TOP TEN(ISH) MOMENTS FROM PULPFEST 2025

PulpFest 2025 is officially in the books. Which means so are FarmerCon XX, ERBFest 2025, and DocCon 2025. I had a phenomenal time hanging out with old friends, making new friends, spending too much money, staying up too late, and driving to/from Cranberry PA … but it was all worth it. There were way more than 10 Top Moments of the Con(s), but here are a bunch of them:

 

BEING MISTAKEN FOR WIN ECKERT’S BROTHER

Win and I have known each other a good few years now. But this is the first time anyone seeing us next to each other has sincerely asked “are you guys brothers?” (In this case, our waitress at Primanti Brothers during our Wednesday night Pre-Con dinner). I, for one, took the question as a compliment. Check out my interviews with Win HERE and HERE to get a sense of why I consider it a compliment.

“Twins” Anthony R. Cardno and Win Scott Eckert

 

BEING A (SMALL) PART OF THE RETURN OF DOCCON

DocCon (the convention dedicated to all things related to Doc Savage) has a venerable history but has taken a few years off … until Jen DiGiacomo had the idea to revive it as the latest “mini-con” to happen under the PulpFest banner. I was a (very small) part of the planning committee (being perhaps the Least Knowledgeable Doc Savage Fan Ever), my main contribution being a marketing idea (that didn’t happen for this year but may be considered for 2026, so I don’t want to spoil it) and then being the “sub-in” guy at the DocCon tables when the other folks, mainly Ron Hill (who I interviewed HERE), needed to be on panels or introducing the film.

DocCon crew, L to R: Anthony R. Cardno, Anthony Rais, Bill Lampkin, Ron Hill, Scott Cranford

 

THE EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS INC PANEL

Okay, most of what Cathy Mann Willbanks (ERB Inc’s Vice President of Operations) and Christopher Paul Carey (Vice President of Publishing) announced on this panel had already been announced at San Diego Comic Con … but that didn’t stop me from being excited to hear the details in person. They announced upcoming novels (the next ERB Universe novel from the aforementioned Win Scott Eckert; a new Barsoom novel from Chris L. Adams under the “Wild Adventures” banner; new ERBU novels in the Land That Time Forgot and Monster Men series); a new John Carter and Woola action figure set from Frazetta Girls; and several new animation projects including a Victory Harben ERBU animated series in development! (My Interviews with Christopher Paul Carey HERE and HERE.)

Most of the ERB Inc panel. L to R: Christopher Paul Carey, Henry G. Franke III, Win Scott Eckert, Chris L. Adams, Douglas Klauba. Missing because my phone is a jerk: Cathy Wilbanks. SORRY, Cathy!

 

THE WICKER MAN

During a conversation with Craig McDonald during which I bought his used copy of the novelization of The Wicker Man, I discovered that not only is there a novelization of the film … the film was also based on a long out-of-print novel called Ritual by David Pinner (and that novel has a sequel, The Wicca Woman)! How out of print is it? So out of print that there’s no English language paperback edition (only a Spanish language version) and the original hardcover is going for over $1,000 on the secondary market. But there IS a reasonably priced e-book version of both of Pinner’s books. Which you know I’ve already ordered. (Interview with Craig McDonald HERE).

L to R: The copy of The Wicker Man novelization I bought from Craig McDonald, the cover to the e-book of Ritual, the cover to the e-book of Wicca Woman.

 

FLINCH-FEST

To say that I think highly of Jim Beard and John C. Bruening, co-founders of Flinch! Books, is an understatement. (And no, it’s not just because Jim included my essay on Jack Kirby’s short-lived 1970s DC Comics series The Sandman in his book Jack of All Comics! a few months ago. But why pass up a chance at a shameless plug? Also, HERE’s the Interview about the book with Jim.) Flinch! started ten years ago, and their panel at PulpFest talked a little about that history and featured reading from their new and upcoming releases (Jim’s fourth Sgt. Janus book, and John’s upcoming fourth Midnight Guardian book). These two have such an easy, funny, rapport. They are also great dinner companions and conversationalists. I also probably spent way too much time chatting with them at their table and lost them a few sales. (Kidding.)

L to R: Flinch! Books co-founders John C. Bruening and Jim Beard.

 

CHRISTOPHER LEE

During that conversation with Craig McDonald about The Wicker Man, our friend Kim Turk mentioned having seen some anthologies with Christopher Lee’s name on the cover as Editor, and I went to check out them out. Kim patiently waited for me to notice the real prize she’d already seen … a hardcover copy of Lee’s memoir … signed by the man himself! Reader, you know I bought it immediately.

