BBC Four will be airing their television version of H. G. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon. Although I haven’t seen it yet, for my money the best version of this story is the 1964 film of the same name produced by Charles Schneer with special effects by Ray Harryhausen. In my view it is one of Harryhausen’s neglected films, eclipsed by his other works such as Jason and the Argonauts, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, and Twenty Million Miles to Earth.
The Den of Geek! features a positive review of the new treatment of Wells’ story, and mentions not only its good qualities, but its shortcomings in contrast with Harryhausen’s work.
On October 22 an interesting film will hit theaters. One the one hand it addresses a question as old as humanity itself concerning the possibility and hope for life after death. On the other hand it may also be understood in its more immediate historical and cultural context as an expression of a post-9/11 spiritual quest that seeks to answer this important question in light of the New Spirituality.
Oscar® winner Matt Damon (“Good Will Hunting,” “Invictus”) stars in “Hereafter,” directed by Academy Award® winner Clint Eastwood (“Million Dollar Baby,” “Unforgiven”) from a screenplay by two time Oscar® nominee Peter Morgan (“Frost/Nixon,” “The Queen”).
“Hereafter” tells the story of three people who are haunted by mortality in different ways. Matt Damon stars as George, a blue-collar American who has a special connection to the afterlife. On the other side of the world, Marie (Cécile de France), a French journalist, has a near-death experience that shakes her reality. And when Marcus (Frankie/George McLaren), a London schoolboy, loses the person closest to him, he desperately needs answers. Each on a path in search of the truth, their lives will intersect, forever changed by what they believe might—or must—exist in the hereafter.
The film also stars award-winning French actress Cécile de France (“A Secret”) as Marie, and twins Frankie and George McLaren. The international cast also includes Jay Mohr (“Street Kings,” TV’s “Gary Unmarried”), Bryce Dallas Howard (“Eclipse,” “Spider-Man 3”), Marthe Keller, Thierry Neuvic and Derek Jacobi.
“Hereafter” is produced by Eastwood, multiple Oscar®-nominated producer Kathleen Kennedy (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Munich,” “E.T.”) and two-time Oscar® nominee Robert Lorenz (“Letters from Iwo Jima,” “Mystic River”). Steven Spielberg, Frank Marshall, Peter Morgan and Tim Moore served as executive producers.
Behind the scenes, Eastwood reunited with his longtime collaborators, including director of photography Tom Stern, production designer James J. Murakami, editors Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach, and costume designer Deborah Hopper.
“Hereafter” was filmed entirely on location in Paris, London, Hawaii and San Francisco.
Richard Matheson is one of the great writers of the fantastic who has provided countless hours of enjoyment through his writing, as well as through adaptations of his stories for television and film. Now his work is explored in a new book by Matthew Bradley titled Richard Matheson on Screen (McFarland, 2010).
Richard Matheson on Screen A History of the Filmed Works
Matthew R. Bradley Foreword by Richard Matheson
ISBN 978-0-7864-4216-4
64 photos, bibliography, index
315pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2010
Description
Though innumerable biographies have been written about novelists, playwrights, and poets, screenwriters are rarely granted this distinction, even ones as prolific and successful as Richard Matheson. He has occupied a unique position in cinema as the writer or original author of films from The Incredible Shrinking Man in 1957 through I Am Legend in 2007. This book documents his rise to prominence, parallel literary career, and role in the horror and science fiction renaissance. In chronological order, the exhaustively indexed narrative examines each film written by Matheson or based on his work, with sections devoted to episodic television (including The Twilight Zone) and unproduced projects.
About the Author Matthew R. Bradley is a widely published authority on the work of Richard Matheson. He has written articles, interviews, and reviews for Fangoria, Mystery Scene, VideoScope, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and Cinema Retro. A lifelong resident of Connecticut, he is currently the Copy Specialist for MBI, Inc., in Norwalk. He is creator of the Internet film-related blog Bradley On Film.
Richard Matheson on Screen can be ordered through the TheoFantastique Store at this link.
