolesque. For the current season Code:Realize is explicitly referencing most French novels yet with a London setting.  So perhaps that's just how Anime currently does it.

[kuuderekun]

My taste in Anime isn't what you would expect of someone my age.

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2018/10/my-taste-in-anime-isnt-what-you-expect.html

I'm 4 years older then Bennet The Sage the host of the Anime Abandon.   He's basically the poster child on YouTube for the generation of Anime fans who view the 90s and very early 2000s as the Golden Age of Anime based on their personal nostalgia.  He started Anime Abandon in 2011 with a brief rant about how he can't enjoy current Anime at all, yet I've defined that same year as when my personal golden age of Anime began and I'm 4 years his Senpai. About half the Anime I've watched came out in that year or since, and likewise half the shows I've given a 10 out of 10 to.  And only about 60 of the over 300 Anime I've completed came out before the year 2000.   Only one of the rotating group of Anime that I have marked as a Favorite on MAL is pre-2000 (Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind) though one other is part of a franchise that started before then (The 3rd Pokemon Movie). My taste in Pokemon reflects my age, I have a small part of myself that can relate to the original 151 purests, and my top two movies are ones that still had Misty in-spite my not liking Misty herself very much.   However I've found value in every era of Pokemon. It also shows my age that I can remember seeing the DiC Dub of Sailor Moon on American TV before it was ever on Toonami.  And that I rather casually watched the Namek-Cell sagas of DBZ when they originally aired on Toonami.  And during the 2000s I occasionally got into things like Noir and Witch Hunter Robin and Code Geass and Gundam 00 and Death Note.  And then took an interest in Lupin III when I first got into BlackCoatPress in 2012. But besides a few other random things that was about the extent of my interest in Anime prior to 2014.  But in that year I took an interest in the Sailor Moon revival, and that lead to me watching Madoka and Utena on Hulu, which lead to me watching Rose of Versailles and Gankutsuou and more.  But it wasn't till 2016 I started actually paying attention to anything currently airing. Every other Nerdy interest of mine somewhat reflects my age, I've never been someone hating what's current for not being exactly like what I grew up on.  But when it comes to Pro-Wrestling I'm primarily Nostalgic for the Attitude era, when it comes to Video Games I like 8 and 16 Bit the best, and when it comes to DC Comics I idealize the Crisis-Crisis era for the most part.  If you asked me what Saturday Morning kids Cartoon shows I fondly remember, I'd say Garfield and Friends, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Rugrats, and of course Pokemon.  Buffy The Vampire Slayer was once my favorite TV show, and I have some Power Rangers Nostalgia. So why is it that my taste in Anime seems like that of someone 10-15 years younger then me? There are some non Anime recent stuff I've liked.  Pretty Little Liars is now my favorite western TV show.  Phineas and Ferb is a more recent kid's cartoon I enjoyed a lot.  But even those were on the way out when the Anime fixation kicked into high gear. Is there maybe a reason why having that particular taste in western media of the 90s would lead to preferring the last decade when it comes to Anime?  After all the people who were full Otaku then probably felt a disconnect with American media similar to what I feel now.  Is there some weird way in which Japan and America's sensibilities have swapped?

[utopianerd-blog]

This evening’s back porch reading is the recently translated, French utopian/sf novel, _Discovery of the Austral Continent by a Flying Man_ (1781), featuring pre-Darwinian evolutionary theory and people flying on mechanical wings. The first edition is going to be in the Eaton Collection’s upcoming _500 Years of Utopia_ exhibit.

You can find scans of the fantastic drawings here: http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2007/03/flight-to-antipodes.html?m=1 @phdbff

[theshadowmenlounge]

THE DEATH OF FANTOMAS by Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre adapted by Sheryl Curtis

cover by Mike Shoyket

Despite everything, the water rose, the foam, the white foam flowed over to the feet of Juve and Fantômas… Yet the air, which finally found an outlet, flowed from the cabin in a bitter whistle… “Let’s go!” stammered Fantômas. “It’s over...”

US$ 35.95 /GBP 26.99 6x9  tpb, 476 pages ISBN-13: 978-1-61227-621-2

From the deadly streets of St. Petersburg to the Palaces of India, from the back alleys of Paris to the deck of the Titanic, this prodigious saga tells the story of the death of Fantômas, and of his arch-nemesis, Detective Juve. Defying the Tsar’s secret police, Russian anarchists, Thuggee from India and Parasian Apaches, Juve, ably assisted by the intrepid journalist Jerôme Fandor, his beloved fiancée, Hélène, the alleged daughter of Fantômas, crisscross the world to finally meet their fate aboard a doomed ship in the North Atlantic. The Death of Fantômas collects the final two volumes of the saga of the Lord of Terror, initially released in 1913 and never translated before. The book also includes an introduction, a timeline and a bibliography by Jean-Marc Lofficier.

