The Rondo Awards, named after Rondo Hatton, an obscure B-movie villain of the 1940s, honor the best in classic horror research, creativity and film preservation.
The voting public submitted more than 6,500 ballots arrived, shattering previous records. A Rondo Awards Ceremony will be held June 1 at the WonderFest Convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
This year’s Rondo Awards memorialized horror historian David J. Skal, who died in January, by creating a new award in his name. The David J. Skal Horror Research Award recognizes “revelatory examinations of horror history.” The first Skal Award was given to Jim Coughlin, who examined the largely unknown career of Ted Billings, who had a minor role in Bride of Frankenstein (1935), but appeared unbilled in hundreds of other films.
In individual categories, Sam Irvin, author of The Epic Saga Behind Frankenstein The True Story, an NBC TV movie, was voted Best Writer, Mark Maddox was voted Best Artist, Lee Hartnup was voted Best Fan Artist, and Tim Lucas was tagged as Best Blu-Ray commentator.
Three Special Recognition Rondos were awarded: To the late Ned Comstock, a USC Film Archivist who helped horror historians for decades; to Vanessa Harryhausen, daughter of pioneering stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen; and to Chris Endicott, who helped finish the late Dave Allen’s stop-motion film, The Primevals. Bobby Zier, a young online influencer who uses TikTok and YouTube to explain classic horror films to his followers, was named Monster Kid of the Year.
Inductees to Rondo’s Monster Kid Hall of Fame were convention organizer Anthony Taylor, Don and Vicki Smeraldi, editors of several monster magazines, actress and writer Barbara Crampton, film historians Walt Lee and Donald C. Willis, and writer David J. Schow.
(1) ONCE ON HIS SHELVES. San Diego State University is home to the Edward Gorey Personal Library, which they acquired in 2009.
The Edward Gorey Personal Library is a special collection at San Diego State University library that comprises 26,000 books collected by Edward St. John Gorey (1924-2000). Over 9,000 catalogued volumes, or 35% of the collection are searchable. If you find a book you would like to examine from this collection, please contact Special Collections and University Archives at [email protected], or at 619-594-6791 or visit their service desk in Love Library 150. Books may only be viewed in the Special Collections area.
An American artist, Edward St. John Gorey’s publications include over one hundred books. His most well-known works include The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Doubtful Guest and The Wuggly Ump. Many of his illustrations appear in publications like The New Yorker and The New York Times. Gorey illustrations and book designs enhance editions of works by Charles Dickens, Edward Lear, Samuel Beckett, John Updike, Virginia Woolf, H.G. Wells, Florence Heide and Peter Neumeyer.
And if you’d like to know “What Books Did Edward Gorey Collect?” then click the link. Lots of familiar names there. One jumped out at me – isn’t Franklin W. Dixon the author of the Hardy Boys series?
Police in Scotland said a reported armed man who led to a train returning to a station turned out to be a Star Wars cosplayer on his way to a comic book convention.
The man, known as the Grampian Stormtrooper on social media, was dressed in his Imperial Stormtrooper costume “with a Scottish twist” — a kilt — when he boarded a ScotRail train to Dundee at the Aberdeen train station.
The train returned to the station shortly after departing and the man was approached by a guard who escorted him to waiting police officers.
The cosplayer wrote on Facebook that he was “met by two firearms officers, three Police Scotland, two British Transport police, and had to chat to them all in an office.”
The man learned that he had been reported for carrying a “firearm” on the train, and he explained to police that his “blaster” was a plastic prop….
Shapers of Worlds Volume V will feature stories by Brad C. Anderson, Edo van Belkom, J.G. Gardner, Olesya Salnikova Gilmore, Chadwick Ginther, Evan Graham, M.C.A. Hogarth, M.J. Kuhn, L. Jagi Lamplighter, Kevin Moore, Robin Stevens Payes, James S. Peet, Omari Richards, Lawrence M. Schoen, Alex Shvartsman, Alan Smale, Richard Sparks, P.L. Stuart, Brad R. Torgersen, Hayden Trenholm, Brian Trent, Eli K.P. William, Edward Willett, and Natalie Wright.
Backers’ rewards offered by the authors include numerous e-books, signed paperback and hardcover books, Tuckerizations (a backer’s name used as a character name), artwork, one-on-one writing/publishing consultations and mentorships, audiobooks, opportunities for online chats with authors, short-story critiques, and more.
The campaign goal is $12,000 CDN. Almost all of those funds will go to pay the authors, with the rest going to reward fulfillment, primarily the editing, layout, and printing of the book, which will be published in January 2025 in both ebook and trade paperback formats
…The jury remains out on whether [director] Phillips can repeat the trick with Joker: Folie à Deux. After all, there is likely a very good reason that nobody ever made a sequel to Taxi Driver or The King of Comedy, in the format of a musical. But even if the new film fails miserably, it is likely to give us more intriguing ideas to take the comic book movie genre forward than any number of the new episodes currently being put together by new DC boss James Gunn, brilliant (in a common-or-garden superhero flick kind of way) as these may well end up being….
(5) RONDO NOMINEE FOR BEST ARTICLE OF THE YEAR. The deadline for the public to vote in the Rondo Awards is April 16 at midnight. Email votes (with your name & e-mail address) to David Colton, c/o [email protected].
(6) TURBOLIFT TO HIT BOTTOM ON LOWER DECKS. It is the end, my friend, says The Hollywood Reporter: “‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ to End With Season 5”. (However, Strange New Worlds will get another season.)
Paramount+ has made two big decisions about its Star Trek universe.
Strange New Worlds has been renewed for a fourth season, whileLower Decks will end with its previously announced upcoming fifth season, expected to air sometime this year.
Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan and executive producer Alex Kurtzman posted a statement on the Star Trek website about the decision to conclude the animated series: “While five seasons of any series these days seems like a miracle, it’s no exaggeration to say that every second we’ve spent making this show has been a dream come true. Our incredible cast, crew and artists have given you everything they have because they love the characters they play, they love the world we’ve built, and more than anything we all love love love Star Trek. We’re excited for the world to see our hilarious fifth season which we’re working on right now, and the good news is that all previous episodes will remain on Paramount+ so there is still so much to look forward to as we celebrate the Cerritos crew with a big send-off. … We remain hopeful that even beyond season five, Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, Rutherford and the whole Cerritos crew will live on with new adventures.”
Your career has spanned so many incredible projects, even just looking at television, from Beauty and the Beast in the ’80s to Resident Alien now and Stranger Things coming up. It must feel like a radically different landscape now.
It does, and it’s been kind of a pleasure to ride that long wave. I have seen things, and certainly can remark upon the changes in all areas of film and television, but mostly TV, I think. I’m not sure the studio system really has much longer. Things are changing faster now than they ever changed in the history of Hollywood, in terms of product and streaming and just so many new jobs that are created because of what we get to shoot. People who are contact lens specialists and people who are nail specialists when you do a show like Claws, and intimacy coordinators, and the sensitivity training, the HR, and then there’s the actual filmmaking and the special effects and the Volume for all the special effects, which is now on Stranger Things. I’m like, “What the hell? Where am I?” It’s like, okay, we’ll do a scene and then [you hear], “ball and chart,” and it’s some special effects magic that they come in and do at the end of every shot. So yes, it’s changing.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 12, 1973 — J. Scott Campbell, 51. J. Scott Campbell is a comic books artist best known for his work on Wildstorm Comics. Scott actually got hired by Wildstorm by submitting a package that included a four-page WildC.A.T.S story. Before that however his first work was on Homage Studios Swimsuit Special at age twenty. It’d get a PG-13 rating today. If that.
So did you know that Marvel did a Swimsuit issue as well? It was an annual magazine-style publication from 1991 to 1995. One issue said “Take Wakanda Wild Side” on the cover. Really it did.
His subsequent work for Wildstorm included some illustrations in WildC.A.T.S Sourcebook and Stormwatch #0. I love the idea of #0 issues. Why so?
Now do you remember Gen13?He created the series along with Jim Lee and Brandon Choi as the series came out of Team 7, a series that Lee and Choi created. The series involved a group of spandexed clothed metahuman teens. I like that series but it wasn’t nearly as fun as Danger Girl, his next series.
That series followed the adventures of a group of female secret agents, made the most of Campbell’s talents which involved very well-endowed women, in the firm of three sexy female well weaponized secret agents — Abbey Chase, Sydney Savage and Sonya Savage and over the top action sequences.