The Twilight Zone is one of the classic examples of fantasy, thriller, science fiction television, with a legacy that continues into the present day. Next month will see the release of The Twilight Zoneseason 1 & season 2 on Blu-ray DVD. In order to celebrate this event, TheoFantastique will explore The Twilight Zone in several installments by guest writer Arlen Schumer. Schumer wrote and designed Visions From The Twilight Zone, the only coffee table art book about the series, and continues to present a multimedia show based on the book to universities and cultural institutions around the country, including The 2008 Rod Serling Conference at Ithaca University, and the 2009 New York Comic Convention, where he also presented his mini-marathon, “The Five Themes of The Twilight Zone.” He presented his new show, “The Twilight Zone Forever,” at The New York Times’ TimesCenter in New York on the exact 50th Anniversary of The Twilight Zone’s debut, October 2, 2009. On November 11 Schumer will make a presentation in connection with a screening the 50th anniversary of “The Eye of the Beholder” episode at the prestigious Tribeca Cinema. Tickets can be purchased here.
And now, TheoFantastique is pleased to present the first installment by Arlen Schumer:
At 10:00 pm on Friday, October 2, 1959, CBS Television broadcast the pilot episode of a new series, The Twilight Zone. The copy in CBS’ newspaper ad for the debut episode “Where Is Everybody?” enigmatically declared, next to an extreme closeup of, atypically, not the episode’s star, but instead, for the first (and only?) time in the young medium’s history, its writer/creator (“one of television’s most famous playwrights”), Twilight Zone was “…defined by the author as: ‘The land that lies between science and superstition, between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. You will find the bizarre, but the believable; the different, the shocking that is yet understandable.’”
A fine definition, to this day, of good science-fiction literature—but the ad’s next line can be read indirectly as a pre-post-modern justification of television itself as being on par with any literary genre or visual narrative, like film—while superseding the medium that preceded TV, radio: “Its tales must be shown; they cannot be told.”
The ad concludes, “And each carries with it its own special surprise,” a foreshadowing of the O. Henry-esque twist endings that are among The Twilight Zone’s most memorable trademarks—along with its eerie, eternal theme music (French composer Marius Constant), and the sound and vision of the series’ only true star (outshining a who’s-who of Hollywood actors), its multiple-Emmy Award-winning creator, head writer, on-air host and narrator, possessed with perhaps the most singular, dramatic broadcast voice of the 20th Century, Rod Serling (1924-1975).
Serling firmly places in the 20th Century post-war pantheon of great American-Jewish humanist liberal writers—Arthur Miller, Budd Schulberg, Mad magazine’s Harvey Kurtzman, Bob (Zimmerman) Dylan, Marvel Comics’ Stan Lee (nee Stanley Lieber)—who, though they toiled in commercial entertainment mediums from Broadway to Hollywood, nevertheless produced great and lasting art that has transcended its genre entertainment origins.
Like Serling’s timeless The Twilight Zone, which Image Entertainment is releasing on Blu-ray DVD this fall: Season 1, a startling quantity of 36 original half-hours of anthology drama of unparalleled quality, depth and breadth in the history of television, comes out on September 14th; Season 2, by default the second-best season—but with its own share of classics—follows on November 16th.
Although it shared conceptual concerns with—and adapted stories from—the cream of the science-fiction field, featuring original scripts by science fiction luminaries like Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont and George Clayton Johnson, The Twilight Zone cannot be wholly considered a science fiction television series.
It wasn’t horror, either—yet many episodes, and their shock endings, are among the most horrific ever filmed for television (or film). And it would be unfair to pass the series off as pure fantasy, for it was grounded in a reality far more real and true for its day—and ours. Yet, in a televised interview with CBS’ own Mike Wallace ten days before The Twilight Zone debuted (included in the raft of DVD extras), Wallace opened with a whopper of a backhanded compliment: “Now that you’re doing The Twilight Zone,” he addressed Serling, “does that mean you won’t be writing anything important for television?”
Wallace was referring to Serling’s pre-Twilight Zone career as the Golden Boy of television’s mid-Fifties “Golden Age,” hour-and-a-half anthology dramas emanating from New York City that made Serling’s bones (three Emmy Awards three years in a row, for “Patterns,” “Requiem for a Heavyweight” and “The Comedian”) but also broke them—his repeated struggles with the TV censors and its de facto censors, the advertising agencies and their corporate sponsors, ironically gave birth to The Twilight Zone itself, half-hour havens safer for the politically- and socially-conscious Serling to ply his morality teleplays than the 90-minute millstones that had already become obsolete by the end of the decade; like the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants, live TV uprooted and moved to Los Angeles, downsizing to cheaper filmed series that could be rerun in perpetuity—modern television as we know it.
Rather than be caught slumming in the new, déclassé format, Serling’s “television playwright” peers, like Paddy Chayefsky (“Marty”) and Reginald Rose (“Twelve Angry Men”), moved “up” to movies, but Serling chose to remain in filmed TV, in The Twilight Zone, much to the feigned chagrin of middlebrow critics like Wallace crying crocodile tears over the loss of live, pseudo-prestigious productions like Playhouse 90.