Contents:

La Cravate de Chanvre (1913)

La Fin de Fantômas (1913)

Introduction, Timeline and Bibliography by Jean-Marc Lofficier

[theshadowmenlounge]

http://www.blackcoatpress.com/new-releases-december-2017-tales-of-the-shadowmen-14-coup-de-grace.html

TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN 14: COUP DE GRACE edited by J-M. & R. Lofficier

cover by Florine Rétoré US$23.95/GBP 14.99 - 6x9 tpb, 300 p. - ISBN-13: 978-1-61227696-0

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Matthew Baugh: The Lights on Haint Mountain (starring Silver John, Madame Atomos)

Adam Mudman Bezecny: The Curse of Orlac (starring Orlac, Sar Dubnotal)

Nathan Cabaniss: Hero of Two Worlds (starring the Marquis de Lafayette)

Matthew Dennion: A Case of Mistaken Identity (starring Tedduy Verano, the Highlander)

Brian Gallagher: The Death of Von Bork (starring Captain Vampire, Irma Vep)

John Gallagher: Princes of the Universe (starring Solomon Kane)

Martin Gately: Rouletabille at the Old Bailey (starring Rouletabille)

Micah S. Harris: Beneath the Mount of Divination (starring Aramis, Brom Cromwell)

Travis Hiltz: The Case of the Remains to be seen (starring Spiridon, Prof. Brainerd)

Paul Hugli: The Night of the Dazzling Sun (starring Honey West, Tom Wills, The Nyctalope)

Matthew Ilseman: Guided Tours of Famous Secret Places (starring Haunted Places of Paris)

Rick Lai: Phantom Masquerade (starring Fantômas)

Nigel Malcolm: Tomorrow belongs to the Nyctalope (starring The Nyctalope, Stalker)

Christofer Nigro: Kindred Beasts (starring Judex, Felifax)

Frank Schildiner: Dice, Pearl and Sword (starring Rocambole, Zatoichi)

Michel Stéphan: The Odyssey of Madame Atomos (starring Madame Atomos)

Artikel Unbekannt: The Yellow Peril (starring The Yellow Shadow)

David L. Vineyard: The Third Eye of Osiris (starring Arsene Lupin, Fu Manchu)

Coup de grâce – the ultimate blow, the final strike in the merciless battle that pits good vs evil, heroes vs villains! But does it signal the triumph of order or the victory of chaos? In this fourteenth volume of Tales of the Shadowmen, the Marquis de Lafayette finds himself transported to Mars while Silver John runs afoul of Madame Atomos. Captain Vampire is plagued by Irma Vep. The Highlander challenges the leader of the Black Coats. Rouletabille appears at the Old Bailey. Aramis clashes with the unearthly presence of Baal. Rocambole meets Zatoichi, Honey West teams up with the Nyctalope, and Fantômas pays his debt to the King in Yellow.

Also starring Arsène Lupin, Felifax, Sâr Dubnotal, Harry Dickson, Teddy Verano, and many more. Tales of the Shadowmen is the only anthology dedicated to the international heroes and villains of pulp literature, where writers from all over the world pay homage to those great champions and master criminals who enchanted our adolescence.

I wasn’t able to contribute this year.  Part because of writers block, and partly because the artistic inspiration I have had has been more Anime inspired and so not really fitting the theme of this anthology anymore. 

But I do want to keep spreading awareness of this series and this Publisher in general.

[theshadowmenlounge]

Napoleon's Vampire Hunters

NAPOLEON'S VAMPIRE HUNTERS by Frank Schildiner

cover by Mariusz Gandzel

"A loup-garou possesses very little self-control. The Seine would be choked with bodies if he didn’t. But these werewolves, when controlled, will feast sparingly. However, very few beings possess the power necessary to control a rampaging beast like a loup-garou..."

US$ 23.95 /GBP 14.99 5x8 tpb, 300 pages ISBN-13: 978-1-61227-654-0

November 1804: Napoleon Bonaparte is mere weeks away from being crowned Emperor, when a great evil from his past returns to Paris. The leader of France knows he is engaged in a race against time. To fail would cause the whole of Europe to fall into darkness. To defeat this fearsome threat, Napoleon calls upon the one man who defeated it before, his former fencing teacher, swordmaster Jean-Pierre Séverin,  now director of the Paris Morgue; for only he, and a strange exorcist named Karnstein, stand a chance against an ancient fiend and his unholy beasts...

Swordmaster and vampire-hunter Jean-Pierre Séverin is the hero of legendary French author Paul Féval's seminal horror novel, THE VAMPIRE COUNTESS, written forty years before DRACULA.. He returns in this historical fright fest by the author of THE QUEST OF FRANKENSTEIN.

[theshadowmenlounge]

http://www.blackcoatpress.com/forthcoming-two-crimes.html

TWO CRIMES by Fortuné du Boisgobey adapted by Nina Cooper

cover by Daniele Serra

“During the trip! And you didn’t notice it?” exclaimed the employee. “No, and the lady sitting next to her didn’t see anything either. That’s strange, but that’s how it was.” “Apoplexy, then…or it could be something gave way in her chest. “ “As for me, I think someone killed her,” said the tall brunet. US$ 32.95 / GBP 22.99 6x9 tpb, 404 pages ISBN-13: 978-1-61227-615-1

Fortuné Du Boisgobey (1821-1891) was the chief of the followers of Émile Gaboriau, creator of Monsieur Lecoq. He was a prolific writer, with more than sixty works to his name, and one of the most popular French feuilleton writers. His novels dealt with crime, the police, and Parisian life. They had a high circulation, and many of them were translated into English. Two of his best classic mysteries are represented here in new translations by Nina Cooper: The Omnibus Murder (1881): A young Parisian artist, returning to his studio by the midnight omnibus, witnesses the death of a young girl. He at first thinks she’s been murdered, but dismisses the idea. Fortunately, his friend solicits the aid of the mysterious Piédouche to bring the killer to justice. The Ferry Murder (1882): The Vignemal family perishes when their small ferry boat capsizes in a freak storm. Who inherits depends on who died first, the husband, or the wife. Will officials believe the young man who attempted a rescue? Or is he a killer in league with one of the many potential inheritors of the Vignemals’ large estate? Contents: The Omnibus Murder [Le Crime de l'Omnibus] (1881) The Ferry Murder [Le Bac] (1882)

[theshadowmenlounge]

YES Companions of Silence is finally on the BCP agenda

http://www.blackcoatpress.com/forthcoming-the-companions-of…

Not till 2018 it looks like.  That gives me plenty of time to save up.

