Please make plans to attend our 34th Annual Conference
February 13-16, 2013, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel & Conference Center in
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Hyatt Regency Albuquerque
The area chair seeks papers/presentations on Graphic Novels and Comics and Popular Culture due on November 16, 2012.
The SW/TX PCA/ACA area chair invites papers on Comics, Graphic Novels and Popular Culture.
The Graphic Novels and Comics area has teamed up again with the Libraries and Popular Culture area to bring you another interesting roundtable session. This year the discussion will be the concept of the graphic novel and what that means. If you would like to be on the roundtable, please let me know.
Any aspect of Comics and Graphic Novels in Popular Culture will be considered.
Possible panel/discussion topics:
Comics podcasts. With so much comics-related news on websites, another form that has taken off in recent years includes the podcast/radio show. How well do these podcasts relate comic/graphic novels news? We have podcasts on the Golden Age of comics, superhero comics, and most recently The Comics Alternative, which goes beyond superheroes to discuss the independents. What impact do podcasts like this have?
The concept of the super-villain! There is much scholarly literature on the superhero but not nearly as much on the super-villain. Yet a superhero is usually only as good or interesting as their super-villain counterpart. Stan Lee said that coming up interesting super-villains is often difficult. Why? How have super-villains in comics changed over the years? What makes a super-villain like the Joker or Magneto so compelling? We would welcome full panels on super-villains.
There has been a recent rise in superhero movies, with four in the summer of 2011 and three in the summer of 2012. What is the future of the superhero-based movie? Will the superhero movie continue to be popular?
Pedagogical approaches to teaching graphic novel content. This has become an increasingly important part of comic studies, and the area chair seeks those scholars who would like to present on this topic.
Zombies and vampires in comics continue to rise in popularity. Why are these monsters ideally suited for the four-colored page?
Other topics:
* Sequential art and storytelling
* Manga, anime and the movies
* Comic conventions/fan culture
* Particular artists or writers (Bendis, Steranko, Kirby, Everett, Niles, etc.)
* The rise of the graphic novel
* What is a graphic novel?
* History of newspaper comics!
* Gay characters in comics
* Film and superheroes!
* Adapting graphic novels for the screen
* Racism and the X-Men
* Spider-Man as the Everyman
* Cartoon Network: Good or bad for comics?
* Comics and philosophy
* Graphic novels as outlets for social justice (e.g., World War III)
* Comics as political satire (e.g., Tom Tomorrow, Addicted To War)
* Horror comics
* “The Resurrection of Captain America” – Why NO comic character ever stays dead.
* DC, Marvel, and comic corporations
* Comics studies and film studies: How do the two intersect?
* The definition of the superhero
* Indies and their role
* Comics and graphic novels around the world (e.g., Tintin, Asterix)
* The scholarly study of graphic novels/comics in the academy
* Libraries and graphic novels
Please send a title and a 100- to 250-word abstract by November 16, 2012. Please submit your title, and 100- to 250-word abstract through our website database, which can be accessed at: http://conference2013.swtxpca.org
On Saturday, September 8, Star Trek as a franchise turns 46 with the premiere of the original Starship Enterprise. Happy birthday, and thanks for many years of entertainment, and giving fans much to think about in terms of human possibilities.
Prepare for chills and thrills this fall as three timeless horror classics hit movie theaters nationwide. As a part of their classic movie series, NCM Fathom Events is presenting Alfred Hitchcock’s horror masterpiece The Birds and the Boris Karloff hits Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Each will be shown for one day only, don’t miss your chance to see these horror masterpieces as they were meant to be seen.
The series will kickoff with The Birds on Wednesday, September 19 at 7:00 p.m. local time. The showing will begin with an introduction by Turner Classic Movie Host Robert Osborne and an exclusive interview with the movie’s star Tippi Hendren. Osborne will continue to share the secrets of the film with more behind the scenes tales from Rod Taylor and Suzanne Pleshette.
Then, just in time for Halloween, the series continues with a double feature of Universal’s horror stand-outs – Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein on Wednesday, October 24 at 7:00 p.m. local time. Viewers will once again be joined by Robert Osborne as he shares exclusive interviews with Sara Karloff, the daughter of the monster himself, Bela Lugosi, Jr., the son of Universal’s classic Dracula and Academy Award winning make-up artist, Rick Baker. These interviews will highlight how these classic films and original horror stars helped shape the course of the genre.