Serling’s measured, thoughtful response to Wallace’s (in-?) direct insult reveals Rod Serling to be not just a thinking man’s writer, but a true visionary, a pre-pop artist and avatar of the explosion in commercial creativity—modern American popular culture as we know it— that remains the dominant artistic legacy of The Sixties:
“The exciting thing about our medium is its potential, the fact that it doesn’t have to be imitative. What it can produce in terms of novelty and ingenuity has barely been scratched. We want to prove that television, even in its half-hour form, can be both commercial and worthwhile. This is a medium that can spread out, delve deep, probe fully and reach out experimentally to whole new concepts. The horizons of what it can do and where it can go stretch out beyond vision.”
Serling’s vision, The Twilight Zone, would go beyond making Wallace and his ilk eat their words; it became not only one of the most revered and remembered television shows of all time, but a conceptual catchphrase that would enter the lexicon, a touchstone that would profoundly influence a wide spectrum of American artists, actors, writers and filmmakers—today’s science- fiction, fantasy and horror genre creators, from Steven Spielberg to Stephen King (and all their contemporaries and descendants)—all of whom owe a debt to Serling and his dark masterpiece The Twilight Zone for lighting the imaginative sparks that ignited their greatest works.
Indeed, Serling’s surrealistic concept of alternate realities—the “what if…?” quality of The Twilight Zone—paved the way for, and influenced the turbulent 1960s to come, by implicitly (and often explicitly) stating that things don’t have to be the way they are, that authority and the status quo must always be challenged and questioned—and bettered. “A whole generation is able to associate the Serling program with the budding of The Sixties,” acknowledged prolific horrormeister King in Danse Macabre, his idiosyncratic 1981 non-fiction survey of the science fiction, fantasy and horror fields. “At least, as The Sixties are remembered.”
George Clayton Johnson agrees: “The Twilight Zone played just as much a part in the renaissance transformation of The Sixties as bright-colored clothing, rock music and marijuana did. It helped to jack people up to a higher level.”
A lot of those people were children, according to Buck Houghton, Twilight Zone’s original producer (1959-62). “The appeal to children was a complete surprise to us,” he recalled to Marc Scott Zicree, author of The Twilight Zone Companion in 1981. “We got a lot of nasty notes from parents saying, ‘You’re keeping the kids up.’”
Chances are, if you were ten years old in 1960, and staying up to watch The Twilight Zone’s episodes about racism (“Eye of The Beholder”), prejudice (“The Monsters are Due on Maple Street”) and nuclear war (“Third from the Sun”), then eight years later you were probably marching against the Vietnam War, taking part in social change, countering the culture and the status quo—just as The Twilight Zone itself countered the status quo of the network television programming of its time, which then-FCC Chairman Newton Minow infamously described in 1961 as a “vast wasteland” of wall-to-wall westerns, cookie-cutter cop shows and bland family sitcoms.
Episodes like Season 2’s final episode, “The Obsolete Man,” filmed on an outsized German expressionist set, must have seemed like broadcasts beamed from alien planets compared to the void of white bread programming surrounding them.
“Here, for once, was something Completely New and Different,” wrote King of The Twilight Zone in Danse Macabre, and of Serling, “who finally answered H.P. Lovecraft, who showed a new direction. For me and those of my generation, the answer was like a thunderclap of revelation, opening a million entrancing possibilities.”
Those possibilities include the productions of not only the most obvious TV knockoffs The Outer Limits (1963), Serling’s own Night Gallery (1969), George Romero’s Tales From The Darkside (1983) and two titular syndicated TV revamps of recent vintage (both in wrong-headed full color and utterly dismissible)—or the Spielberg-produced turkey The Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)—but practically every example of modern science fiction, fantasy or horror that can trace its roots back to Serling and The Twilight Zone in less than six degrees of separation.
Next Monday, October 18, we will post the second installment that begins with a consideration of the impact of The Twilight Zone on subsequent science fiction, fantasy and horror.