I’m fascinated by the cover art (credited to Nathalie Lial ).  I wonder what character that is, the CoolFrenchComics summery doesn’t mention many female characters, and none seemed important?

[theshadowmenlounge]

http://www.blackcoatpress.com/new-releases-april-2017-the-angel-asrael.html

THE ANGEL ASRAEL AND AND OTHER LEGENDARY TALES by S. Henry Berthoud adapted by Brian Stableford

cover by Aurelien Maccarelli

Asrael summoned the aid of his brothers, the demons, but bursts of laughter came from all directions, and mocking voices said to him: “Asrael, you are no more than a human now; you have lost your Spiritual essence!” US$ 23.95 /GBP 14.99 5x8 tpb, 300 pages ISBN-13: 978-1-61227-613-7 The Angel Asrael (1832) is the most revealing and the purest of S. Henry Berthoud’s fantasies, and a significant early contribution to what became the great Romantic and Symbolist tradition of “literary satanism,” in which writers deliberately adopted a stance removed from orthodox Christianity in order to reappraise the character of Satan.

As might be expected of a devout writer, Berthoud shows no sympathy for Satan, who remains an archetype of vitriolic nastiness, but in his characterization of the rebel, like John Milton, he cannot help express a certain admiration for his overweening pride and vaulting ambition. Berthoud’s God owes his status not to any intrinsic virtue, but merely to his victory in the War in Heaven, which Satan unhesitatingly attributes to chance.

This collection also includes sixteen other stories that demonstrate what a truly ground-breaking author S. Henry Berthoud was, and how amply deserving he is of a modern reappraisal of his achievements.

Contents:

Taken from Chroniques et traditions surnaturelles de la Flandre  (1831):Beauduin Bras-de-fer

The Dead

The Cook’s Son,

The Rubricator

The Shepherd’s Clock

Simon the Accursed

Giles the Hideous

The De Profundis

The Pact

The Eglantine

A Story Heard While Listening at Doors

The Soul in Purgatory

The Delation

The Spell

The Beggar’s Sou

The Seminarian The Angel Asrael (Asrael et Nephta, Histoire de Province)  (1832)

Introduction, Afterword and Notes by Brian Stableford.

[theshadowmenlounge]

John Devil Expanded Universe

John Devil Expanded Universe 

I want to talk here a bit about my personal plans for expanding on the John Devil universe in future writings.  

Spoilers for what happened in John Devil will abound.

First to clarify I agree with Brian Stableford’s interpretation of what happened, Henri Belcamp and Tom Brown are the same person.  His timeline in the back of his translation is also very helpful.  I can’t overstate how much I recommend everyone buy it and read it.

Next I want to state that while my fictional universe in very much inspired conceptually by the Wold Newton Universe concept (particularly the French WNU) it's not ultimately compatible with the WNU proper.

One reason is because I write my fiction assuming my interpretation of Biblical Chronology to be true, as a Six Day Young Earth Creationist, so that leaves no room for things like Conan The Barbarian or the proper Cthulhu Mythos.

Another is because I don't like the explaining talented people by saying their ancestors were affected by a meteorite to begin with.  Though the idea of meteorites playing important roles in history is interesting to me. As well as in genealogies.

In both of those cases nothing I write for TOTS will contradict the WNU proper.   Avoiding the events of 1795 should be easy enough, the closest historical period I might want to address is the Conspiracy of the Equals in 1796-97.  And since any stories written for that won't be set sooner than the English Revolution or at the least the Mayflower, anything said about Biblical history or the age of the Universe is free to be taken as merely that character's opinion.  And I will write characters who don’t share my personal opinions.

But one remaining major deviation from the proper WNU that won't exactly be avoidable is that I want to throw out the traditional WNU genealogy for Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes in exchange for making them descendants of Gregory Temple.   I have decided against my initial instinct of having it be through Richard Thompson II, and instead will speculate that naturally Richard Thompson and Suzanne Temple had other children.  Mainly I want to give them a daughter who will become a detective herself but won't work for the police because of Victorian Sexism.  She'll do battle with Sir Williams and his mistress named Moriarty during 1840-43.  And she'll be Bisexual and eventually marry a Country Squire named Siger Holmes and give birth to Sherlock in 1854.  She may also have some sexual tension with Moriarty.

Moriarty is depicted directly very little in Doyle's canon, allowing a lot of room for interpretation of his character.  In the first Rathbone film he's essentially the prototype of Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor, on BBC's Sherlock he has a Joker quality to him, and in the RDJ films he's essentially a Victorian Post-Crisis Luthor.  But it's not as common to depict him as a villain with an arguably good motivation, or as a character who at least started that way and lost sight of it as the power corrupted him.