 

MARK WHEATLEY AND DOUG KLAUBA

It is incredibly fun to sit in a room and watch two amazing artists, both of whom have drawn Tarzan and other Edgar Rice Burroughs characters, talk about all the great artists who have drawn the Lord of The Jungle over the years, including what they admire about those artists’ work. (Click on their names to find my interviews with Mark Wheatley and Doug Klauba.)

L to R: Mark Wheatley, Douglas Klauba

 

DOC SAVAGE, THE JLA, AND THE JSA

Did I mention that I spent too much money? I’m not going to post pictures of every book, magazine, and print I bought … but along with the Christopher Lee book, the other Most Pricey purchases including six original Doc Savage pulps (I’ll post 1 or 2 of their covers below) and four Silver Age Justice League issues featuring the annual crossovers with the Justice Society. (I was also eye-ing a Golden Age issue of The Black Knight, but it was way outside my price range.)

 

FARMERCON DINNER AND LOBBY HANGOUTS/CHATTING AT DEALER AND AUTHOR TABLES

The reason I started attending this convention was to meet in person my fellow Philip Jose Farmer fan friends, who had been so welcoming to me in various online forums, and hanging out with them at dinner(s) and in the lobby after even programming ends is always one of, if not THE, highlight of the weekend. It was no different this time, even though our numbers were slightly smaller than usual thanks to scheduling conflicts and other things. There is such a big overlap between PJF, ERB, and Doc Savage fans at this convention that most of the people I’ve mentioned above, and many I haven’t, were present at all times. And visiting with authors like Glen Held, Brian K. Morris and Charles F. Millhouse and artists like Don Simpson and folks like Henry Franke of the Burroughs Bibliophiles at their tables is always fun as well. (Interviews with Glen, Henry, Brian and Charles at the links; interview with Don coming soon!)

L to R: Anthony R. Cardno, Brian K. Morris, Charles F. Millhouse (The “Middle Initial Squad”)

For those interested, my report on PulpFest 2024 can be found HERE. And my interview with Mike Chomko of the PulpFest committee can be found HERE.

TOP TEN(ISH) TUESDAY: THE SUPERMAN FAMILY

In honor of the release of Superman (2025) (of which I will post a review eventually), I thought I’d focus my first Top Ten(ish) post in a while on my favorite Superman Family characters. It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that most of the list is characters who debuted in the Silver Age of comics, several of whom were regular features in the much-beloved (by me, at least) Superman Family title (my collection of which I have almost finally successfully rebuilt after selling them off years ago), and several of whom lived on the much-missed Earth Two of the Silver and Bronze Ages. I’ve chose to ignore the “Big Three” (the current Superman/Clark, Lois, and Jonathan Kent) and also to focus on heroes and supporting cast rather than the villains (hence, no Lex, Brainiac, etc. Maybe I’ll do a Superman’s Villains list down the road).

IMAGE: Superman carrying Lois Lane, alongside Supergirl carrying Jimmy Olsen. (c) DC Comics

 

MR. & MRS. SUPERMAN: While the wedding of the Golden Age/Earth-Two Superman and Lois Lane occurred in Action Comics (long before their Earth-One/post-Crisis counterparts tied the knot), most of their 1950s-set post-wedding adventures were chronicled in the pages of Superman Family, and I loved every one of them. The easy rapport between husband and wife, the updates and expansion of the Golden Age Superman’s rogues gallery (including the creation of an Earth-Two Insect Queen and frequent use of the Ultra-Humanite), and the guest appearances of fellow Justice Society members like Batman and Johnny Thunder made my eagerly await each issue. I really need to do a re-read and write a Series Saturday post about the series. DC really needs to give us a nice trade paperback collection.

POWER GIRL: When PG was introduced at the start of the 1970s All-Star Comics revival, I was shocked at how different this Kara Zor-L was from the Kara Zor-El of Earth-One. She was less powerful but surer of herself (or at least, better at pretending she was more secure in her identity). Her three-issue solo run in Showcase enhanced her origin and her supporting cast and further differentiated her from Supergirl. DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths cut all of her background and has resulted in multiple rewrites of her history. I am one of those relatively few folks who didn’t mind the rewrite that tied her to ancient Atlantis (and at least implied that she was the sister of at least one reincarnation of the Golden Age Hawkman, although that was never followed up on), but I’m happy to have her original history somewhat restored now that the Multiverse is back.

JIMMY OLSEN: If you know me, you are not at all surprised that Jimmy is on this list. One of my earliest fictional crushes and examples of my Catastrophic Attraction Complex for redheads, thanks largely to Kurt Schaffenberger’s art on Jimmy’s feature in Superman Family. Jimmy was “Mister Action” then, leisure-suit wearing ladies’ man. He had swagger and he had skills, and that’s still my favorite version of Jimmy. I also have a soft spot for his weird Silver Age transformations (Elasti-Lad, Turtle Boy, Werewolf-Jimmy, and more).