CBS recently aired an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Blood Moon.” The episode focused on a murder connected to the intersection between the vampire and werewolf communities. In relation to this program TheoFantastique presents an interview with Merticus of the Atlanta Vampire Alliance. Merticus has been a member of the vampire community since 1997. He is one of the founding members of the, co-founder of the research company Suscitatio Enterprises, LLC, the co-organizer for TWILIGHT (vampire conference-style gathering), the current administrator for Voices of the Vampire Community (VVC), organizer for the Atlanta Vampire Meetup Group, and a principal contributing author and researcher for the Vampirism & Energy Work Research Study (VEWRS & AVEWRS). A native to Atlanta, GA, Merticus is active in both the online and offline Community; consulting not only with fellow members of the vampire community but also with academicians and the media on matters relating to modern psychic and sanguinarian vampirism. He has contributed to numerous academic and general media articles regarding vampirism; including an October 2007 interview with TAPS Paranormal Magazine, an October 2008 interview with ABCNews.com, an November 2008 interview with the Washington Post, and an November 2009 interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He has consulted extensively with Joseph Laycock on a paper delivered before the annual conference of the American Academy of Religion in November 2007, Laycock’s 2009 book Vampires Today: The Truth About Modern Vampirism, and Laycock’s August 2010 publication of an academic paper about the Vampirism & Energy Work Research Study in Nova Religio: The Journal Of Alternative & Emergent Religions. Merticus has also contributed to Brad Steiger’s 2009 book, Real Vampires, Night Stalkers, and Creatures from the Darkside, Corvis Nocturnum’s 2009 book, Allure of the Vampire: Our Sexual Attraction to the Undead, David Skal’s 2009 book, Romancing The Vampire: From Past To Present, and J. Gordon Melton’s 2010 book, The Vampire Book: Encyclopedia Of The Undead (3rd Edition). He has also attended and presented at gatherings throughout the United States and is a member of numerous forums and discussion groups.
Before the interview begins consider an important definition provided by Merticus:
A Concise Explanation Of “Real Vampirism”: Sanguinarian and psychic vampires are individuals who cannot adequately sustain their own physical, mental, or spiritual well being without the taking of blood or vital life force energy from other sources; often human. Without feeding a vampire will become lethargic, sickly, depressed, and often go through physical suffering or discomfort. Vampires often display signs of empathy, sense emotions, perceive auras, and are generally psychically aware of the world around them. Sanguinarian vampires feed by the drinking of blood – either human or animal. Sanguinarian vampires can vary in their experience of blood hunger but the unique craving for blood and the physical symptoms associated with neglecting to drink blood are unifying features of sanguinarian vampirism. The consumption of blood from human sources is facilitated through a consensual agreement by verbal or written contract between vampire and donor. Psychic vampires are understood to feed psychically on life force energy. Psychic feeding is usually performed on a willing individual or from the ambient energies of a large group or crowd.
With this definition in mind we begin our interview.
TheoFantastique: I noted that the episode repeated folklore about satanic and occult ritual murders. Did you note any stereotypes and myths repeated about the vampire, and perhaps even the werewolf communities?
Merticus: With sex, chains, blood, and decapitation involved, it’s not unreasonable to expect the words “occult” and “satanic ritual” to be referenced by criminal investigators. I’m rather relieved that this CSI episode did not venture far down the path of ritual sacrifice and occult crime despite the supposition of bloodletting being common among cults. Many of the usual folkloric and roleplaying stereotypes of the vampire and werewolf were tirelessly recycled in the dialogue including; “to kill a vampire you must decapitate it” to vampires hissing in the presence of those who are not “their kind” to werewolves “shifting during the full (blood) moon”.
Normally this wouldn’t trouble me in the least, however, the concept of sanguinarians (blood drinkers), act of meditation to achieve a vampiric state, and porphyria as a medical explanation for someone associating with vampires and attempting to drink the blood of a dead man, clearly muddled the distinction between harmless fiction and roleplay with that of the real or modern vampire community and sufferers of an unfortunate medical condition that has nothing to do with vampirism.
The vampire community is very loosely defined as anyone who identifies as a vampire. This may also include donors of real vampires (sanguinarian or blood drinking, and psychic or energy feeding), vampire enthusiasts, vampire lifestylers, and even roleplayers. Sanguinarian and psychic vampirism is not a cult, religion, medical condition known as porphyria, a paraphilia or “Renfield’s Syndrome”, offshoot of the BDSM community, community composed exclusively of disillusioned teenagers, and it’s definitely not what’s depicted in fictional books, movies, or television. For those of us who identify with real vampirism, the saturation of interest in the vampire has resulted in a cross-pollination between folklore, fantasy, and fiction with that of our once relatively obscure community.