Horror fans should not miss these classic movies as they scare their way into theaters and the hearts of horror film buffs for one night only. Tickets are limited, so hurry now and reserve your spot!
The book Real Wolfmen: True Encounters in Modern America (Penguin Books, 2012) by Linda S. Godfrey is now out, and it makes an interesting contribution to the study of cryptozoology, as well as horror and culture. Following is an excerpt:
The U.S. has been invaded – if many dozens of eyewitnesses are to be believed – by upright, canine creatures that look like traditional werewolves and act as if they own our woods, fields, and highways. Sightings from coast to coast dating back to the 1930s compel us to ask exactly what these beasts are, and what they want.
Researcher, author and newspaper reporter Linda S. Godfrey has been tracking the manwolf since the early 1990. In Real Wolfmen she presents the only large-scale cataloguing and investigation of reports of modern sightings of anomalous, upright canids. First-person accounts from Godfrey’s witnesses – who have encountered these creatures everywhere from outside their car windows to face-to-face on a late night stroll – describe the same human-sized canines: They are able to walk upright and hold food in their paws, interact fearlessly with humans, and suddenly and mysteriously disappear.
Godfrey explores the most compelling cases from the modern history of such sightings, along with the latest reports, and undertakes a thorough exploration of the nature and possible origins of the creature.
Introduction
The Canid Invasion
Do true, shape-shifting werewolves exist in the modern world—or are the woods, fields, and highways of the United States infested with creatures that merely look like the legendary canine monsters? According to scores of sober, credible eyewitnesses, creatures resembling wolfmen do walk among us! Scary old tales of werewolves and other man-animals have lurked amid the folklore of cultures worldwide ever since the campfire was invented. Ancient denizens of the British Isles believed competing clans transformed themselves into wolves in order to attack livestock. Europeans of the Middle Ages kept a sharp eye out for those who showed signs—like hairy palms or unusual moles—of having made pacts with the devil to become werewolves. Many Native American tribes believed certain medicine men could manifest animal forms to go forth and perform malign deeds. The wolflike Navajo skin walker is probably the best-known example of such lore.
But based on today’s largely rationalistic view of the world, many tend to pooh-pooh the possibility that such frightening creatures could truly exist. We like our monsters safely pasted on the silver screen or caged in the confines of a game console. During the last few decades, werewolves have become increasingly commonplace in movies, TV shows, and hyperreal video games. Werewolves playing a starring role in the 1985 flick Silver Bullet, based on Stephen King’s Cycle of the Werewolf, or in the 2007 episode of the TV show Supernatural that featured a murderous lycanthrope, are great fun because they remain under glass, living on only in our imaginations.
It was a shock to the collective psyche in January 1992, then, when headlines slashed through worldwide media heralding werewolf sightings in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. Citizens of the small town, located about half an hour’s drive from Beloit on the Illinois border, claimed to have seen a six-foot-tall, fur-covered creature complete with muzzle, pointy ears, and fangs lurking on a rural two-mile stretch called Bray Road. Such monsters may be everywhere in our entertainment world, but their sudden appearance in densely populated regions of America’s Dairy Land was stunning, even to a public already used to eyewitness reports of UFOs and Bigfoot.
I wrote the original news story “The Beast of Bray Road” for the December 31, 1991, issue of The Week, a paper that covered events in Walworth County. A less adventuresome publication might have ignored the reports entirely. But as a newly hired reporter, I was at once skeptical and intrigued. Elkhorn is a rather conservative little community whose citizens are not usually given to weird proclamations. It bills itself as “The Christmas Card Town” because its picturesque square was once the subject of a series of popular greeting cards, and it functions as the county seat of government. Unknown, hairy creatures were not something anyone could recall in the town’s entire history. The Week’s newsroom staff had a good laugh over the whole idea of werewolves, but since I was curious, the editor finally told me to see what I could learn about it.
I had never even heard the term “cryptozoology”—the study of unknown animals—at the time, but these sightings promised an enticing mystery to be solved. At the very least, I thought people had the right to know if a dangerous animal was in the area. I was not the only person thinking that way.
In my initial investigation I found that people had been calling the county’s animal control officer, Jon Fredrickson, to ask what the strange creature they had seen could possibly be. Some of the reports to Fredrickson involved multiple eyewitnesses, so that my first count of people who officially claimed to have seen a large, mysterious canine totaled at least eight.