But since his name as well as his right hand man Moran's is Irish, and he works with an Irish revolutionary group in The Valley of Fear.  I feel, it makes sense to see him as someone carrying on the mission of Fergus O'Breanne from Les Mysteries de Londres.  (Note, in The Vampire of New Orleans I had originally mentioned the IRA but the editors choose to replace that with a more generic reference to Irish Freedom fighters, which I fully understand.  If I'd known then what I do now I'd have used the name of the group in TVoF).

So my genealogy for Moriarty begins with Sarah O'Brien (who I usually default to calling Sarah O'Neil because that's who we meet her as). After the end of John Devil she married Frederick Bohem and births an heir for him, but he dies after not very long.  She then returns to The Gentlemen of The Night now being reorganized by The Colonel.  She has an affair with Fergus O'Breanne (who she'd met before) long before he establishes himself as the Marquis of Rio-Santo, and they have a daughter born legally under their Moriarty alias.  That daughter later has three sons, a Colonel, a Professor and a Station Manager, in my canon only the Colonel is forenamed James.  It is only the Professor who is fathered by Sir Williams.

I'm not fond of the Moriarty is Nemo theory, Robur and Moriarty I could maybe see as the same if it'd chronologically fit, but not Nemo.  Nemo I view as a son Henri Belcamp had with a princess in India while he was preparing that part of his plan.

Henri tells an elaborate story about how he met Percy Balcomb in Australia which we know is made up since Percy was really an Alias of Henri.  But maybe some aspects of that story were based on how he met Fergus O'Breanne since we know he too was in Australia for a while and visited Napoleon about the same time Henri did.  I think Fergus was a part of Henri's plan off screen, perhaps as a commander in the Navy that Henri wanted Robert Surrisy to lead.  I also suspect that between leaving Australia and reaching St Helena they visited the Il Padre Diogni in Corsica.

There is a Walter Brown on the high council of The Gentlemen of The Night during the 1830s, as well as a Peter Wood who could be a relative of Mr Wood  (according to Frank Morlock's translation of the Stage Play version at least).  Could he be a son "Tom Brown" had as a result of some random affair? It's more common than you might expect for a child born out of Wedlock to still wind up with their Father's Surname.  On the Mr Wood subject a James Wood also factors into Rocambole’s later adventures in London. I can't think of any fictional Characters last named Davy right now, but that would be interesting to look into. Same as Palmer, cause 2 other identities Henry went by were James Davy and George Palmer.

But Henri's only marriage was technically under the Identity of Percy Balcomb to Jeanne Herbert. If she conceived a child during their brief time together in July he/she wouldn't have been born until 1818. The now in the Public Domain 1919 film The Master Mystery starring Harry Houdini features a Herbert Balcom, who runs a Company in the United States that makes advanced Technology, and he turns out to be a Super-Villain of sorts. People often changed in some small way their Surname when they immigrated to the U.S. So, could Herbert Balcom be a descendent of Percy Balcomb and Jeanne Herbert?  I think it's likely. Let's leave what happened during and after the events of John Devil and consider the background.

One CoolFrencComics genealogy suggests that the House of Belcame descends from Riene de Kergariou of Paul Feval's Fee Des Greves.  Given the similarity in name and the common connection to Brittany, I think placing her in the ancestry of the Kergaz family from the Rocambole novels would be a more natural conclusion.   A lot of John Devil characters were alive at the time of the French Revolution, which is interesting in light of my French Revolution Shared Cinematic Universe (FRCU) idea I suggested elsewhere.  They all seem to be in London mostly during that time however, Armand De Belcamp went there after being exiled.  Much of the drama of the Scarlet Pimpernel was in London at this time also, so there could be crossover potential there.

The desire to compare Gregory Temple to Sherlock Holmes is hindered mostly by that in John Devil we see the end of his career mainly, already old and past his prime.  During the French Revolution he’s already began his career, we could have Helen Brown as his Irene Adler and Mr. Wood leading the Gentlemen of The Night.

I would course seek to tie this into my own evolving theories about the roles Secret Societies played during this history.  Which I discuss on my Conspiracy History Facts blog.

[theshadowmenlounge]

My review of two Lupin The Third movies

My review of two Lupin The Third movies 

Below is from a project I was going to do, possibly as a YouTube video, called "Top 5 Anime Films according to someone who hasn't seen many".   I've canceled that project for a few reasons.  One being I've seen more movies now, enough to totally re-calibrate what that list would have been. The section on two Lupin III films was all I ever actually wrote before abandoning it, and I want to preserve those thoughts somewhere (The top 4 would have been Gundam 00, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzimiya, and Pokemon The 3rd Movie Spell of The Unkown.)  The fact that I consider they two the ebst Lupin movies is possibly still dependent on me having not seen many, I recently saw Gold of Babylon which came no where new surpassing these, I may comment on it more in the future.  The biggest out of date detail is saying it's the only Miyazaki film I'd seen.  As you'd know if you're following this blog, I saw Nasuica and The Valley of the Wind at the start of June. So, enjoy. Number five is…. A tie between two Lupin III films, The Mystery of Mamo and The Castle of Cagliostro.  This will be the only tie on the list, but still it means I’m technically discussing 6 movies.  These are also the only Lupin films on the list, so they are also the best Lupin movies in my opinion.

My interest in Lupin III overlaps with my interest in the original Arsene Lupin and in French Pulp Fiction in general.  And now I shall reveal that these are not traditional objective consumer reviews, but my being analytical about why these films appeal to me.  