SUPERGIRL: I have an admitted soft spot also for Kal-El’s first cousin. By the time I was regularly reading comics, Kara/Linda Danvers was already known to the world (and bouncing from career to career and city to city, it seemed), so I remember being kind of shocked when I read Silver Age reprints where Clark shoved her off to an orphanage and made her hide her powers. I enjoyed her Superman Family stories and her later (always short-lived, it seemed) solo series. I was honestly devastated when she was killed off during the Crisis. That didn’t stop me from enjoying Peter David’s run on the character trying to make her various post-Crisis iterations gel, but I’m still happy so many aspects of her Silver and Bronze Age existence have been worked back into the character. I’m also a fan of the “she was Kal-El’s older cousin, but space warps got her to Earth after he grew up” addition to her lore thanks to the TV show.

NIGHTWING AND FLAMEBIRD: Originally super-hero identities Superman and Jimmy Olsen adopted when they visited the Bottle City of Kandor (where Supes didn’t have powers), these characters really took off for me when the mantles were passed to Kandorian former criminal Van-Zee and his sidekick Ak-Var – because it allowed the characters to just become a gimmick allowing Superman and Jimmy to play at being Batman and Robin, and there was some real pathos in their stories. There have been a few Kryptonian variations on these characters in the Post-Crisis world, but none of them have resonated with me the way Van and Ak did. (Special Mention: I wish DC had done more, post-Crisis, with Dick Grayson and Bette Kane as Nightwing and Flamebird – but that’s a post for another time.)

MA AND PA KENT: One of the few things I appreciated from John Byrne’s post-Crisis revamp of Superman was the decision to have the Kents still be alive and supportive of their super-son. They are best when written as down-home, loving, supportive everyday people; their post-Crisis involvement in helping to raise or influence Supergirl, the Connor Kent Superboy, and their grandson Jonathan (and presumably more recently, the Super-Twins) has been a great enhancement to their history. To me, they were best personified by K Callan and Eddie Jones on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

KRYPTO: Superman’s best friend (sorry, Jimmy, but it’s true), his stories in Superman Family were always fun. Sure, his super-intelligence compared to normal dogs and his detailed thought balloons could be overdone, but that was half the fun. The current comics mini-series seems to be downplaying it, but I always enjoyed it.

THE LEGION OF SUPER-PETS: Krypto was eventually joined by Streaky the Super-Cat, Beppo the Super-Monkey, and Comet the Super-Horse (not all of whom originated on Krypton), and the occasions when the animals teamed up to save the day always made me smile. Silver Age Silliness, yes. Silliness isn’t always a bad thing, despite what the cynics will tell you.

SUPERBOY (CONNOR KENT/KON-EL): One of my two favorite characters to come out of the “Death of Superman” / “World Without a Superman” storylines. I admit, he annoyed me at first. But the Karl Kesel/Tom Grummet series went a long way to adding depth to the character and endearing him to me, as did his time in Young Justice and the Geoff Johns-scripted New Teen Titans run. I do wish DC would decide how old he’s supposed to be/look and commit to it (I don’t mind the alternating between variations on his first costume and the black tee-shirt/jeans look – but why does he look 13 in one costume and 18 in the other?)

STEEL: My other favorite character to come out of those storylines. It didn’t take me long to get over the co-opting of the name of one of my favorite Bronze Age/DC Implosion-era D-listers (Steel, the Indestructible Man), and I appreciate John Henry Irons for who he is and what he adds to the Superman Family: a character easily as intelligent as Lex Luthor who uses that intelligence to aid the Man of Steel rather than destroy him. I enjoy Natasha Irons as well, especially her appearances in the recent Power Girl series and her camaraderie with Lilith/Omen.

MON-EL: Lar Gand wasn’t the first amnesiac space traveler to be mistaken for Kal-El’s long-lost older brother, but he proved to be the one with the most staying power (thanks largely to Jim Shooter adding him to the Legion of Super-Heroes). Something about the tragedy of Lar spending 1,000 years in the Phantom Zone waiting for a cure for his lead allergy to be discovered really spoke to me. As with Power Girl and Supergirl, I was okay with the post-Crisis attempts to make him a viable character without his connection to Superman but I’m happy to have his pre-Crisis history restored (as seen in the recent “Phantoms” story that ran in Action Comics).

NEW SUPER-MAN (KONG KENAN): I was not reading comics regularly during the New 52 through Rebirth phases of DC, so I’m only just now reading this character’s original solo run (in trade paperback form). I like his origin and his character growth from selfish jerk to someone more aligned with the Super-Family’s code of conduct, and I look forward to seeing more of him.