This episode painted a lurid image of the practice of blood drinking combined with porphyria when the actual murder occurred because a human pretending to be a werewolf later pretended to be a vampire to win the heart of a vampire and ran afoul of his former werewolf pack and current vampire clan. Silly human… everyone knows once you’re a werewolf you can’t become a vampire… it’s written in the scrolls of vampire and werewolf lore from centuries past! In this sense, CSI didn’t give porphyria sufferers nor vampires and therians (were-kin) any breaks. The writers simply reinforced erroneous stereotypes and misinformation that will undoubtedly persist in similar future productions.
TheoFantastique: Does it concern you that commercial television still focuses on vampires in programs largely in connection with Halloween (with the notable exceptions of things like True Blood)?
Merticus: While it’s true that the month of October usually signifies the return of the vampire to the screen and the foreground of pop-culture, lately this has been a year-long phenomenon. Last year (2009) marked one of the most active years for the vampire in recent memory and I expect we’ll see much of the same in the foreseeable future. CSI is no stranger to outlier or fringe subcultures with episodes devoted to furries and several to the BDSM lifestyle with Lady Heather. They have incorporated the concept of real or living vampires and vampirism into their storyline’s on at least two other occasions; CSI: Las Vegas “Suckers” in February 2004 and CSI: New York “Sanguine Love” in February 2010. “Suckers” introduced the Black Veil, sanguinarian vampirism, and other vampire community terminology and “Sanguine Love” illuminated the inner function of a coven (what we generally term as a House or Order). While all of these episodes fell short of an accurate depiction of the vampire community, “Sanguine Love” accomplished what “Blood Moon” and “Suckers” failed to achieve – humanizing the concept of real-vampirism while portraying its participants as ethical, law abiding, and a recognized identity group.
The mainstream culture has increasingly become interested in exploring all aspects of the vampire archetype and the possibility of real vampirism. While there are some in our community who enjoy living the vampire aesthetic, vampirism is largely an amalgamation of physical, mental, and in some cases spiritual attributes. The pop-cultural interest in the vampire has led to the intersection of vampire enthusiasts with that of real vampires. We now find ourselves educating growing numbers of the public that one is born with a vampiric nature and not turned, that we adhere to ethical and safe feeding practices, are of sound mind and judgment, and productively contribute to society. As long as television shows such as CSI are not seeking to intentionally demonize or marginalize those who self-identify as vampires, then I’m not concerned over their occasional explorations into the dark side of reality.
TheoFantastique: The program also stated that the mythologies of the vampire and werewolf overlapped in history, and that a tension continued into the present day. Is this accurate, or is this a Hollywood-inspired idea from films like the Underworld trilogy?
Merticus: Unless one considers Universal’s 1944 unrealized film project of The Wolf Man vs. Dracula as inspiration for eternal conflict between the vampire and werewolf, there is no historical basis in mythology to support such claim. None of the early eighteenth century texts I have from vampire lore researchers such as Dom Augustine Calmet or John Heinrich Zopfius nor sixteenth century accounts of the Peter Stubbe trial and other suspected werewolves include references to both creatures in the same work, much less either being at odds with the other. White Wolf’s, Vampire the Masquerade and Werewolf the Apocalypse, created a roleplaying foundation for strained vampire-werewolf relations and this has remained part of our pop culture ever since. The Underworld franchise capitalized on this idea and for the first time presented the sexy and violent images of warring vampires and werewolves [lycans] we have come to know today.
In subcultural terms, while the otherkin, therian/were, and vampire communities often commingle, there remains distinct and established communities of vampi(y)res and therians. Even so, several vampire Houses and groups are accepting of therians as part of their membership. As far as gatherings, vampires have their “courts” and therians have their “howls”, but both meet socially in clubs and other events of all types. The various factions of the vampire community have a difficult enough time arguing over possible biological, spiritual, and social aspects of vampiric identity without having to worry themselves over other groups. I’m not aware of any current conflicts between any self-identified vampires and therians from the modern (non-roleplaying) communities.
TheoFantastique: Do you feel the writers made an attempt to research the vampire community and its gatherings?
Merticus: Rarely do the writers and producers of such shows seek the guidance and consultation of those from the vampire community. In all fairness, many within the vampire community aren’t willing to extend any assistance after suffering numerous poor treatments at the hand of the media. Still, their lack of contact is ironic because we are accustomed to receiving almost weekly media requests ranging from basic article research to reality television proposals. We’ve come to realize through our work on various television and production projects that more time is spent on casting and visual effects than the background or technical aspects concerning subject matter. Writers often rely on spotty information gleaned from the first few web sites they encounter or from personal [mis]conceptions they have about vampires.