Both are perfectly stand alone stories.  But Mystery of Mamo may make a better entry point into the Lupin III saga, since it was the first Lupin III movie and so definitely felt designed to be an entry point on many levels.  And Castle of Cagliostro has odd qualities that resulted in a fan theory that it may be the chronologically last Lupin III story.  

If you’re into the Lupin III saga mainly for Fujiko Mine then that would also make Mamo the prefered choice for you, she is very important to that story.  She is in Castle of Cagliostro, but is not the main love interest.  I do however quite like the fact that she never shows any jealousy towards Clarisse. Mystery of Mamo’s other big advantage is having a more interesting main villain.  I can’t help but compare him to the character of Colonel Bozzo-Corona from Paul Feval’s Les Habits Noirs (The Blackcoats) series.  But that is probably just me.

Castle of Cagliostro is also currently the only Hayao Miyazaki film I’ve seen.  I have several of them on DVD but haven’t gotten around to watching them yet. Castle of Cagliostro draws on specific classic Lupin stories more than most Lupin III stories do, a fact probably owed to how well read Miyazaki is.  The connections to La Comtesse de Cagliostro (available in English from BlackCoatPress as Arsene Lupin Vs Countess Cagliostro) are largely in name only.  The Lupin novel that fans of this movie really need to read, is unfortunately not easy to find legally in English.  It’s original French title which I’ll probably mispronounce is La Demoiselle aux yeux verts, the literal English translation of that title would be “The Damsel with The Green Eyes”, but the existing English translation is a volume titled Arsene Lupin Super Sleuth.  If you know Japanese or Korean it’s interestingly easier to find in those languages, if you know French it shouldn’t be a problem at all, everything LeBlanc directly wrote is Public Domain now.  The Clarisse of this film may be named after the Clarisse of the Cagliostro novel, but her personality and situation is more like the title character of the latter novel.  And there are other parallels too.

There is good reason this is often considered the best Lupin film, I might be the only person who thinks the Mamo film is equal to it.  It is a very well directed and beautifully drawn film.  It’s also been very influential in both Japan and the west.  The climactic final confrontation inside the top of a Clock Tower would be homaged in Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective, and in the first Clock King episode of Batman: The Animated Series.  I could have mentioned this in my The Mysteries of Gotham blog post, where I talked about how the roots of Batman directly or indirectly often go back to French Pulp Fiction.

[theshadowmenlounge]

I've read some more Arsene Lupin

I've read some more Arsene Lupin 

I've read The Hollow Needle and 813 over the last couple days and placed reviews on Amazon for them. https://www.amazon.com/review/R18U0IXDPHZEXJ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm https://www.amazon.com/review/R2YZJI5LFFUH0Y/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm I'm not gonna repeat anything form the reviews here, I'll just say that a comment in the 813 review is why I tagged this as a Pretty Little Liars post. As of these I feel I've read the essentials of the original Arsene Lupin.   I've read the first few short stories and The Woman with the Green Eyes (Super Sleuth) online, and I've read BlackCoatPress's translations of the Holmes stories, the Caligostro stories, and now these two. I've mentioned before how unfortunate I think it is that (English Speaking)Anime fans who  re into Lupin III don't seem too motivated to read up on the original.  But their adventures are very different.   Lupin III arguably draws more directly on James Bond and Indiana Jones, both those owe their own debt of Arsene Lupin of course, directly or not, but are still distinct.  Arsene Lupin's adventures are not particularly action heavy, the focus on characters trying to out think each other makes me think of Code Geass and Death Note as closer Anime analogues, but neither of them have a character I'd compare too directly to Lupin. The Castle of Cagliostro draws on the classic Lupin more then most.  But the connection to the Cagliostro novel is mostly just in name.  It's really The Woman with the Green Eyes that seems to have been the major inspiration. A while ago I talked on Tumblr about Aria the Scarlet Ammo. I also just watched the first two episodes of it's sequel season, AA, now that their Dub is available.  It has a very different vibe, one that appeals to me much more overall.  No longer a male MC and so far no egregious fan service.  And it's got Yuri.  And fortunately Riko Mine will be back.

[theshadowmenlounge]