My next step was to visit Fredrickson at his office, where he pulled a manila file folder from a drawer. The folder was labeled “Werewolf.” As I have said many times since, when a county official has an active file folder marked “werewolf,” that’s news. Armed with only a notebook, a pen, and a driving need to solve the puzzle, I began the wild hunt.
Actor Michael Clarke Duncan passed away Monday of a heart attack at the age of 54. He starred in various films, including genre work, from Planet of the Apes (2001), to The Green Mile. His obituary can be read here.
I am amazed at the opportunities and invitations that have come my way since I extended my academic work into the area of religion and popular culture. This has included writing for publications like Religion Dispatches, where among other things I have written on the intersection between zombies in popular culture and theology. In that essay, I mentioned an episode of The Walking Dead which interacted with neuroscience and concepts of human nature and the self. This essay then caught the attention of CNN’s Belief Blog, and most recently it led to an invitation to be a part of a conference put on by Emory University entitled “Zombies and ‘Zombethics’: Walking with the Dead: An Ethics Symposium for the Living on Halloween 2012.” I will be part of a Religion and Zombies panel and will present on issues related to zombies and eschatology from my chapter contribution to The Undead and Theology (Wipf & Stock, forthcoming). This conference is being put together by Dr. Cory Andrew Lebrecque and Dr Karen Rommelfanger with the Center for Ethics, School of Medicine, and Department of Religion at Emory University in Atlanta. The symposium – open to 125 registrants from Emory and the general public – aims to be a panel type presentation by scholars from bioethics, neuroethics, public health ethics, and religion . . . who explore questions such as: Why bother being “good” when the end is near? When is a human being no longer a person? Does it all come down to the brain? What is free will? How should healthcare resources be allocated when pandemics hit? What does end-of-life care look like for those for whom biological death is not the end?
For more on what zombies and neuroscience can teach us see this item from Culturing Science here. I will post more information on the Emory conference as it becomes available in the near future.
The latest documentary project from Wyrd and director Frank Woodward is Men in Suits. Readers may recall that Woodward was interviewed here previously on his fine documentary exploring the life, work, and influence of H.P. Lovecraft. Here’s the description for Men in Suits:
Godzilla… Chewbacca… Predator… Robby the Robot…
These are some of the most popular characters in fantastic cinema, but many people still don’t know about the incredible actors inside these creature suits who bring those characters to life!
MEN IN SUITS will examine the history and craft of suit performers from The Creature of the Black Lagoon to Pan’s Labyrinth and beyond. Through interviews with these actors we will learn the skill, strength and art required to be “under rubber”.
So far Wyrd has interviewed Doug Jones (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth), Tom Woodruff Jr.(the Alien fims), John Alexander (Gorillas In The Mist, Men In Black), Van Snowden (H.R. Puffnstuff), Misty Rosas (Congo, Sid The Science Kid), Bobby Clark (Star Trek), Kurt Carley (Underworld), Douglas Tait (Knights of Badassdom), August Ragone (author of Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters), Todd Tucker, (Drac Studios), Alec Gillis (ADI Effects), William Malone (director, House on Haunted Hill), and Guillermo Del Toro (director, Pan’s Labyrinth). And this is just the beginning…
In late 2010 Wyrd will be making a journey to Tokyo where we will interview some of the pioneers of Japanese suit acting.
As the most comprehensive documentary of its kind, we still have a way to go but expect to wrap post sometime in the middle of 2011.
The film is in post-production and needs your help. Visit the documentary’s Kickstarter page to be a part, and check back here in October for an interview with Woodward that coincides with the film’s release.
Recently, I was a guest on The Zombie Mob podcast along with Kim Paffenroth, author of many books including Gospel of the Living Dead, and Scott Poole, author of Satan in America and Monsters in America, and all of us contributors to the forthcoming The Undead and Theology. Our host was Darryl Pierce. In the podcast we discussed the Spanish “zombie” film [REC]. The podcast can be listened to here.
CRACKED.com is not exactly the first place you might think that intelligent and thoughtful commentary can be found on horror and science fiction, but with these two video clips we learn “4 Terrifying Psychology Lessons Behind Famous Movie Monsters,” and “Why the Scariest Sci-Fi Robot Uprising Has Already Begun.”