Twenty years ago I read Danger Girl: The Ultimate Collection, which is a bit of an overstatement as it’s only two hundred and fifty-six pages long, but it’s still a lot of a fun. Yes, it’s still available.
Danger Girl has been continuously published since it was first came out twenty-six years ago, so there’s a lot of it now. I’ve read quite a bit of it over the years and it’s been pretty consistent in its quality. However only the first seven-issue series is illustrated by Campbell.
Campbell illustrated the covers to the Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash six-issue limited series.
Eighteen years ago, Marvel Comics announced that he had signed an exclusive contract to work on a Spider-Man series with writer Jeph Loeb. Yes he did just covers, not interior work.
The potential use cases for smart contacts are compelling and varied. Pop a lens on your eye and monitor health metrics like glucose levels; receive targeted drug delivery for ocular diseases; experience augmented reality and read news updates with displays of information literally in your face.
But the eye is quite a challenge for electronics design: With one of the highest nerve densities of any human tissue, the cornea is 300 to 600 times as sensitive as our skin. Researchers have developed small, flexible chips, but power sources have proved more difficult, as big batteries and wires clearly won’t do here. Existing applications offer less-than-ideal solutions like overnight induction charging and other designs that rely on some type of external battery.
Now, a team from the University of Utah says they’ve developed a better solution: an all-in-one hybrid energy-generation unit specifically designed for eye-based tech.
In a paper published in the journal Small on 13 March, the researchers describe how they built the device, combining a flexible silicon solar cell with a new device that converts tears to energy. The system can reliably supply enough electricity to operate smart contacts and other ocular devices….
(11) PUT YOUR METAL TO THE BIPEDAL. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Now, I’m not a huge sport fan but if I had to pick one then it’d be Rollerball. The original, not the new-fangled 21st century one. Great audience chant….
Generating robust motor skills in bipedal robots in the real world is challenging because of the inability of current control methods to generalize to specific tasks. Haarnoja et al. developed a deep reinforcement learning–based framework for full-body control of humanoid robots, enabling a game of one-versus-one soccer. The robots exhibited emergent behaviors in the form of dynamic motor skills such as the ability to recover from falls and tactics such as defending the ball against an opponent. The robot movements were faster when using their framework than a scripted baseline controller and may have potential for more complex multirobot interactions.
An analysis published in Nature has predicted that melting ice caps are slowing Earth’s rotation to such an extent that the next leap second — the mechanism used since 1972 to reconcile official time from atomic clocks with that based on Earth’s unstable speed of rotation — will be delayed by three years.
“Enough ice has melted to move sea level enough that we can actually see the rate of the Earth’s rotation has been affected,” says Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, and author of the study.
(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Zach and Kelly Weinersmith talk about — and demonstrate — why living on Mars is a bad idea. “The Mars crisis, explained by 2 experts” at Hard Reset.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, Dan Franklin, Danny Sichel, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day BGrandrath.]
(1) WONKA EVENT SCAM, WITH AI ‘HELP’. [Item by Tom Becker.] A Willy Wonka-themed event closed immediately upon opening due to complaints from disappointed customers. UK correspondent Mark Plummer says there is a long-standing tradition of disappointing special experiences. A Christmas show turns out to be a muddy field with a donkey with reindeer horns tied to its head.
The Glasgow Willy Wonka fiasco is interesting because of its use of AI. The AI-generated images used to sell the show include total gibberish. Who would not want to experience a “Twilight Tunnel™” with features like “TWDRDING”, “DODJECTION”, “ENIGEMIC SOUNDS”, “SVIIDE”, and “UKXEPCTED TWITS”? Or “ENCHERINING ENTERTAINMENT” with “exarserdray lollipops, a pasadise of sweet treats”? “Cops called after parents get tricked by AI-generated images of Wonka-like event” at Ars Technica.
Scams have always been with us, but now they are glitzier and weirder than ever. Who could possibly have predicted this? (Besides Cory Doctorow and thousands of others.)
(2) VERTLIEB NOMINATED FOR RONDO “BEST ARTICLE OF THE YEAR”. Congratulations to Steve Vertlieb whose File 770 article “Subversion of Innocence: Reflections on ‘The Black Cat’” is a finalist for the 2024 Rondo Hatton Awards. Steve’s article is an analysis of the sumptuous, Grand Guignol, pre-code Gothic decadence of Universal Pictures’ horrific Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi classic of 1934.
Public voting has begun for the 22nd Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. You’re invited to vote for your favorites in any or all 28 categories. Click the link for instructions and the complete ballot. The deadline to participate is midnight April 16. Mail Votes (and your name) to David Colton c/o [email protected].
io9: Got it. I love that both movies have this weird little moment before the studio logo of some kind of Dune language statement. Is that something you have to okay with the studio? Because ultimately it’s their movie and you’re putting your mark before their logo. Was there any pushback and what was your thinking in doing that?
Villeneuve: The first time in Part One, the truth is that as we were doing sound design and developing ideas for sound, we came up with this language that was developed by Hans Zimmer that I absolutely adored. And there was this idea of putting a statement right before the logo to own the space. And maybe it was a reaction at that time, an arrogant reaction by me, but I didn’t get any pushback. Everybody loved the idea. And I love it when you watch a movie and it’s not a slow-down descent, it’s an abrupt start. You put away the parking lot and your concern about dinner. [Slap noise] Right away, it’s like, “Okay, guys, listen.” A bit like in theater when you have the boom at the beginning to say to the audience, “Okay, quiet down, we start right now.” I love that.
A trailer for Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two” features the boy prophet Paul Atreides, played by Timothée Chalamet, yelling something foreign and uninterpretable to a horde of desert people. We see Chalamet as the embodiment of charismatic fury: every facial muscle clenched in tension, his voice strained and throaty and commanding. A line at the bottom of the screen translates: “Long live the fighters!”
The scene fills barely a few seconds in a three-minute trailer, yet it establishes the emotional tone of the film and captures the messianic fervor that drives its plot. It also signals the depth of Villeneuve’s world-building. Part of what made his first excursion into the “Dune” universe such an experiential feast was its vivid, immersive quality, combining monumental architectural design with atmospheric soundscapes and ethereal costuming. We could see a few remnants of our world (remember the bit with the bagpipes?), but the over-all effect was transportive, as if the camera were not a piece of equipment but a cyborgian eye live-streaming from a far-flung alien civilization. Chalamet’s strange tongue is part of the franchise’s meticulous set dressing. It’s not gibberish, but part of an intricate linguistic system that was devised for Villeneuve’s adaptations.
Engineered languages such as the one Chalamet speaks represent a new benchmark in imaginative fiction. Twenty years ago, viewers would have struggled to name franchises other than “Star Trek” or “The Lord of the Rings” that bothered to invent new languages. Today, with the budgets of the biggest films and series rivalling the G.D.P.s of small island nations, constructed languages, or conlangs, are becoming a norm, if not an implicit requirement. Breeze through entertainment from the past decade or so, and you’ll find lingos designed for Paleolithic peoples (“Alpha”), spell-casting witches (“Penny Dreadful”), post-apocalyptic survivors (“Into the Badlands”), Superman’s home planet of Krypton (“Man of Steel”), a cross-species alien alliance (“Halo”), time-travelling preteens (“Paper Girls”), the Munja’kin tribe of Oz (“Emerald City”), and Santa Claus and his elves (“The Christmas Chronicles” and its sequel).
A well-executed conlang can bolster a film’s appearance of authenticity. It can deepen the scenic absorption that has long been an obsession for creators and fans of speculative genres such as science fiction and fantasy….
(6) EXPERT EYE. In Gabino Iglesias’ column “4 New Horror Novels That Are as Fresh as They Are Terrifying” for the New York Times, the Stoker-winning author reviews new books by Emily Ruth Verona, Jenny Kiefer, Christopher Golden and Tlotlo Tsamaase.
Heritage Auctions celebrates the world of anime with its largest showcase sale, “The Art of Anime, Dragon Ball, and More,” on March 23-24. This event features over 700 lots, including an extensive collection from the iconic Dragon Ball series, celebrating its decades-long journey from its inception in Weekly Shonen Jump. The auction spans a wide range of anime titles, offering production art, promotional materials, model kits, and action figures. Highlights include rare items from Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, Pokémon, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and more, alongside unique finds like Akira T-shirt prototypes. This showcase aims to reconnect fans with the unforgettable moments of their favorite anime series.