I've now seen the Live Action Lady Oscar movie

I had binged all 40 episodes of The Rose of Versailles on Hulu fairly recently when I started this blog. I knew this movies existed back then, but I did not know it was in English, I assumed as a French production it would have been in French.  That assumption isn't why I didn't watch it right away, I watched the Anime in Japanese with Subs and already had experience watching movies in French thanks to my BlackCoatPress interests (which was itself a factor in why this was one of the first Anime I watched when I decided to start truly diving into Anime). What I had also assumed was that it would be pretty much impossible for me to find to watch without spending a lot of money just like most old French movies based on Paul Feval, Ponson du Terril and Eugene Sue novels.  However recent events on Twitter had brought knowledge of where to watch it to my attention. I consider the movie overall good, but in a unique way. Generally my advice is to watch adaptations before the source material so comparisons won't constantly be bothering you, if the source material is better then you'll have saved the better experience for last. In this case however the main strength of the film is the acting.  And very little of it is any major deviation from the source material, but it's very condensed, the Anime is 40 episodes while the runtime of this movie is equivalent to the runtime of 6 episodes.  I have a feeling this movie will have a very limited appeal to viewers who don't already know the fullness of the Anime's story-line, to them it won't really stand on it's own at all. But for those of us who have the ablity to put it in context what is adapted looks as good as this possibly ever could look in live action, I certainly don't trust the trend of historical fiction in modern Hollywood to aesthetically do the Anime justice. As I said the strongest point of the film is the acting.  Chiefly Lady Oscar herself played by Catriona MacColl.  I read on Wikipedia some critics thought she wasn't Androgynous enough, and I think that misses the point.  Lady Oscar in the Anime does not look like Haruka Tenoh or a stereotypical Butch Lesbian.  I feel like what the people making that criticism wanted is exactly what I would hate about how Hollywood would probably do it. At some points the film oddly felt like a Hammer film.  But I should clarify what I mean by that, Hammer did make more then just Horror, they also made odd little limited budget historical films sometimes.  The actor plainly Andre sounded kinda like several of Hammer random Junior Leads (often named Paul) but according to Wikipedia he's not one of them. The Anime is in my opinion the best fictionalization of this time period I've seen thus far.  What it does get wrong are mistakes by no means unique to this franchise, like making Robespierre a leader of the Revolutionaries a lot sooner then he actually was.  This film is about the same in historical accuracy but is generally more enjoyable to watch as just Lady Oscar's story then the time period in the general.  Which is shown by comparing the titles, Lady Oscar is the title character of the movie but the Anime's title character is technically Marie Antoinette. The only thing I was truly disappointed by about the film was the ending.  So now I shall fully enter spoiler territory. Read more »

[theshadowmenlounge]

An update on my Black Coat Press and Tales of The Shadowmen interests

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2018/10/an-update-on-my-black-coat-press-and.html

Been a while since I said much specifically on that subject.  It'll be awhile before I can contribute to the Tales of The Shadowmen anthology series since the story ideas I've been having lately haven't been on that subject, Anime has taken over my imagination.  And of course I always have trouble getting my stories actually written down anyway, having an explicit deadline helped motivate me when I was writing TOTS stories. I also feel bad that I still haven't finished The Companions of Silence, I bought the book early this year and started it, I like it as much as I do most Paul Feval stuff, but my mind has been fixating on other things.  This February The White Wolf is being released, it has had English versions before but they're rare and hard to find.  I hope they follow that up with The She Wolf. I spent a good deal of time last year recommending Princess Principal to fellow Shadowmen fans.  It's set in an alternate Steam Punk version of Victorian England, but a lot of it's themes feel more appropriate for post-Revolutionary France.  But regardless plenty of the French novels we like used Britain as a setting, from The Mysteries of London to the last three Rocambole novels to John Devil. I bring it up again now because it's Dub has finally dropped.  Now I haven't watched said Dub yet, I know from the trailer they actually went with British Accents which is a decision I'm actually rather skeptical of.  Noir's Dub worked great without any accents, I love Anime dub VAs but accents aren't their strong suite.  Still I will give a shot eventually. The show is legally streaming on both HIDIVE and Amazon Prime, I think only HIDIVE has the Dub but I'm unsure, it may be you need to buy the DVDs for the full Dub.  Either way neither can be streamed for free, they are not making it easy for me to show this show to outsiders. A lot happens in Anime that reminds me of my Francophilic tendencies.   This coming Fall Season will have yet another Anime version of Jeanne d'Arc in a show that's also about Alchemy.  We also had more Lupin III Anime this year, I won't be watching Part V till it's Dub airs however, which based on the time-frame for Part IV I suspect will be next year.   All the main Lupin III shows are on Crunchyroll Subbed right now, but suddenly The Woman Called Fujiko Mine isn't streaming anywhere. Thanks to Hulu dropping most of what it had, Rose of Versailles and Revolutionary Girl Utena can't be legally streamed anywhere now either. That's really frustrating. Lastly I want to talk about an observation I made about Pokemon Heroes: Latios & Latias, the Fifth Pokemon movie.  This observation can only be fully understood by others who have read Knightshade (Brian Stableford's translation of Paul Feval's Le Chevalier Ténèbre), including it's introduction and afterward material. I feel that Annie and Oakley can be thematically compared to the Ténèbre Brothers.  They are called sisters in material I've read though I don't recall that being explicitly stated in the Dub.  Oakley is definitely Avarice.  Calling Annie "Lust" may be a bit more of a stretch since it's a kid's movie and all, but she is very vain and likes pretty shiny things, and is officially described as the prettier one.  This parallel is most likely a coincidence, but I enjoy making parallels between the works of this semi forgotten author and modern Nerd media.

[theshadowmenlounge]

Star Wars is about Fascism, but is it so in a way that is actually useful in opposing Fascism?

Star Wars is about Fascism, but is it so in a way that is actually useful in opposing Fascism?

So my fellow SJWs at TheMarySue and LadyGeekGirl and on Tumblr have going on and on about how Star Wars is obviously political.  What they mainly mean by that is it's obviously on their side, and want to use that George Lucas, and the new directors are all mostly on the Left of modern American politics as proof of that.  But the Author Is Dead and George Lucas especially was like Tolkien in that he wanted his stories to have a universal appeal beyond his own personal views or context. But I'm not making this to talk about any intentional room for interpretation.  But rather a far deeper issue of how society responds to the fiction they watch.  And to start with you should watch this video. From Caligari to Hitler: Imagining the Tyrant - Between the Lines

This premise goes back decades. But this particular video on ig was made in November of 2016, after the U.S. presidential Election of that month but before Rouge One came out.  I had watched it when it was still pretty new bookmarked it on YouTube.

