In his latest book, former BBC radio presenter and author of several books on horror and occult films, soundtrack composers and Gothic literature David Huckvale digs deep into the origins of British media obsessed with pagan rituals and ancient cults. Before magic or pagan fantasies informed movies, it was, in part, present in the national […]
L.A. Private Eyes by Dahlia Schweitzer (2019)
Los Angeles and New York always have been the top locations for the fictional hard-boiled detective, both private or in law enforcement. L.A. can boast about being home of such heavyweights as Philip Marlowe, Mickey Haller, Lew Archer, Ezy Rawlins and several others. Crime, murder, abuse, corruption and horror will not show in L.A. as […]
George Herriman’s “Krazy Kat”. The Complete Color Sundays 1935–1944 by Alexander Braun (ed.) (2019)
Once again, German comic book historian Alexander Braun has written a long text with lots of photographs, sketches and drawings that document a comic book superstar’s life and heritage. George Herriman (1880 – 1944) the inventor of Krazy Kat is the subject of this mega book. His comic strip would become the first of many […]
Music Wars: Money, Politics, and Race in the Construction of Rock and Roll Culture, 1940-1960 by Joh...
“One way to interpret American society in the second half of the twentieth century, for good or ill, is to see it as the triumph of rock and roll culture,” argues John C. Hajduk, professor of history at the University of Montana Western in the book at hand. This peculiar culture was a compelling force […]
The Detective and the Artist: Painters, Poets and Writers in Crime Fiction, 1840s – 1970s by J.K. Va
In the majority of crime fiction, there exists a relationship between the main characters. “The Detective and the Artist, then, concentrates upon the role played by poets, novelists, and painters in the detective story. These specialists in the production of works of aesthetic imagination are set in radical contrast to the defining figure of the […]
The Blue Sky Boys by Dick Spottswood (2018)
In 1935, when teenage brothers Earl and Bill Bolick from Catawba County (NC) first performed publicly, they were inspired by the many duets and family band outfits of early country music. Back then, sibling/brothers/sisters duets or entire band families were popular, like the Carter Family, the Delmore Brothers, the Carlisle Brothers, the Monroe Brothers, Mac […]
The Many Lives of The Evil Dead: Essays on the Cult Film Franchise by Ron Riekki and Jeffrey A. Sart...
Michigan director Sam Raimi in 1981 with a tiny budget and main actor Bruce Campbell shot the story of a powerful ancient book and the consequences of citing from it aloud in the Tennessee woods. The horror movie The Evil Dead was first presented at the Cannes festival in 1982 (where Stephen King praised its […]
From Ameche to Zozzled: A Glossary of Hard-Boiled Slang of the 1920s through the 1940s by Joe Tradii...
The hard-boiled fiction from the 1930s and the many films noir later, apart from several other similarities, shared a special gangster jargon and streetwise language that lent an extra air of authenticity to those works. As the many weird expressions, prohibition-time lingo, proverbs and often sexists, racist and plainly offensive words used there quickly went […]
Popular Music in the Nostalgia Video Game. The Way It Never Sounded by Andra Ivănescu (2019)
Without doubt, video games have become part of popular culture; with some aspects of the game culture also introduced (and marketed) in the non-virtual present in the form of merchandise, costumes, action figures and so forth. It is a huge market – while gaming now has obtained the status of a cultural practice – worth […]