Some of Dragon Ball Z‘s most famous characters take a break from training and put on their ice skates in this incredibly rare hand-painted production cel featuring our beloved protagonist Goku, accompanied by his son Gohan, Piccolo, Master Roshi, and even the heinous Cell in his imperfect form! Possibly created for a TV commercial, this four-layer 12-field production cel offers sensational full-figure images of the characters with Gohan and Cell stopping as skillfully as they fight.
(8) “HOMAGE” TO WARD SHELLEY’S HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION ON DISPLAY IN THE CHENGDU SF MUSEUM. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] The SF Museum in Chengdu has been re-opened to the public for almost exactly a month now, and whilst I’ve been trawling the likes of Bilibili and Xiaohongshu for any coverage, there hasn’t been much I thought that I thought was worth writing up and submitting to File 770.
However, tonight I encountered the image below in a small XHS gallery. I’d not noticed it before; whether that’s because it has been newly added to the museum, or simply that previous posters didn’t consider it worth taking pictures of, I don’t know. I’ve not tried to read any of the Chinese text, but the English subtitle reads:
Together, let’s write imaginative explorations of the future science fiction world
which I assume relates to the Post-It notes shown on the left of the image.
Born February 28, 1909 — Olan Soule. (Died 1994.) Olan Soule, an actor who had at least two hundred and fifty performances in his career. So let’s look at this career that I find so interesting.
First genre role? That’d be Mr. Krull, a boarding house resident in The Day The Earth Stood Still.
Remember Captain Midnight? From the third year on the radio serial, Soule had the role of L. William Kelly, SS-11, the second-in-command of the Secret Squadron. When it became a television series where it was rebranded Jet Jackson, Flying Commando, he was scientist Aristotle “Tut” Jones for the entire series. He was the only actor who performed on both the radio and television shows.
Olan Soule on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
He was in two Twilight Zone episodes, the first as IRS agent in “The Man in Bottle” and then as Mr. Smiles in “Caesar and Me”. The letter was the one with that evil ventriloquist dummy. Brrrr. The former which involves a couple and a genie I just don’t remember.
He was on My Favorite Martian as Daniel Farrow in one of my favorite episodes, “Martin’s Favorite Martian”.
He would appear as a newscaster on Batman in “The Pharaoh’s in a Rut”.
Olan Soule as newscaster on Batman.
He voiced Mister Taj in the English language version of Fantastic Planet. One seriously effing weird film.
And now for a roll call of his other genre appearances: One Step Beyond, Bewitched, The Addams Family, The Munsters, Mission: Impossible, The Six Million Dollar Man, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and Fantasy Island.
(11) REALLY EDUCATIONAL COMICS. “A Boom in Comics Drawn From Fact” – the New York Times says “One in four books sold in France is a graphic novel. Increasingly, those include nonfiction works by journalists and historians.”
Soon after the journalist and historian Valérie Igounet heard about the killing of Samuel Paty, the schoolteacher whose 2020 murder by an Islamist extremist shocked France, she knew she wanted to write a book about him.
Paty, who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to students during a class on freedom of expression, was murdered near the middle school where he taught in a Paris suburb. “I absolutely wanted Samuel Paty’s students to be able to read this book,” Igounet said, “and it was obvious that a 300-page book with footnotes would be reserved for a different kind of readership.”
Instead, Igounet decided to produce a comic book: “Black Pencil: Samuel Paty, the Story of a Teacher,” based on two years of reporting and made with the illustrator Guy Le Besnerais, was published in October. It meticulously reconstructs the events leading up to the murder while also showing Paty’s daily life in the classroom. Le Besnerais’s illustrations are accompanied by Paty’s handwritten notes, newspaper clippings and messages exchanged by his students in the weeks before he was killed.
One in four books sold in France is a comic book, according to the market research company GfK, and a growing number of those are nonfiction works by journalists and historians. In the past year, they have included titles such as “M.B.S.: Saudi Arabia’s Enfant Terrible,” a biography of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman by Antoine Vitkine and Christophe Girard; “What Are the Russians Thinking?” based on the cartoonist Nicolas Wild’s conversations about the war in Ukraine during a 2022 trip to Russia; and “Who Profits From Exile?,” by Taina Tervonen and Jeff Pourquié, which looks at the economics of European immigration….
(12) FANAC FAN HISTORY ZOOM IN MARCH. “The Women Fen Don’t See” is the last FANAC Fan History Zoom for this season. The March 16 event promises to be an exceptionally interesting program on a topic that is often overlooked in fannish annals.
The Women Fen Don’t See
With: Claire Brialey, Kate Heffner, and Leah Zeldes Smith
Saturday, March 16, 2024. Time: 3PM EDT, 2PM CDT, Noon PDT, 7PM London (GMT), and Mar 17 at 6AM AEDT in Melbourne. To attend, send a note to [email protected]
Apple TV+ has ordered a series adaptation of the William Gibson novel “Neuromancer,” Variety has learned.
The 10-episode series hails from co-creators Graham Roland and JD Dillard. Roland will also serve as showrunner, while Dillard will direct the pilot. Skydance Television will co-produce with Anonymous Content.
Per the official logline, the series “will follow a damaged, top-rung super-hacker named Case who is thrust into a web of digital espionage and high stakes crime with his partner Molly, a razor-girl assassin with mirrored eyes, aiming to pull a heist on a corporate dynasty with untold secrets.”…
Martin is running for class president, and this is his platform.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Ersatz Culture, Tom Becker, Kathy Sullivan, Joe Siclari, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]
Online voting has begun for the 22nd Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. You’re invited to vote for your favorites in any or all 28 categories. Click the link for instructions and the complete ballot. The deadline to participate is midnight April 16.
And as a teaser, below are the Best Film and Best TV Presentation nominees.
BEST FILM OF 2023
Includes wide release, video-on-demand and streaming
THE CREATOR
EVIL DEAD RISE
THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER
FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S
GODZILLA MINUS ONE
INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY
KNOCK AT THE CABIN
LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER
LEAVING THE WORLD BEHIND
M3GAN
NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU
THE NUN II
RENFIELD
SCREAM VI
TALK TO ME
BEST TV PRESENTATION
AHSOKA, Disney+ Reluctant Jedi encounters the ghost of Anakin Skywalker. ‘Let’s just say I didn’t follow standard Jedi protocol.’
CHUCKY, SyFy. There’s a new visitor to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. ‘How do we get into the White House?’
CREEPSHOW, Shudder. Anthology series in its fourth season. ‘See you around the graveyard, kid.’
DOCTOR WHO BBC/Disney+ In series of specials, the 13th Doctor regenerates into a familiar 14th, and then a 15th. ‘I know these teeth.’
THE FALLOF THE HOUSE OF USHER, Netflix. Mike Flanagan connects a modern world of Poe adaptations. ‘In this little pill is a world without pain. This world needs changing.’
FOUNDATION, Apple+ Isaac Asimov’s epic trilogy brought to life, with psychohistory twists. ‘I’ve met Hari Seldon. I’m used to fame.’
THE LAST OF US, HBO. A young girl is immune to the violent infection that has decimated the world. ‘Bomb this city and everyone in it.’
MONARCH: Legacy of Monsters. AppleTV+. Prequel series with Godzilla and the Titans. ‘If you want to save millions of lives, we can use some help.’
STAR TREK: PICARD Paramount+. Every crew member of Next Generation unites against the Borg. ‘What began over 35 years ago ends tonight.’
THE WALKING DEAD: Daryl Dixon, AMC. Fifth spinoff takes Daryl to Paris where zombie virus began. ‘If I don’t make it back, I want them to know I tried.’
WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS, FX. The misadventures of four vampires who live on Staten Island. ’Being a vampire is no different than being a human. We’re all just doing what it takes to survive.’
Rondo Awards administrator David Colton announced the winners of the 21st Annual Rondo Awards on May 4.
The Rondo Awards, named after Rondo Hatton, an obscure B-movie villain of the 1940s, honor the best in classic horror research, creativity and film preservation.
Among top winners of the publicly-voted Rondo were the Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All At Once, voted Best Film, and Guillermo Del Toro’sCabinet Of Curiosities, was picked as Best Television Presentation.
The newest entries to Rondo’s Monster Kid Hall of Fame are longtime horror historian Buddy Barnett, who helped found Cult Movies, one of the earliest fan magazines; writer Frank J. Dello Stritto; Amanda Reyes, the chronicler of obscure made-for-TV horror films; the late director Dan Curtis; and horror hosts Penny Dreadful and Joe Bob Briggs (Joe’s co-host Darcy the Mail Girl will also receive an award as his Last Drive-In folding chair mate).