Rouge One is a movie I loved and enjoyed.  But as I looked at a certain segment of Star Wars fans not so impressed with it, expressing how bothered they were by people in their theater openly cheering on Darth Vader at the end.  I was reminded of the above video.

Because this thesis was not mainly about heroes of German cinema who could be viewed as unintentional proto-Nazis, though that was a small factor.  It mostly came down to the tendency of the masses to be fascinated by Villains.  Star Wars has always had that factor, it is the TVTropes Trope Namer for Rooting For The Empire.  And recently The Fanboy Perspective did an editorial about how annoyed he is by movies who's villains are not sufficiently charismatic and Bad@$$ enough to satisfy him.

Now don't get me wrong.  That Vader scene is one you are supposed to "enjoy".  You are supposed to "enjoy" it the same way you "enjoy" a Slasher film.  But of course the fandom of Slasher films has this same problem, I keep seeing people try to say the Final Girl archetype is Feminist, but they don't sell action figures of Laurie Strode, they sell action figures of Michael Myers. Now I was planning on making this post and saying what I am about to say before Carrie Fisher was even hospitalized.  But naturally I now find it even more important to say that the character people should have been standing up and cheering at the end of Rouge One was Princess Leia.

And of course I can't help but notice the clear correlation between this kind of Star Wars fan, and the Prequel Haters.  People who resent the Prequels for emasculating Darth Vader, and are oh so thankful now to Rouge One for restoring his Manhood, quite literally symbolized by the extending of his Lightsaber.

And we see that in the new Tirlgoy's haters also to an extent, not liking how whiny and pathetic Kylo Ren seems, they wanted a new Vader, not a Vader wannabe.

Now before you go "great Job invoking Godwin's Law in your ongoing Crusade against Prequel Haters".  I want to say, don't oversimplify my premise.  I'm now sawing you can identify Trump voting by tallying who cheered on Darth Vader, or who hated the Prequels.  On Tumblr I certainly know many Prequel haters who are Anti-Trump, and the most Conservative Star Wars fan I know is a relative who's pretty okay with the Prequels.  My point is, that there is a basic cultural overlap between the mentality that leads to thinking the Villains are the best parts of Comic Book films, and finding Trump's style appealing.

And I know full well The Prequels also give us a Villain to be fascinated by, as they finally gave The Emperor an actual character.   Yet at the same time so much Prequel hate is tied to feeling Darth Maul and Count Dooku were under utilized.  And complaining about Anakin killing the Younglings.

Yes that is an important comparison to the Rouge One scene.  Undeniably that should show the character's Evilness far more.  In Rouge One he's killing enemy combatants, not even a War Crime much less one against civilians, it's wrong only to the extent his goal is wrong.  But it's not so easy to cheer on Vader massacring Younglings, which Lucas kept off-screen anyway.  More importantly then that though, is how it doesn't make him seem Bad@$$, it makes him seem Pathetic, Sidous had basically just told him he needed to so some Evil for the Evils to grow more powerful with The Dark Side, and so he did just that.  Reminds me of how Utena fans who hate the movie are so upset by Akio now being made to look pathetic, Ikuhara did that deliberately.

The massacre of the Seperatists leaders could have been far easier to cheer on.  But the way it's scored and shot, and how it's inter-cut with Palpatine's speech (Lucas cited this as his one Godfather Baptism moment) discourages the audience from doing so.  Topped off by seeing how even this killing of people who narratively had it coming had Anakin crying, showing he still has further to fall, and is certainly as Yoda predicted "Suffering".

I also noticed recently a problem in how all the universally praised Star Wars films, are ones where the "War" in question in unquestioningly a just one, for our Heroes side at least.  And in TFA and Rouge One more so then the Original Trilogy, hesitancy to go all in on fighting it is presented as weakness.  While The Prequels which send the message that fighting an unjust war, one where our Heroes were the aggressors, is what created The Empire in the first place, get decried as not being simple enough. 2002 saw the release of both Attack of The Clones and The Two Towers.   That was also the year the Bush Administration was beating the War Drums on Iraq, so much so my mind still affiliates that War with 2002 more so then 2003.   Both films happens to have a theme of a War about to break out which it does at the end.  Bizarre coincidence since it couldn't have been pre-planned. The sad Irony is that Tolkien would certainly despise the Bush Doctrine as someone traumatized by WWI.  Yet the timing of when the Two Towers movie came out allowed many Bush voters in the theater to take Aragorn's "Open War is upon you, whether you would have it or not" as a take that to Anti-War liberals.  I know this because way back then I was one, a fact I'm deeply ashamed of.  Meanwhile AOTC clearly presents the decision to go to War as a mistake.  The Empire was truly Born in Episode II, as the score beautifully tells you at the end.  It was just formalized in Episode III.  I wonder to what extent the Prequels are a factor in my ceasing to be Pro-War by 2006.

Going back to Lucas intent, yes he wanted to cosmetically reference the Nazis like everyone was doing at that time.  But in the Audio Commentaries the real meat when he's talking about Historical influences lie in his talking about Ancient Rome and of all people Napoleon III.   Julius and Augustus Caesar, and both Napoleons where in the Left Wing of the politics of their times, however odd that may seem to us looking at it now.  Lucas message in the prequels was about how Democracy can be subverted, regardless of the ideology of the one subverting it.

