Marvel Comics of New York, originally founded as Timely Publications in 1939, is one of the most important comic book publishers worldwide. Comic book fans all over the world are grateful for superheroes as Captain America or the Sub-Mariner. And particularly for superheroes of “a somewhat other kind,” as the mostly troubled, eccentric and characters […]
Egyptomania Goes to the Movies: From Archaeology to … by Matthew Coniam (2017)
When in 1922 British archaeologist Howard Carter opened the sealed tomb of an Egyptian ruler – a comparatively unimportant king who reigned for nine years only – named Tutankhamen, Carter started a huge fad that lasts until today since what followed was an unequaled run that spread all over the Western world and started “Tutmania.” […]
The Red and the Black: American Film Noir in the 1950s by Robert Miklitsch (2017)
Film noir in the 1950s is a very special period in the genre‘s/style’s history, since for some experts film noir ended just then, while for others it almost died then and had finally vanished completely in the early 1960s. (To resurface as neo-noir in the early 1980s). In the book at hand the author tries […]
Apocalypse Then: American and Japanese Atomic Cinema, 1951-1967 by Mike Bogue (2017)
„Both America and Japan produced a number of science fiction movies in the 1950s and 1960s directly or indirectly tied to the nuclear threat. … American […] films tended to suggest that it was possible to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle. However, the Japanese science fiction films of the same era were […]
Tony Soprano’s America: Gangsters, Guns, and Money by M. Keith Booker and Isra Daraiseh (2017)
The award-winning TV series The Sopranos (HBO) centered on the head of an American mafia family in New Jersey that ran between 1999 and 2007, is believed by many, many TV watchers to be the best series ever. It could draw from lots of talent in acting, writing, producing and was probably the most realistic […]
Tarzan, Jungle King of Popular Culture by David Lemmo (2017)
Some writers of fiction seemingly are blessed with a fathomless imaginative power, which is the basis for many science fiction and adventure stories. In the case of Tarzan (of the Apes), it is also owed to the very adventurous and at times fast-paced biography of the author of the Tarzan tales, Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875 […]
Music in the Age of Anxiety: American Music in the Fifties by James Wierzbicki (2016)
What may come to mind first when we think about the music of the 1950s in the US are probably the styles of Rock’n’Roll, Doo Wop and Rhythm and Blues. Wierzbicki however, in his study points to the many other musical forms that evolved in that decade, since changes and developments in American politics, society, […]
The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon by Cary Fleiner (2017)
Apart from a few stylistic irritations (like some explorations in country rock in the early 1970s), the musical output of the Kinks always was famous for particularly one thing: it was English, very much so. And it enlarged on aspects of everyday life in Britain “…such as work play, buying a house, driving a car, […]
The Mythology of the Superhero by Andrew R. Bahlmann (2016)
Since by now the superhero has become an intrinsic part of the popular culture in Western civilization, a closer look at the reasons why this has happened makes sense. Although his appearance can be traced down exactly to the early and mid-1930s in the US, his mythological origins go way back. Bahlmann encounters the superhero […]