More than 5,250 fans and pros voted online, the second largest turnout in the award’s 21 years.
In addition to the winners named below, go to the Rondo Award site to see the runners-up and honorable mentions (generally, everything else that was nominated.)
This photo of Hatton in the 1946 film, House Of Horrors, is an inspiration for the distinctive bust given to winners.
BEST FILM OF 2022
Everything Everywhere All At Once, directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
BEST TV PRESENTATION
Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet Of Curiosities (Netflix)
Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster (Voltage), includes two hours on extra interviews and content. Directed by Thomas Hamilton, written by Ron MacCloskey
BEST INDEPENDENT FILM
Mad God, directed by Phil Tippett
BEST SHORT FILM
13 Minutes of Horror, a compilation of short films from NYX
BEST DOCUMENTARY
The Legend of King Kong, directed by Tom Grove
BOOK OF THE YEAR
Masters of Make-Up Effects: A Century of Practical Magic by Howard Berger & Marshall Julius
BEST CLASSIC HORROR FICTION (Fiction that uses classic horror icons as jumping off points.)
Classic Monsters Unleashed, edited by James Aquilone
BEST MAGAZINE (Classic)
Scary Monsters
BEST MAGAZINE (modern)
Fangoria
BEST ARTICLE
‘Hex of the Century,’ by Dejan Ognjanovic, Rue Morgue #205
BEST INTERVIEW
Adrienne Barbeau, by Andrew J. Rausch, Shock Cinema #62
BEST COLUMN
Scene Queen, by Barbara Crampton (Fangoria)
BEST COVER
Scary Monsters #128 by Scott Jackson
BEST WEBSITE
Bloody Disgusting
BEST PODCAST
Mick Garris’ Post-Mortem
FAVORITE HORROR HOST OF 2022
Svengoolie
BEST EVENT
Scares That Care, conventions have raised $300,000 for breast cancer, childhood diseases
BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL OR COLLECTION
Kolchak The Night Stalker 50th Anniversary edited by James Aquilone
INDIVIDUAL RONDO AWARDS
SPECIAL RECOGNITION
Robert Zier
In a world of AI and “screen time”, the pleasures of movies from almost 100 years ago seem increasingly lost on the young. But that hasn’t stopped Robert Zier, the proprietor of YouTube’s “Lugosi Theater,” where he talks knowledgeably and directly about horror movies old and older.
“Hi, I’m Bobby,” he says in one video. “I play Dracula in the classic Bela Lugosi style on YouTube and my TikTok videos, and at my friend’s haunted house. And I know my autism makes me a better Dracula.”
That kind of honesty helps explain why his YouTube page has more than one million views. A Monster Kid influencer has long been needed! “I never imagined these movies existed,” one of his many fans said in her write-in vote. “He makes them come alive!” For opening our old world to new audiences, Robert Zier receives a Special Recognition Rondo.
Simon Fitzjohn
A barely remembered thriller from 1977, THE HAUNTING OF JULIA with Mia Farrow, became something of a personal cause for film fan Simon Fitzjohn, who spent seven years trying to convince studios and overcome legal obstacles to get the movie, also known as FULL CIRCLE, restored and released on Blu-Ray. His efforts included negotiations with reluctant studio bureaucracy, some of whom were nervous about being sued. He even hired what he called a “fixer” to help clear rights problems.
“The re-release is on,” he announced in October. “I didn’t think I would ever say those words.”
Fitzjohn is a journalism tutor in London who has written three books, including one on the history of the character Norman Bates. Now the film is out from Imprint in a 4K version with numerous special features, and new attention on a film few thought would ever emerge again.
WRITER OF THE YEAR
Sam Irvin
Sam Irvin has done just about everything in show business, a director of more than 50 films, including one with Elvira, a biographer, a horror journalist, a consistent online presence and a supporter of the genre in every way.
But his recent book. I WAS A TEENAGE MONSTER HUNTER, has become an instant classic, a memoir ranging from his days helping with the family movie theatre business, to meeting Brian DePalma, and encounters of the close or awkward kind with stars such as Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.
Rondo voters responded with support for the multi-Rondo winner for his writing and his seemingly endless storytelling prowess.
ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Mark Maddox
Mark Maddox continues his historic run as Best Artist, captivating voters with his vibrant takes on some of horror’s most unusual scenes. One example: The crawling eye from the movie of the same name on the cover of LITTLE SHOPPE OF HORRORS. You cannot look away.
Mark’s work now includes Blu-Ray and books in addition to black-and-white portraits and the numerous magazine covers he produces each year. He has a near-Wiki grasp of movie history, and is a popular personality at various conventions and festivals.
FAN ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Noufaux
For a third year, Britain’s Adele Veness, also known as Noufaux, has topped the growing world of fan artists. Noufaux stands out by experimenting with a variety of media, producing an art nouveau look that is both frightening but somehow comforting. Her subjects range from Bela Lugosi to more modern personalities, but always enveloped in an gilded cage of flowers and swirls.
THE MONSTER KID HALL OF FAME
Buddy Barnett
Few horror fans have been as influential as Buddy Barnett, who with West Coast colleagues in the 1990s transformed his love of monsters and Bela Lugosi into a lifelong search for the origins of horror films and their offshoots.
A one-shot Bela Lugosi magazine soon became the long-running CULT MOVIES publication, a home for some of classic horror’s most important writers and historians. In addition, Barnett co-hosted CULT MOVIES TV, produced low-budget monster spoofs such as THE VAMPIRE HUNTERS CLUB (with Forrest J Ackerman among others), oversaw cult film conventions. and a collectible store. A stickler for accuracy, Barnett once said erroneous claims about Lugosi “always make me mad.”
Frank J. Dello Stritto
Many writers these days come up with genre “mash-ups,” where Tarzan, for example, meets Sherlock Holmes, but no one does it as brilliantly as Frank J. Dello Stritto. In three can’t-put-down novels, he has woven together the untold histories of various movie werewolves and wolf men, untangled the wanderings of Universal and Hammer’s mummies, and explored with Carl Denham the many lost worlds and giant monsters of the Pacific.
All this in addition to his trailblazing work on the real-life history of Bela Lugosi, shedding light on the unknown corners of classic horror history, and providing entertaining looks at the genre’s many totems and themes. Dello Stritto’s work always delivers, and he has changed horror scholarship for the better.
Amanda Reyes
Horror has many tantalizing blank spots — lost films, alternate endings, deleted scenes, and mysteries of casting and auditions. Surprisingly, another part of genre history is missing as well. Many of the made-for-TV horror and science fiction movies from the 1970s and 80s are lost or forgotten.
Enter television historian Amanda Reyes, who has chosen to accept her mission to reveal the many TV thrillers that showed up in living rooms and then vanished. In books such as “Are You in the House Alone? A TV Movie Compendium, 1964-1999,” her lectures, commentaries, and Made for TV Mayhem blog, Reyes has renewed interest in these one-and-done movies, many of which were not considered part of horror history.
And she brings these “lost” movies back to life with wit, research and engaging writing. We get the feeling she has only just begun.
Dan Curtis
One TV producer and director who did leave a mark was the late Dan Curtis, who revived the horror myths with TV shows such as Dark Shadows, and Jack Palance as Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the classic Night Stalker TV movies.
Curtis was able to modernize the monsters, mixing love and romance with gothic settings, or showing ghouls and beasts scrambling along rain-swept city streets, or a vicious Zuni doll terrorizing a kitchen. Horror wasn’t his only gift, producing numerous mini-series and theatrical movies.
Curtis, who died in 2006, left entertainment better than he found it, and showed how horror films could stay relevant even in changing times.
Penny Dreadful
From the earliest days of Vampira and Zacherley, horror hosts have used the movies they aired for laughs, visuals, and time fillers. But few realized the monster lode of possibilities like Penny Dreadful (Danielle Gelehrter), and her creative crew in Massachusetts. No more only joking from the commercial breaks; she and her co-stars, including her late wolfman husband Garou, would insert their faces and shadows into videos and clips.
Her show, Shilling Shockers, was way ahead of its time, and Penny Dreadful’s reach has grown far beyond her Massachusetts mandrake roots.
Penny has also brought research and performing skills to her Terror at Collinwood podcast, methodically retracing the saga of Barnabas Collins episode by episode. In a world of sometimes cookie cutter hosts and hostesses, Penny Dreadful remains one of a kind.