The writer’s job is to provide the most entertaining script in the shortest amount of time which unfortunately means they don’t typically embed themselves within our community nor solicit our feedback on their storyline prior to filming. If they were to approach us with a script in advance I’m sure some of us would be more than willing to make suggestions and improvements that would benefit both parties. There are many aspects to the real vampire community which lend themselves to the theatrical while avoiding the cliché portrayals we’ve grown to expect from these shows. Cultural events such as Dracula’s Ball, Endless Night Festival, Court of Lazarus, and local gatherings throughout the community coupled with the various academic and research texts on modern vampirism would be excellent educational opportunities if the writers would only take the time to explore them.
TheoFantastique: What would you like to see reflected in future television programming that incorporates vampires?
Merticus: The purpose of television programs such as CSI is to first and foremost entertain, not educate. Therefore, I don’t think it fair to demand these shows be held to the unreasonable standard of trying to act as a documentary and drama rolled into one. The concept of modern vampirism is complex and can’t adequately be explained in a forty-minute crime drama. The specifics of vampirism manifest differently on an individual basis and these nuances sometimes insulate the confusion in defining the vampiric range of ability and experience. This is why some vampires view vampirism as a physical condition, others as spiritual or metaphysical, and still others regard it as simply a state of being.
I’d rather these inherent complications not be compounded by writers and producers mixing elements of folklore, fiction, roleplay, and actual subcultures of people into the same episode. Moving ahead, the greatest service they can do for the vampire community and vampire fandom in general is to focus on one specific theme dealing with vampires or vampirism and seek the consultation of experts in that particular discipline. In the meantime, we’ll work within the avenues afforded to us by academia, sociological, scientific, and cultural entities to lessen the stigmas perpetuated by stereotypes and the damaging effect they’ve caused some in our community.
TheoFantastique: Merticus, thank you for responding so quickly to my questions about this recent program, and for sharing your thoughts.
It was my privilege to be one of a handful of guest bloggers at The Vault of Horror as part of the series “The Shadow of Samhain.” My post titled “Putting the Christ in…Halloween?” went up today. I appreciate the invitation and opportunity, and encourage readers to take a look at the series running this month that looks at the pre-modern influences on the Halloween holiday.
Comic books and graphic novels are not only popular sources for television and Hollywood films. They are also increasingly the object of academic and critical scrutiny. Christopher Knowles has made his own contribution in this area with his book Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes (Weiser Books, 2007). As the back cover of the books asks, “Was Superman’s arch nemesis Lex Luthor based on the early twentieth-century occultist Aleister Crowley? How is Batman linked to the Kabbalah?” Knowles suggests that the answer to these and similar questions is a resounding “yes” as paganism and Western esotericism has served as an influence in comic books. He probes this topic in the following interview.
TheoFantastique: I recently read a piece online which discussed the impact of H. P. Lovecraft on comics. You discuss his literary work, and that he was a self-professed atheist, but you mention that some question whether he had esoteric interests and connections given the cosmology and mythology he constructed. What types of esoteric influences have some attributed to Lovecraft, and regardless of his metaphysical views, how do you see him as an influence on contemporary comics?
Christopher Knowles: Well, a lot of the discussions of Lovecraft’s immersion in the occult have been from occult partisans. Kenneth Grant, who was head of the Ordo Templi Orientis, comes to mind here. Lovecraft was obviously aware of the occult since it was very much part of the pulp milieu- the counterculture of its time. I think he may have read some occult texts — maybe some Theosophical or Rosicrucian material — since he was a voracious reader and was looking out for story material. But Lovecraft to me was a guy who was very much in touch with an aspect of the unconscious mind that nightmares dwell in, night terrors, hallucinations — things like that. I think that was a much more powerful influence on him than occultism, which can get so nebulous as to include anything. Lovecraft really did the occultism of his time one better and created a more immersive universe than you could with spells or incantations. He’s an occult order unto himself.
TheoFantastique: One of the types of comic heroes as gods that you put forward is the Golems, based upon Jewish mysticism. I was surprised by the great number of comic heroes you included in this list, but they seem to fit. Why are there so many comic heroes that have been influenced by this form of comic mysticism?