That he cited Napoleon III is interesting to me.  Years after I'd first enjoyed those Audio Commentaries, I started developing an interesting in 19th Century French Popular fiction, the genesis of which was discovering Paul Feval and BlackCoatPress.  Brain Stableford talks much about the historical contexts of all these novels in his Introductions, Afterwards and Footnotes of his Translations, (interestingly in Invsisble Weapon he theorized Feval become personally disturbed by his own ability to write such compelling villains, that he became like Mliton unknowingly of The Devil's Party).  And there too Napoleon III is unavoidable.  He may be a nearly forgotten figure today, but to his contemporaries he was very important.

And of course the shadow of Napoleon Classic Version is vital to that.   Especially since censorship meant any negative commentary on him had to veiled.  And he had critics from both fellow Progressives and old fashioned conservatives.  Seemingly any novel mentioning the original Napoleon in the 1850s, 60s or even to an extent 70s had Napoleon III in mind.  But not using OG Napoleon himself as the allegory, no they didn't want to grant him that. The thing about the real Naoleon was that he managed to earn the respect even of those who most harshly opposed him Politically, from both the Royalists and Republicans, from Alexandre Dumas to Paul Feval.  Napoleon III couldn't do that.  And thus the contemporary fictional allegories for him lie in the Napoleon wannabes.  Like  Henri Belcamp of Paul Feval's John Devil, or The Blackcoats: Companions of The Treasure, where Julian Bozzo-Corona disguised himself as his far more iconic Corsican Grandfather, Colonel Bozzo-Corona.

Of course it is this failed wannabe nature of how Napoleon III was fictionalized by his contemporaries that makes someone in the know like me a little disappointed in Palapatine as a character partly inspired by him.  And this informs what I in-spite of my issues with TFA love about Kylo Ren.  It is Kylo Ren's failure to be Darth Vader that reminds me of Napleon III's failure to be Napoleon.  And I now kinda hope Snoke is equally a wannabe Sidious, overcompensating in his hologram, so no one question the size of his.... hands.

I realize I kinda left the original topic a bit there.  But I wanted to show I'm not just being a hater who's now completely cynical to seeing useful Politic in Star Wars.  Because Donald Trump also wants to be something he is not.  The Alt-Right sees this as a second American Revolution, but Trump is no George Washington. Some people might find it offensive to see any French Figure as a proto-Fascist when France was a nation victimized by 1940s Fascists.   But in their current Political Climate they should know they're no more immune to it then America is.

[theshadowmenlounge]

The BlackCoatPress website was revamped a couple months ago

The BlackCoatPress website was revamped a couple months ago 

So I realized I should provide some new linked to the Tales of The Shadowmen volumes I have stories published in, since the old Links don't work anymore.

I've had Three Published already in Volumes 10, 11 and 12.  So far my story has always been last thanks to my surname.

http://blackcoatpress.com/fiction-tales-of-the-shadowmen-10-esprit-de-corps.html

http://blackcoatpress.com/fiction-tales-of-the-shadowmen-11-force-majeure.html

http://blackcoatpress.com/fiction-tales-of-the-shadowmen-12-carte-blanche.html

And it seems likely my new story will be in Volume 13 which comes out this December.

http://blackcoatpress.com/forthcoming-tales-of-the-shadowmen-13-sang-froid.html

TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN 13. Sang Froid edited by J-M. & R. Lofficier cover by Michel Borderie US$23.95/GBP 15.99 - 6x9 tpb, 300 p. - ISBN-13: 978-1-61227-578-9 Contents: Jason Scott Aiken: Galazi in the Enchanted City Matthew Baugh: A Dollar’s Worth of Fists Adam Mudman Bezecny: Harry’s Homecoming Nicholas Boving: The Aquila Curse Nathan Cabaniss: From Paris with Hate Matthew Dennion: A Purpose in Life Brian Gallagher: The Berlin Vampire Martin Gately: Rouletabille Rides the Horror Express Micah Harris: The Goat of Saint Elster Travis Hiltz: The Island of Exodus Paul Hugli: As Easy as 1, 2, 3... Rick Lai: Eve of Destruction Nigel Malcolm: Maximum Speed Christofer Nigro: Bad Alchemy John Peel: Time to Kill Frank Schildiner: The Taking of Frankenstein Sam Shook: Bringer of the Outer Dark Michel Stéphan: One Summer Night at Holy Cross David L. Vineyard: The Moon of the White Wolf Jared Welch: Styrian Rhapsody Credits Sang Froid, i.e. Cold Blood! Doctor Ardan meet the People of the Pole! Doctor Omega teams up with Ki-Gor to find the secret of the Yeti! Maigret, Father Brown and Dr. Watson face a terrifying supernatural threat! Felifax ends up on Dr. Moreau's island. Sâr Dubnotal and the Werewolf of Paris fight the vampires! Arsene Lupin duels with Raffles! Captain Vampire defies the Reds! Rouletabille is trapped on the Mysterious Island! Spiridon investigates a vampire murder in Paris! The Phantom of the Opera finds death in Persia! Sherlock Holmes meets Lecoq and Mephista Leonox! In this thirteenth volume of Tales of the Shadowmen, the only anthology dedicated to international heroes and villains of pulp literature, writers from Canada, England, France and the United States, pay homage to those great champions and master criminals who enchanted our adolescence.

This one again stars Eugenie Danglars and Louise d'Armilly, this time they encounter Carmilla, The Lesbian Vampire.