Joe Bob Briggs (and Darcy)
Deeply knowledgeable and whiplash fast, Joe Bob Briggs has had a Texas-sized impact on the world of horror appreciation. Even the grisliest films — and he shows them all on his five-year Shudder series, Joe Bob’s Last Drive-In — have redeeming values in his twinkling eyes. Before each showing he uses a sketchboard to tally the kills, including whether a movie has “hatchet fu,” “scalding fu,” or “choking fu.”
It’s all in good fun. A journalist and sportswriter, Joe Bob switched to films of mayhem in the 1980s and has been a constant presence, even when he disappeared for awhile, for almost half a century. Recently joined by Diana Prince, also known as the take no guff Darcy the Mail Girl, their efforts are ensuring that the often absurd world of splatter fu will live on!
Joe Bob, for his long career, will receive the Hall of Fame plaque. Darcy will get a Drive-In Co-Host statuette. Or as we call it, “Rondo fu.”
(1) UKRANIAN BRADBURY TRANSLATOR MOURNED. [Item by Susan de Guardiola.] It’s being reported that Ukrainian researcher/editor/translator/”culturologist” Yevhen Gulevich (Gulevych), who, among other things, was the translator of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, was killed fighting at Bakhmut in Ukraine.
???? The famous culturologist and researcher Yevhen Gulevych died in the battles near Bakhmut.
Gulevich was a critical figure in detailing the history of Ukrainian art, explaining the origins of Ukrainian culture, and in mapping that history onto modern Ukraine. He was the editor of a Ukrainian magazine and frequently in demand for his skill at translating books written in other languages into Ukrainian while preserving the emotion and beauty of language. Among others, he translated Ray Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes” so that it can be read by generations of Ukrainians the way it has been read and enjoyed by generations of Americans. Gulevich died on Bakhmut. He probably died all the way back at the end of December, but his body could not be found, and his fellow soldiers maintained some level of hope that he was still out there until he was finally declared dead last month. “
The image at the top of that article is from his funeral (”A guard of honor for Yevhen Gulevich at Garrison Church, Lviv, Ukraine. April 10, 2023”) and you’ll see another picture from it if you scroll down to the quote.
…As I discussed yesterday in the roundtable on adaptations of Tolkien, the backlash against Amazon’s Rings of Powers series is part of the ongoing “culture war” effort by contemporary fascists, many who love Tolkien’s work. They are creating “a new front . . . in a decades’-long, international, far-right, culture war. The people waging it aren’t just fighting to keep Tolkien’s imaginary world white and manly and straight. They’re fighting to restore that white-supremacist system in the real world, too” (Craig Franson, personal communication). Yesterday I focused on the question of what fandom, or more specifically, what progressive fans might do. Today, I focus on the question of what white academics can do….
…Too many of the articles on race and Tolkien dismiss racist readers as atypical, as ignorant, as reading the Legendarium badly, and, by extension, dismiss the question of structural/systemic racisms in Tolkien’s legendarium as unimportant to the field of Tolkien scholarship….
(3) JEREMY RENNER ON JIMMY KIMMEL. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] The “Live!“ in the name of Jimmy Kimmel’s show may never have been more relevant than it was Monday night. Jeremy Renner made his first talkshow appearance following his January 1st accident that saw him basically crushed by a multi-ton snowplow.
Renner was there nominally to promote his new Disney+ show “Rennervations,” but it’s certain that his fans were cheered by his ability to walk to the interview chair using nothing more than a cane.
It’s time to boldly go back to the big screen! The final two episodes of Star Trek: Picard Season 3 are getting a one-night-only theatrical release in select IMAX theaters on April 19 followed by a pre-taped Q&A with the cast of the hit series. Participating cities include Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC. What’s even better is that tickets for the event are free, and they’ll be available on Wednesday, April 12 at 1 PM ET.
(5) GUGGENHEIM. The 2023 Guggenheim Fellows were announced April 5, 171 fellows from 48 fields. Jacqueline Woodson, who has done much genre work, was one of the people named as fellows in the Fiction category.
Fiction
Lucy Corin, Writer, Berkeley, California; Professor of English, University of California, Davis
Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Writer, Arvada, Colorado; Endowed Chair in Creative Writing, Texas State University
James Hannaham, Writer, Brooklyn, New York; Professor, Writing Department, Pratt Institute
Jac Jemc, Writer, San Diego, California; Associate Teaching Professor, University of California, San Diego
Don Lee, Writer, Baltimore, Maryland; Professor, Director of MFA Program in Creative Writing, Temple University
Rebecca Lee, Writer, Wilmington, North Carolina; Associate Professor, Department of Creative Writing, University of North Carolina Wilmington
Héctor Tobar, Writer, Los Angeles, California; Professor, University of California, Irvine
(6) RONDO VOTING. Steve Vertlieb reminds us that April 23 is the last day for the public to vote for the Rondo Awards, “fandom’s only classic horror awards”, and he’d be thrilled if you voted for the nominee who interviewed him for the magazine We Belong Dead.
…Also, Cinema Retro contributor Mark Mawston, who recently brought CR readers a rare, exclusive interview with actor John Leyton, has been singled out for a nomination in the category of Best Interview. This time, the subject of his work is the life and career of noted writer, film, and film music historian, Steve Vertlieb, who reflects on his interactions with a “Who’s Who” of film legends from over the decades. The superb 12-page interview appeared in issue #31 of the popular British horror magazine “We Belong Dead”. Mark is known professionally as “The Rock and Roll Photographer To The Stars” (having photographed such music luminaries at Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Eric Clapton, Yoko Ono, and Brian Wilson)….
Click here for the ballot and instructions on how to send in your vote.
(7) BOOK REVIEW. I am the Law: How Judge Dredd Predicted Our Future launched a few weeks ago. Jonathan Cowie has a review in the forthcoming seasonal edition of SF2 Concatenation and tweeted an advance post.
Even if you do not know of Judge Dredd but have an interest in policing and legality, then this is a fascinating introduction into twentieth and early twenty-first century trends, that, if they continue, lead to a worrying future…
For SF fans, this book is an exemplar of science fiction’s value to society and how the genre can, on occasion, seem to predict the future. In this case the seeming predictions – note the plural, for there are many – are unnervingly spot on and so if Judge Dredd is some sort of quasi-reflection of our future, then it is an unsettling one, and one at which we should rail against
Judge Dredd should come with a health warning when given to kids.
If perchance you have never heard of Judge Dredd (is there anyone in the western world under the age of 50 who hasn’t?), then he is a comic-strip character from the British weekly 2000AD as well as, now, the titular character of the monthly Judge Dredd Megazine. He is a 22nd century law enforcer of Mega-City 1: Mega-City 1 being effectively the amalgamation of former 20th century cities along the US’s eastern seaboard. Life in Mega-City-1, though futuristic, is harsh. Only a few Mega-Cities survived the early 21st century nuclear war and much of the middle of America (less protected by anti-missile shields) became a wasteland called the ‘Cursed Earth’. Meanwhile, the ocean off the city is now the polluted Black Atlantic.
Life in Mega-City 1 is also harsh for its citizens because the high automated future and advanced robotics have made many redundant and the majority are simply unemployed living on ‘welf’ (welfare benefits). Crime is rife as is the discontent and those who regret the loss of democracy. And then there are the threats from the technology used itself as well as external ones from other Mega-Cities both from within the former continental N. America and beyond.
So, to keep law and order, policemen are now both police, jury and judge who enforce the law and decide on guilt and punishment. These enforcers are the Judges.
This book is jam-packed with so many instances of where the strip has seemingly predicted the future that this review can but give you the barest of tasters….
A work of Keith Laumer’s that I think doesn’t get as much appreciation as it deserves is where the Beginning comes from for the tonight’s Scroll.
Worlds of The Imperium is the novel in question.It first appeared in Fantastic Stories of the Imagination in the February, March and April 1961 issues. The following year it was published by Ace Books as an Ace Double with Seven from the Stars by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Five years later, Dennis Dobson publishers would give it a handsome hardcover edition.
I don’t consider it giving to be give y’all spoilers to note that Laumer wrote three sequels to this novel —The Other Side of Time, Assignment in Nowhere and Zone Yellow.
I consider it one of the better cross-time novels that I’ve read and I’ve read a lot of them in over the last fifty years. The antagonist is interesting, the worlds thought out to be more than the cookie cutter alternative ones we so often get and the story here moves along at a rather admirable pace. With ale too.