Christopher Knowles: Here’s basically how I see it with the archetypes I named — The Messiah is the daddy fantasy, the Amazon is the mommy fantasy, the Brotherhood is the fantasy group of friends but the Golem is us. The Golem is the one who suffers and who wants revenge. The one who feels victimized and needs armor to cover the wounds. So when the general audience drifted away the comics were being read by hardcore fans, who often feel marginalized and victimized. So you’re going to have a built-in audience for this archetype from kids who feel a need to vindicate, to avenge wrongs done to them.
TheoFantastique: I appreciated your discussion in the chapter called “The Visionaries” where you mention key figures who helped develop our “gods in spandex.” The first and perhaps most influential is Jack Kirby. Many fans of Kirby’s work will likely be surprised to learn of his infusion of mysticism in his comics. How did he come to produce a body of work that you describe as “fundamentally psychedelic and intrinsically pagan”? And how has Kirby been influential on other visionaries, whether in comics or other venues?
Christopher Knowles: Well, how Kirby became Kirby is the $64,000 question. Kirby had a pretty rough and tumble childhood and then had an unusually traumatic experience in the war. He also was almost autistic in the sense that he existed inside his head and projected those stories from his mind onto the paper. Then something extremely strange happens to him and he undergoes this metamorphosis in the mid-60s and his art becomes very primitive and very futuristic at the same time, but also extremely psychedelic. It has a frightening similarity to shamanic art from the ayahuasca cults and the rest of it. At the same time he’s tapping into this ancient, archaic visionary mindset he’s also becoming obsessed with the aliens and UFOs and comes right out and says that all of these ancient astronaut stories he starts doing with the Fourth World and the Eternals and the rest of it are him being “mystical.” That’s the word he uses. It gets to the point that he’s working over these themes in the art he does for himself, the paintings like Incan Visitation and the Bible portfolio.
As to who he influenced, everybody doing anything with sci-fi or superheroes has been influenced by Kirby, whether they realize it or not.
TheoFantastique: How might Alan Moore’s work be seen as incorporating his interest in ritual magic?
Christopher Knowles: I’m not sure I can answer that exactly, other than the very literal stuff he wrote for Promethea. I was really disappointed in that series, because it was a comic that was magic and became a comic about magic. Big difference there. But by the same token I think the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is the best work anyone’s done as far as superhero teams go, bar none. I don’t think anything can touch it. So he can answer this better than I, but I’d guess he’s allowed himself to really explore the depths of his psyche and really dig deep into what storytelling is, which is a much more powerful form of magic than anything else I can name.
TheoFantastique: How does Mike Mignola incorporate occult history in his comics?
Christopher Knowles: How doesn’t he? It’s really what his work is about. All of his writing digs into lore that most people have forgotten. I have this weird picture of him sitting there by lamplight, poring over some dusty grimoire that was written on the tanned skin of virgins back in the Dark Ages. I can just see the demons and spirits and jinns leaping from the darkness into this imaginary magical quill Mignola is holding that allows him to force them to do his bidding. I’m really sorry he doesn’t do much drawing anymore because the magic comes when he’s riding all the horses, but I understand it. He scares the hell out of me because he makes it all so real, yet intensely hilarious at the same time.
TheoFantastique: At one point near the end of your book you write:
“Comic-book fans are a small, but highly dedicated and influential group. They usually develop an intense, intimate relationship with the comics medium at an early age, often as a result of childhood trauma. Many have a general disposition toward shyness or social awkwardness that tends to cement their dedication to the form, turning them into, in Stan Lee’s words, “true believers” indistinguishable from your average theology student or seminarian.”
As a former seminarian and comic fan I identified with this statement. Do you find this as a general tendency in your work among comic fans?
Christopher Knowles: Well, my experience with comic fans is past tense now, but sure. One of the reasons the book was so controversial was because the average fan loved it and the hardcore fan thought it was heresy. And they also thought I was telling tales out of school. Hardcore fans tend to form very intense, subjective and personal bonds with the medium, and tend to shut out anyone else’s relationship to the material. That’s why you can go to a comics store and see a bunch of middle aged guys trying their damnedest to ignore each other, even though they spend their days surrounded by people who have no idea what any of this comics stuff is about at all. It’s very much an escape from the rest of the world, which you also see in monasteries, strangely enough.
TheoFantastique: I strongly resonated with two brief paragraphs in your concluding chapter:
“We live in extremely depressing and disheartening times, in which old certainties vanish before our eyes. The world we once knew is either collapsing or being systematically dismantled, and there is nothing we can do about it. The daily political and economic bad news and the constant drumbeat of war and terrorism are making superhero fantasies more relevant and visceral, as well as more comforting and reassuring, than at any time since World War II.
