It's almost Valentine's! I was able to finish the Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou piece for my Wars of the Roses series <3
Henry VI tends to be brushed off as a mentally-ill and ineffective monarch to this day, and it's difficult to find information that does not infantalize or malign him. Margaret of Anjou, my favorite figure from this period, would was a steadfast pillar of support for Henry until the day he died. A lot of historians paint Margaret as only supporting her husband to secure the throne for their son, but I find that narrative difficult to be the only reason. Margaret campaigned for Henry's release from captivity tirelessly and worked extremely hard to gather support for his reign and even raised armies for him. While their relationship doesn't have the passion and flare that Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville did, I think their kind of devotion is exemplary in royal diplomatic marriages from the period.
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THE ART OF SUPER-SEVENTIES BRITISH HORROR -- THE LADIES OF HAMMER STUDIOS.
PIC(S) INFO: "Little Shoppe of Horrors" presents...Spotlight on back cover art to "Little Shoppe of Horrors" magazine #24, "The Journal of Classic British Horror Films." (published May 2010). Artwork by Bruce Timm.
EXTRA INFO: Back cover art of English actress Valerie Leon as Margaret Fuchs/Queen Tera, from the British horror film "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" (1971), directed by Seth Holt and loosely based on Bram Stoker's 1903 novel "The Jewel of Seven Stars."
Sources: www.littleshoppeofhorrors.com/LSoH24.htm, Pinterest, & the Black Box Club (blog).
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Cover reveal for the UK version of my new book!!
More info & pre-order links here
(The different publishers developed their own covers separately, but the UK version is the exact same inside, just British spellings!)
Graphic novels are not a huge market here, so for me it's a big deal to have a version coming out on home turf. Very excited to see it in print and show it to everyone.
YES I WROTE IT NORMAL FOR ME, CHANGED LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE SPELLING TO AMERICAN. AT LENGTH. SO MANY WORDS I DIDN'T KNOW WERE DIFFERENT IN THE US. THEN I CHANGED THEM ALL BACK FOR THE UK PUBLISHER. IN THE ART.
I NO LONGER KNOW HOW ANY WORDS ARE SPELT ANYWHERE. ALL WORDS ARE MEANINGLESS. LANGUAGE RETURNED TO ABSTRACTION, LOST ALL SHAPE AND FORM. DARKNESS TOOK ME AND I STRAYED OUT OF THOUGHT AND TIME AND I WANDERED FAR ON ROADS THAT I WILL NOT TELL
hope you enjoy the book!
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THE Captain Bonnet suit is, of course, the light turquoise one from the first and ninth episodes, the one most fanart depicts him in.
This is wildly different from what he wore in his old life! The color is vivid - colorS, actually, because the waistcoat is slightly different in both iterations - and the coat and breeches are made of very shiny satin. The coat is also dripping with braid, and actually has shaping to accentuate his waist and flare out into skirts. Each end of his cravat has two lacy ruffles, and they are not hidden at all. He's still wearing the secondary tie, but it's much thinner than the others, hardly covering the main cravat. There are rosettes on his shoulders, like military epaulettes but more delicate. And the shoes, of course, have adorable white bows rather than buckles.
The other outfits Stede wears as a pirate have lots of similarities. Very bright colors, contrasting in the same outfit. The lacy cravats, frequently without a colored necktie on top (especially after he gives the black one to Ed). Closer fits. Velvets and satins. Embroidery. The all-white "man for sale" outfit!
It's tricky to situate these costumes with regard to normative English masculinity of the period. Duller colors go all the way up the social spectrum ca. 1717, but satins and velvets and embroidered waistcoats were very much a part of elite men's fashion; at the same time, the idea of the proper English gentleman went along with plainer things - see the example portraits from the last post. There were a number of effeminate male stereotypes in the 18th century, even before the macaronis of the 1770s, usually incorporating a supposed feminine interest in fashion and an affected way of speaking and acting not unlike more modern stereotypes; it wasn't unusual for them to be referred to as "neuter" and assumed to be either (what we would now call) asexual or homosexual. In that sense, the issue is less exactly what Stede would wear, and more that he clearly cares a lot about it, amassing a large wardrobe and being exacting in having it made up a certain way.
Within the context of the show and the way other gentlemen dress in it (not counting the party aristocrats because they're basically clowns, but Stede's father and the men in Bridgetown), Stede's pirate style is definitely not normative. It's queer. It's not just Stede bringing his aristocratic/gentry style to sea and reveling in his class privilege, it's him taking up a style that he is not allowed to wear as a supposedly heterosexual patriarch. It's even in his nightclothes - the nightshirts he wears on the Revenge have ruffles and lace, and the ones at home range from "basically just a shirt" (1x10) to "well, there's a tiny bit of embroidery" (1x04 flashbacks).
There is one outfit - well, technically three - that does something really subtle with this.
Stede apparently owns three fairly similar coats trimmed with gold braid and two matching waistcoats, one on sea and two on land. The one he wears in 1x05 is made of a damask (you can see the pattern woven into the fabric if you look at it full-size) and uses two different types of braid; he also wears it with a prominently knotted cravat that ends in a van dycked lace, which matches the lace on his cuffs. The 1x10 suits, on the other hand, are wool broadcloth (or something approximating it). The collarless one, which is bluer onscreen, has gold trim without as much of a pattern, and the trim on the one with a black collar is actually black with gold details.
Crucially, in 1x10, his cravat is tucked completely into his waistcoat to hide any potential lace on the ends, and his sleeves have plain or barely trimmed ruffles. He's squeezing himself back into the straight mold society requires, but at the same time ... this is a more exuberant look than his flashback outfits. The only teal he wore in them was in the family portrait, and that coat was totally unfitted and had no trim. He's fundamentally changed, both from getting to be himself on the Revenge and from the kiss on the beach - that's good and bad, encompassing both his realization of his own queerness and, you know, the whole "unhand me or bleed" thing. Instead of burying himself in books and quietly crying by himself, he's now doing things like getting drunk and confidently making scenes in public. "I don't fit here anymore, do I?" he asks Mary when they have that nighttime conversation.
I definitely get where people are coming from when they portray him as more rugged, and I'd be surprised if s2 had him acquire a full wardrobe again immediately, unless it picks up after some time's gone by. a) This show isn't overly concerned with realism, but I mean he did just arrive at the island in a dinghy with absolutely nothing and b) we do need the symbolism of him starting over. But be careful of interpreting his clothes as just a representation/extension of his class, as @appleteeth pointed out here. The way Stede dresses throughout most of s1 is very much part of his self-expression.
(Part I)
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