So here’s our Beginning…
I STOPPED in front of a shop with a small wooden sign which hung from a wrought-iron spear projecting from the weathered stone wall. On it the word Antikvariat was lettered in spidery gold against dull black, and it creaked as it swung in the night wind. Below it a metal grating covered a dusty window with a display of yellowed etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs, and a faded mezzotint. Some of the buildings in the pictures looked familiar, but here they stood in open fields, or perched on hills overlooking a harbor crowded with sails. The ladies in the pictures wore great bell-like skirts and bonnets with ribbons, and carried tiny parasols, while dainty-footed horses pranced before carriages in the background.
It wasn’t the prints that interested me though, or even the heavy gilt
frame embracing a tarnished mirror at one side; it was the man whose reflection I studied in the yellowed glass, a dark man wearing a tightly-belted grey trench-coat that was six inches too long. He stood with his hands thrust deep in his pockets and stared into a darkened window fifty feet from me.
He had been following me all day.
At first I thought it was coincidence when I noticed the man on the bus from Bromma, then studying theatre announcements in the hotel lobby while I registered, and half an hour later sitting three tables away sipping coffee while I ate a hearty dinner.
I had discarded that theory a long time ago. Five hours had passed and he was still with me as I walked through the Old Town, medieval Stockholm still preserved on an island in the middle of the city. I had walked past shabby windows crammed with copper pots, ornate silver, dueling pistols, and worn cavalry sabres; very quaint in the afternoon sun, but grim reminders of a ruder day of violence after midnight. Over the echo of my footsteps in the silent narrow streets the other steps came quietly behind, hurrying when I hurried, stopping when I stopped. Now the man stared into the dark window and waited, the next move was up to me. I was lost. Twenty years is a long time to remember the tortuous turnings of the streets of the Old Town. I took my guide book from my pocket and turned to the map in the back. My fingers were clumsy.
I craned my neck up at the stone tablet set in the corner of the building; it was barely legible: Master-Samuelsgatan. I found the name on the folding map and saw that it ran for three short blocks, ending at Gamla Storgatan; a dead end. In the dim light it was difficult to see the fine detail on the map; I twisted the book around and got a clearer view; there appeared to be another tiny street, marked with crosslines, and labeled Guldsmedstrappan. I tried to remember my Swedish; trappan meant stair. The Goldsmith’s Stairs, running from Master Samuelsgatan to Hundgatan, another tiny street. It seemed to lead to the lighted area near the palace; it looked like my only route out. I dropped the book back into my pocket and moved off casually toward the stairs of the Goldsmith. I hoped there was no gate across the entrance.
My shadow waited a moment, then followed. Slowly as I was ambling, I gained a little on him. He seemed in no hurry at all. I passed more tiny shops, with ironbound doors and worn stone sills, and then saw that the next doorway was an open arch with littered granite steps ascending abruptly. I paused idly, then turned in. Once past the portal, I bounded up the steps at top speed. Six leaps, eight, and I was at the top and darting to the left toward a deep doorway. There was just a chance I’d cleared the top of the stair before the dark man had reached the bottom. I stood and listened. I heard the scrape of shoes, then heavy breathing from the direction of the stairs a few feet away. I waited, breathing with my mouth wide open, trying not to pant audibly. After a moment the steps moved away. The proper move for my silent companion would be to cast about quickly for my hiding place, on the assumption that I had concealed myself close by. He would be back this way soon.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 11, 1867 — William Wallace Cook. Newspaper reporter and pulp writer who wrote four novels (The Fiction Factory, A Round Trip to the Year 2000, or A Flight Through Time, Cast Away at the Pole and Adrift in the Unknown, or Adventures in a Queer Realm) which were serialized in Argosy in the early part of the last century. Clute at EoSF says he was “was a crude writer, but is of interest for his attempts to combine adventure plots and Satire.” (Died 1933.)
Born April 11, 1892 — William M. Timlin. Author of The Ship that Sailed to Mars, a remarkable work that has 48 pages of text and 48 color plates. It has become a classic of fantasy literature. You can view the book here. (Died 1943.)
Born April 11, 1920 — Peter O’Donnell. Best remembered as the creator of Modesty Blaise of which EoSF says that her “agility and supple strength are sufficiently exceptional for her to be understood as a Superhero”. He also wrote the screenplay of The Vengeance of She based on H. Rider Haggard’s Ayesha: The Return of She novel. (Died 2010.)
Born April 11, 1941 — Gene Szafran. He did cover art for genre books published by Bantam and Ballantine during the Sixties to the Eighties, including a series of Signet paperbacks of Robert A. Heinlein’s work including Farnham’s Freehold, The Green Hills of Earth, and Methusaleh’s Children. His art would garner him a 1972 Locus Award. (Died 2011.)
Born April 11, 1949 — Melanie Tem. She was the wife of genre author Steve Rasnic Tem. A prolific writer of both novels and short stories, she considered herself a dark fantasy writer, not a horror writer. Bryant, King and Simmonds all praised her writing. If I had to make a recommendation, I’d say start with Blood Moon, Witch-Light (co-written with Nancy Holder) and Daughters done with her husband. ”The Man on the Ceiling” won her a World Fantasy Award. She died of cancer which recurred after she’d been in remission. (Died 2015.)
Born April 11, 1955 — Julie Czerneda, 68. She won the Prix Aurora Award for her Company of Others novel. She’d also receive one for Short Form in English for her “Left Foot on A Blind Man” Story, both of these early in her career. She has a long running series, The Clan Chronicles which is as sprawling as anything Martin conceived.
Born April 11, 1963 — Gregory Keyes, 60. Best known for The Age of Unreason tetralogy, a steampunk and magical affair featuring Benjamin Franklin and Isaac Newton. He also wrote The Psi Corps Trilogy and has done a lot of other media tie-in fiction including Pacific Rim, Star Wars, Planet of The Apes, Independence Day and Pacific Rim.
The Far Side shows the cow’s real motivation for jumping the moon.
The Far Side wonders, “What did people use for fuel before the dinosaurs died?”
(11) GRAPHIC NOVELS MARKET ANALYZED. [Item by Dann.] In “Tilting at Windmills #295: Looking at NPD BookScan 2022” at ComicsBeat, Brian Hibbs does an annual assessment of graphic novels sold via bookstores. His data does not include direct market sales nor does it include digital sales; only physical books sold via a bookstore (including Amazon). The quick takes from his 2022 report that I found:
Scholastic is the king of physical book sales via bookstores with 40% of sales by western* publishers. (* Publishers from western nations – not publishers of western-themed graphic novels, natch)
The largest bookstore market is middle school/junior high-aged kids. Dav Pilkey rules the roost with 8 of the top 20 titles.
Manga is the next largest sub-market with Viz Media being the most significant publisher at 60% of all manga sales.
Of the traditional “superhero” publishers, DC does a good job at #6 among western publishers with 20 titles in the top 750 and Marvel is struggling with only one title in the top 750. DC’s success seems to be largely driven by what is being adapted for TV plus their youth-oriented titles. Scholastic’s licenses of Marvel properties beat all of the Marvel-published titles. Together, Marvel and DC comprise 10% of the market sold via bookstores.
Though Hibbs says, “But this seems paltry when you see that at least four other publishers licensed to publish Marvel characters … beat every single comic Marvel itself published, except for one: ‘Moon Knight by Lemire & Smallwood’, with 17k.”
The data is based on NPD BookScan and does not include sales via/to libraries, schools, specialty stores (like comic book stores), book clubs, and fairs. There are other data issues arising from how publishers apply BISAC codes to their products. For example, the novel Bloody Crown of Conan appeared on the list for many years while Dork Diaries comes and goes. Brian has to get the data for The Complete Persepolis and Maus manually pulled for inclusion in his dataset. He makes it clear that there are known unknowns with respect to his dataset.
(12) CELEBRATING ADDITIONS TO THE COLLECTION. For sff scholars at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY, “Pandemic Donations Moving Day” arrived at the end of February. The Science Fiction at City Tech blog has the story.
During the pandemic, we received a lot of new material for the City Tech Science Fiction Collection, including magazines, novels, collections, academic journals, and monographs. These materials were donated by Charlie Seelig (~20 boxes of EVERYTHING), Analog Science Fiction and Fact(~4 boxes of magazines from their old office space), City Tech Professor Lucas Bernard (2 boxes of material that belonged to his father Kenneth Bernard, the experimental playwright and English professor), and Emeritus Professor of English at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and former president of the Science Fiction Research Association David Mead (1 box of Jack Vance materials), The Special Collections and Archives in the City Tech Library unfortunately were unable to open enough shelf space for these materials, so Wanett and Jason stored everything in their offices–with most of it being in Jason’s office (see below)…..