“American religion seems unable to provide a viable salvation myth in this time of crisis. Most denominations have become nothing more than badly disguised political movements, interested only in money and power. On the other hand, our bloodless secular culture has no room in it for wonder. It should not surprise us then, when Harry Potter, Star Wars, and The X-Men step in to fill the void.”
I tend to agree, and would slightly modify your statement in that I wonder whether much of American Christendom likewise lacks wonder, mystery, transcendence, and a sense of inspiring mythic stories every bit as much as secular culture. Given this present state of affairs, what do you think not only about the future of comic’s potential as entertainment in pop culture, but also its potential to incorporate the supernatural, the spiritual, and the esoteric?
Christopher Knowles: I don’t know about comics in and of themselves. I think there’s a kind of winding down feeling about the market lately. There’s been a real risk-averse mentality at the big companies that has to do with the economics of publishing, which are pretty scary at the moment. I think that comics and superheroes have this common history but may not have a common future, necessarily. Superheroes might well belong onscreen and not on the page, now that the technology has caught up with the storytelling. I loved the Watchmen movie — to me it stomps all over the comic, as heretical as it is to admit. Same with Kick Ass.
The thing is that comics are the best place to take risks and really explore the possibilities but we don’t seem to value that in the culture. This is a really terrible time for this country, but also for the culture and the only way we’re going to get out of it is by using our creativity and imaginations. I don’t see that same energy in comics to kickstart that I did five or ten years ago. Other media tend to cherrypick the best creators and it’s very hard for new creators to get noticed. We’re starting to see the migration to the internet and to social media, but we’re still not seeing the magic yet. This might be a transitional period. But there’s a whole century of inspiration to explore that incorporates all of those themes, usually unconsciously. And the great news here is that a talented creator can create a universe with a pencil.
TheoFantastique: Chris, thanks again for your book and for probing its thesis and contents a little more deeply here.
A recent visit to my local library to peruse the shelves for horror and science fiction DVDs revealed a few treasures the other day, including a copy of The Mummy (1932) Special Edition. This is part of the Universal Legacy Series that I have yet to add to my collection.
This 2-disc set includes bonus features, including Mummy Dearest: A Horror Tradition Unearthed and He Who Made Monsters: The Life and Art of Jack Pierce. There were a number of interesting facets of both mini-documentaries, but in the former I found one piece of trivia particularly interesting in regards to Boris Karloff’s co-star, Zita Johann. Two film historians are featured in the documentary who had opportunities to interview Zohann before her death. They both state that she was a practitioner of the “occult sciences,” that she was a believer in reincarnation, and one of the men claims that during filming Zohann passed out and claims to have had an out-of-body experience (mistakenly referred to in the documentary as a near-death experience). This appears to have been a case of art imitating life since Zohann plays a character reincarnated in the film. Just one of the interesting pieces of trivia related to a classic horror film and its connection to the esoteric religious tradition.
Comic artist and historian Arlen Schumer will lecture at Rice University on “Jews ‘n’ Comics.” Schumer’s views on the subject as part of the upcoming lecture are described in Jewish Herald-Voice:
According to Schumer, it’s no coincidence that several pioneers of the America comic book art form were Jews. A short list includes Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, co-creators of Superman; Bob Kane (born Robert Kahn), creator of Batman; Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg), creator of Captain America; and Stan Lee (born Stanley Lieber), co-creator with Jack Kirby of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, the Hulk, X-Men, Iron Man and others.
Besides their personal Jewish identities, these artist geniuses infused their superhero creations and their sagas with Jewish culture, Schumer explains in his work.
“I try to demonstrate that there’s been a strong Jewish influence in the creation of our modern-day superheroes that go back to stories that go as far back as you want to go back,” he said in an interview with the JH-V.
The Superman creation story, for example, is based on Jewish archetypes spelled out in the baby Moses story and messianic prophecies, Schumer noted. Iconic superheroes like Superman, Batman and Captain America each were created by first-generation assimilated American Jews at times of national crisis.
“When there was a crisis facing the Jewish people, we can look back to the golem myth from late 16th century Prague. The Jews were threatened by pogroms, so the rabbi conjured a man out of earth and gave life from nothingness to save the ghetto and protect the Jewish people,” Schumer said.
American superheroes of the 1930s, like Batman, were a response to the rise of fascism and Nazism. Others superheroes, like Captain America, were created to help raise American consciousness about the war and to change isolationist attitudes, he added.
The whole article can be read here. See Schumer’s website for further examples of his lectures and work.