(13) FINISHED PROJECT. EV Grieve, in “This is the way”, has a photo of the completed Mandalorian-themed art on a building in New York’s East Village. See it at the link.
Here’s a follow-up to last week’s post and a look at the final “Mandalorian“-related mural by local artist-illustrator Rich Miller on the NE corner of Seventh Street and Avenue C.
(14) THE MARVELS TRAILER. Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel and Monica Rambeau return in Marvel Studios’ The Marvels, only in theaters November 10.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Susan de Guardiola, Steve Vertlieb, Lise Andreasen, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
Online voting has begun for the 21st Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. You’re invited to vote for your favorites in any or all 28 categories. Click the link for instructions and the complete ballot. The deadline to participate is midnight April 23.
(Don’t be shy about voting for the interview with Steve Vertlieb by Mark Mawston from We Belong Dead #31 in the Best Interview category.)
And as a teaser, below are the Best Film and Best TV Presentation nominees.
BEST FILM OF 2022
Includes wide release, video-on-demand and streaming
AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER BARBARIAN THE BATMAN THE BLACK PHONE BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER BONES AND ALL CRIMES OF THE FUTURE EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE HALLOWEEN ENDS MEN THE MENU THE MUNSTERS NOPE THE NORTHMAN ORPHAN: FIRST KILL PINOCCHIO (Del Toro) PREY SCREAM SMILE TERRIFIER 2 VIOLENT NIGHT
BEST TV PRESENTATION
GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S CABINET OF CURIOSITIES, Netflix. Eight episodes of unsettling horrors. ‘The darkness has a way of catching me.’ CHUCKY, Bravo. Can ‘Good Chucky’ be trusted? ‘I am so not dealing with this today.’ FROM, Epix. A creepy forest keeps a town trapped. ‘You got kids, you nail the windows shut.’ INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, AMC. A reworking of Anne Rice’s universe. ‘So, Mr. du Lac, How long have you been dead?’ THE MIDNIGHT CLUB, Netflix. Terminally ill teens share stories of desire and death. ‘That’s what any of us are at the end. Stories.’ OBI-WAN KENOBI, Disney+. Jedi legend encounters young Skywalkers. ‘When the time comes, he must be trained.’ RISE OF EMPIRES: OTTOMAN, Netflix. In the 15th Century, Mehmed takes on Vlad the Impaler. ‘The city was gripped by hysteria, as if the world was about to end.’ THE SANDMAN, HBO. Neil Gaiman’s melancholy ruler of The Dreaming. ‘What power would Hell have if those imprisoned here were not able to dream of Heaven?’ SEVERANCE, AppleTV+. A workplace enforces its own reality. ‘Quitting would effectively end your life. I mean, in so much as you’ve come to know it.’ STRANGER THINGS, Netflix. Eleven helps defeat the Upside Down, for now. ‘If you touch her again, I will kill you again.’ THE WALKING DEAD, AMC. Final season poses new questions and spinoffs. ‘This isn’t the future my brother wanted. Not what my my mother and dad fought for.’ WEDNESDAY, Netflix. Tim Burton’s take on The Addams Family. ‘Anytime I grow nauseous at the sight of a rainbow, or hear a pop song that makes my ears bleed, I’ll think of you.’ WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, Disney+. Marvel melds comic book hero with classic horror. ‘Tonight it is every hunter for themselves.’ WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS, FX. The vampires say farewell to one of their own. ‘How am I gonna eat if I don’t prey on people, dummy?’
The Rondo Awards, named after Rondo Hatton, an obscure B-movie villain of the 1940s, honor the best in classic horror research, creativity and film preservation.
Among top winners of the publicly-voted Rondo were Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune, voted Best Film, and What We Do in the Shadows, picked for a third year as Best Television Show.
And in a posthumous tribute, comedian and classic horror fan Gilbert Gottfried, who died last month, was inducted into the Monster Kid Hall of Fame.
Almost 4,700 fans and pros voted online, in what has become the largest annual survey of classic horror fans and pros in history.
In addition to the winners named below, go to the Rondo Award site to see the runners-up and honorable mentions (generally, everything else that was nominated.)
This photo of Hatton in the 1946 film, House Of Horrors, is an inspiration for the distinctive bust given to winners.
BEST FILM OF 2021
DUNE, directed by Denis Villeneuve
BEST TV PRESENTATION
WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (Fx)
BEST BLU-RAY
INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957; Criterion)
BEST BLU-RAY COLLECTION
KOLCHAK: THE NIGHTSTALKER: The Complete Series (Kino)
BEST RESTORATION
DOCTOR X (1932; Warner Bros)
BEST COMMENTARY
Tom Weaver (Incredible Shrinking Man)
BEST DVD EXTRAS
INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957; Criterion), includes documentary on Jack Arnold, directed by Daniel Griffith, Arnold interview, remembrance by Richard Matheson’s son.
BEST INDEPENDENT FILM
JAKOB’S WIFE, directed by Travis Stevens, starring Barbara Crampton
BEST SHORT FILM
THE MOST HAUNTED HOUSE IN VENICE BEACH, directed by Ansel Faraj
BEST DOCUMENTARY
BORIS KARLOFF: THE MAN BEHIND THE MONSTER, directed by Thomas Hamilton, written by Ron MacCloskey
BOOK OF THE YEAR
YOURS CRUELLY, ELVIRA: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark, by Cassandra Peterson
BEST CLASSIC HORROR FICTION
(Fiction that uses classic horror icons as jumping off points)
DRACULA NEVER DIES: The Revenge of Bela Vorlock by Christopher R. Gauthier
BEST MAGAZINE (Classic)
SCARY MONSTERS
BEST MAGAZINE (modern)
FANGORIA
BEST ARTICLE
‘Child of Dark Shadows,’ by Kathryn Leigh Scott, FANGORIA #11
BEST INTERVIEW
Sam Irvin interviews Elvira (THE DARK SIDE #222)
BEST COLUMN
Scene Queen, by Barbara Crampton (FANGORIA)
BEST COVER
CLASSIC MONSTERS OF THE MOVIES #25 by Daniel Horne
BEST WEBSITE
BLOODY DISGUSTING
BEST PODCAST
GILBERT GOTTFRIED’S AMAZING COLOSSAL PODCAST
FAVORITE HORROR HOST OF 2021
SVENGOOLIE
BEST EVENT
A DARK SHADOWS CHRISTMAS CAROL, read by several members of the Dark Shadows cast
BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL OR COLLECTION
LUGOSI: THE RISE AND FALL OF HOLLYWOOD’S DRACULA by Koren Shadmi
INDIVIDUAL RONDO AWARDS
SPECIAL RECOGNITION for achievements that may have been overlooked or don’t fit into other categories
KIER-LA JANISSE — Like no other before her, horror scholar Kier-la Janisse in 2021 demonstrated that so-called “folk horror” goes far beyond the mythologies of Bigfoot and Loch Ness.In two seminal works, a weighty Blu-Ray collection of films called ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS, which she helped assemble, and an in-depth documentary she directed, WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED, Janisse traces the deep roots of humanity’s natural fears — of forest beasts, of witches and sprites, and of all things supernatural, many hiding in plain sight. No Frankensteins are needed when owls are enough. In addition to her years of writings and her founding of the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies 12 years ago, Janisse is deserving of Rondo’s ‘Special Recognition’ for advancing horror scholarship and understanding.
MONSTER KID OF THE YEAR Rondo’s highest honor: Who did the most in 2021 to advance the cause of classic horror scholarship, film preservation or genre creativity?
EVAN DAVIS — Whether known as Halloween Jack or Evan Davis, he is the energy behind the resurgence of The Monster Channel, which curates horror host shows 24/7 online, on Roku and wherever you can find it.
WRITER OF THE YEAR
FRANK DELLO STRITTO — In a series of fact-packed fictionalizations of the legends of the Wolf Man and kindred were-things, the Pacific Island brethren of King Kong, and now the might-have-been journeys of the Mummy — old and new — Dello Stritto breathes new life into the stories we thought we know so well.
ARTIST OF THE YEAR
MARK MADDOX
FAN ARTIST OF THE YEAR
NOUFAUX
THE MONSTER KID HALL OF FAME New inductees
JEAN-CLAUDE MICHEL — A French horror and film historian of long-standing, Jean-Claude Michel was the first foreign correspondent for Famous Monsters of Filmland, remaining with the magazine for many years.
LAURA WAGNER — Laura Wagner is not only ‘Classic Images’ magazine’s book reviewer; she has spent decades interviewing stars and almost-stars whom everyone has forgotten except for their fans.
BELA G. LUGOSI — There were times when Bela Lugosi’s son, Boris Karloff’s daughter, and Lon Chaney Jr.’s grandson would dine together in Hollywood. The trio of real ‘Monster Kids’ always caused a nervous buzz.
FRANK DIETZ — If the Baby Boomer generation of ‘Monster Kids’ — and that’s who most of us are — has a creative heart, it just may be artist, animator, actor, screenwriter, director, and monstrous party planner Frank Dietz. An artist at Disney studios, he taught young creatives the secrets of lines and shadows.
MAITLAND McDONAGH — Author, editor and cultural critic Maitland McDonagh was an influencer long before Tik-Tok. As early as 1991, McDonagh explored the world of Euro horror and giallo with her groundbreaking book, ‘Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento.’
MR. LOBO — For more than 21 years, Erik Lobo’s Cinema Insomnia has been a creative force in the horror host community, especially during the years when the format was close to disappearing. Now his always curated site, OSI74 (which stands for Outer Space International), houses dozens of hosts permanently online.
GILBERT GOTTFRIED — The no-holds-barred funnyman was not to everyone’s taste, but there was no doubt he knew his monsters. In bits onstage or on his Rondo Award-winning Amazing Colossal Podcast with Frank Santopadre, guests could range from Rick Baker and Sara Karloff to author David J. Skal and Adam West.
Online voting has begun for the 20th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. You’re invited to vote for your favorites in any or all 28 categories. Click the link for instructions and the complete ballot. The deadline to participate is midnight April 17.
(Don’t be shy about voting for Steve Vertlieb, a nominee in the Best Events of 2021 category for Talking Kong – “Expert Steve Vertlieb appears on Classic Movies with Ron McCloskey to discuss King Kong and gorillas in cinema.”)
And as a teaser, below are the Best Film and Best TV Presentation nominees.
BEST FILM OF 2021
Antlers
Candyman
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
Don’t Look Up
Dune
Free Guy
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
Godzilla Vs Kong
Halloween Kills
Last Night In Soho
Malignant
Night House
Nightmare Alley
Old
A Quiet Place, Part Two
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Zach Snyder’s Justice League
BEST TV PRESENTATION
Chucky, Bravo. The deadly doll is back. ‘We’re gonna party like it’s 1999.’
Creepshow, Shudder. Episodes in the EC vein. ‘Naperville Ripper Still at Large’
Doctor Who, BBC America. The Thirteenth Doctor battles enemies old and new. ‘Don’t blink!’
Evil, CBS. Mysteries with a supernatural twist. ‘If one word is spoken within the monastery walls, the demon will be out.’
Fear Street, Netflix. Teenagers battle a town curse in three eras. ‘Would you say he was more Dawn of the Dead, or Night of the Living Dead?’
Servant, Apple TV+. M. Night Shyamalan’s look at a family’s odd nanny. ‘She’s not the sweet child you think she is.’
Midnight Mass, Netflix. A priest shakes a village’s faith. ‘God still has a plan, and death isn’t part of it anymore.’
Rondo Awards administrator David Colton presided over the “19th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards Virtual Behind the Mask Stay Away From Me Don’t Touch Ceremony!” on May 3.
The Rondo Awards, named after Rondo Hatton, an obscure B-movie villain of the 1940s, honor the best in classic horror research, creativity and film preservation.
Colton says this year’s e-mail vote, conducted by the Classic Horror Film Board, a 25-year old online community, drew more than 6,000 ballots, a 27% increase from last year’s vote and the largest survey of classic horror fans and pros in history.
On Saturday, June 5 in Louisville, with Covid protocols in place, Colton will hold a two-years-in-one Rondo Awards Ceremony at WonderFest in Louisville.
Below is a photo of Hatton in the 1946 film, House Of Horrors, an inspiration for the distinctive bust given to winners.
BEST FILM OF 2020 Due to the pandemic, includes wide release, video-on-demand and streaming
THE INVISIBLE MAN, directed by Leigh Whannell (wide)
BEST TV PRESENTATION
THE MANDALORIAN, ‘The Rescue,’ 12.18.20, Disney+. Baby Yoda finds a master. ‘I’ll see you again. I promise.’
BEST DVD/BLU-RAY OF 2020
WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953; Criterion)
BEST DVD/BLU-RAY COLLECTION
FRIDAY THE 13TH DELUXE COLLECTION (Shout!) 12 movies and extras on 16 discs.
BEST RESTORATION OR UPGRADE
WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953; Criterion). Saucer wires gone; extensive visual and audio improvements throughout.
FAVORITE COMMENTATOR
Sam Irvin (Frankenstein: The True Story)
BEST DVD EXTRAS
DAWN OF THE DEAD SPECIAL EDITON (1978; Second Sight). Four feature length documentaries; new interviews.
BEST INDEPENDENT FILM OF 2020
SEEDS, directed by Skip Shea. A pagan cult takes hold in New England. See trailer here
BEST SHORT FILM
THE THOUSAND AND ONE LIVES OF DR. MABUSE, directed by Ansel Faraj (17:23 mins). Third installment of modern take on Mabuse. See film here.
BEST DOCUMENTARY
CURSED FILMS, five-part Shudder documentary on mishaps and deaths surrounding Exorcist, Omen, Poltergeist, Crow, Twilight Zone. See trailer here.
BOOK OF THE YEAR
RAY HARRYHAUSEN, Titan of Cinema, by Vanessa Harryhausen (National Galleries of Scotland, softcover, 208 pages, $37.50). Stories behind models and effects in a planned exhibition.
BEST HORROR ART BOOKS
ROD SERLING’S NIGHT GALLERY: THE ART OF DARKNESS, by Scott Skelton and Jim Benson (Creature Features, hardcover/softcover, 316 pages, $75/$95). Commentary and reproductions of every painting used in the series.
BEST MAGAZINE OF 2020
Scary Monsters
BEST ARTICLE
‘Black Horror; History on the Big Screen,’ by Ernie Rockelman, HORRORHOUND #84. Tracking black horror milestones.
BEST INTERVIEW
Bruce Campbell by Dr. Gangrene, Scary Presents Monster Memories (#116)
BEST COLUMN
Scene Queen, by Barbara Crampton, FANGORIA
BEST MAGAZINE COVER
[Tie]
Scary Monsters #118 (Glow in the Dark) by Scott Jackson
Classic Monsters of the Movies #21 by Daniel Horne
BLOBFEST: Virtual events included Best Theatre Runouts of the past, Blob screenings, Miss Blobfest contest, online vendors.
FAVORITE HORROR HOSTS OF 2020
Svengoolie (Me-TV)
BEST GRAPHIC NOVELS OR COLLECTIONS
BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA STARRING BELA LUGOSI, by El Garing, Kerry Gammill, Richard Starkings, Robert Napton (Legendary Comics hardcover). Authorized by the Lugosi estate, he stars in a retelling of the classic tale.
WRITER OF THE YEAR
Kelly Robinson
BEST ARTIST OF 2020
Mark Spears
BEST FAN ARTIST OF 2020 (The Linda Miller Award)
Noufaux – Adele Veness
MONSTER KID OF THE YEAR — Rondo’s highest honor: Who did the most in 2020 to advance the cause of classic horror scholarship, film preservation or genre creativity?
From UCLA, the magic-making Scott MacQueen, who cajoled, pushed and insisted on Mystery Of The Wax Museum and this year’s Doctor X
SPECIAL RECOGNITION — for achievements that may have been overlooked or don’t fit into other categories
George Feltenstein, the longtime Warner Bros. executive who not only pushed Wax and Doctor X but Curse Of Frankenstein and a lifetime of DVDs and restorations. He left WB last month.
Monsters Holding B—–S, a very unique Instagram Site based on monsters and their victims. It not only features thousands of stills and paprodies, but also is a lab for young aspiring artists. And maybe the name will change someday!
Dick Klemensen for his work not only on Little Shoppe but his recent min-documentaries on ‘The Men Who Made Hammer.’