 

THE SUPER-TWINS (OSUL-RA and OTHUL-RA): Another addition to the Super-Family that I missed the introduction of, having not been reading most of the Super-Titles during the “Superman on WarWorld” storyline. But anything that enhances the history of Krypton and allows Clark and Lois to show off their parenting skills (after Brian Michael Bendis unnecessarily ages Jonathan Kent up to adulthood) is alright be me. I don’t hope the twins, along with Kong Kenan, don’t get lost in the shuffle of so many Super-family characters.

 

HONORABLE MENTIONS: THE OTHER SUPER-TWINS: It is no secret that Superman & Lois is my favorite live-action Superman TV series and how sad I was that it got cancelled after only four seasons (another show I need to do a Series Saturday post about eventually). I loved the work that Alex Garfin and Jordan Elsass/Michael Clive Bishop did as Jordan and Jonathan Kent. I wish there was some way for them both to exist in comics continuity without negating the history established for the comics Jonathan (who I enjoy as a character even after the unnecessary aging-up).

 

 

 

Top Ten(ish) is a feature where I identify my personal top ten (or so) favorites in a given category. The key words there are “my” and “favorites.” My favorites may not be your favorites, and I’m not claiming that my favorites are necessarily the best in a given category. Everyone’s tastes are different, and “best” is subjective. I welcome polite discussion on these lists.

TOP TENISH: INDEPENDENT BOOK STORES

Tomorrow, Saturday April 26th, is Independent Bookstore Day. So I thought I’d talk about some of my favorite Indy Bookstores, moving geographically from those closest to me to those further away. (I’ll be visiting all of the first 6 listed, probably in listed order.)

 

Sparta Books (Sparta, NJ) Sparta Books has been my “home ground” bookstore for quite a few years now. Long-time staff members Sue and Linda and owners Jen and Brad are always welcoming and happy to special order anything they don’t have in stock as long as the title is currently in print. The store hosts a monthly Lego night for kids, a number of author events, and a book club that meets the Third Thursday of every month (yes, I’m a member. The group usually reads stuff outside of my normal genres, which challenges me to get “outside my comfort zone” a little bit). Located at 29 Center St, Sparta, NJ 07871.

 

Pyramid Comics (Sparta, NJ) Pyramid is my “home ground” comics shop. Owner Pete is friendly and knowledgeable. The store is well stocked with current/recent comics and a lot of graphic novels, along with some collectibles. Located at 24 Main St, Sparta, NJ 07871.

 

Black Dog Books (Lafayette, NJ) I haven’t been into Black Dog since their change in ownership, so I don’t know what their current stock (new vs. used) and genre distribution is, but I look forward to visiting for the first time today. Located at 103 NJ-15 South, Lafayette Township, NJ 07848

 

Broad Street Books (Branchville, NJ) This is my “home ground” used bookshop. Su and Ethan run a wonderful community-oriented store with stock that is usually heavy on non-fiction but has plenty of fiction, graphic novels, and kid’s books. They also do a lot to support local authors. And their building is a former bank! Located at 1 Mill St, Branchville, NJ 07826

 

Stanza Books (Beacon, NY) Stanza has become my “home away from home-ground” bookstore, located a short walk from where my sister lives. A cozy, welcoming space, owners Andi and Mark run multiple monthly book clubs (mystery, science fiction, fantasy, horror, literary, “feel good,” and “books in comparison” all get their own nights) plus tons of book launches and author conversations. For my money, they are THE genre bookstore in the Dutchess/Putnam County NY area. Located at 508 Main St, Beacon, NY 12508

 

Binnacle Books (Beacon, NY) Binnacle is a lovely, tightly packed, used bookstore on Main Street in Beacon. Every visit, I find some surprise I didn’t realize I was looking for. The staff are always helpful and willing to chat about books. Located at 321 Main St, Beacon, NY 12508.

 

The Mysterious Bookshop (New York City, NY) Otto Penzler’s Mysterious Bookshop has been a staple in Lower Manhattan for decades. The staff is always fun to talk to, so incredibly knowledgeable about the mystery and crime genres. In particular, this is a great place to find long out-of-print volumes and Sherlockiana, along with their American Mystery Classics and Bibliomysteries lines (from The Mysterious Press). AMC reprints classics of the genre by American authors like Cornell Woolrich, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Dorothy L. Hughes, and Ellery Queen. The Bibliomysteries line is a series of novelettes about crimes and mysteries that are book centric. Located at 58 Warren St, New York, NY 10007.

 

The Drama Bookshop (New York City, NY) Co-owned by the great Lin-Manuel Miranda, TDB is a great spot to find all things theatre-related (not just Broadway): play scripts, memoirs, musical librettos, books on theatre history, acting and stagecraft, as well as memorabilia (coffee mugs, key chains, etc.). Located at 266 W 39th St, New York, NY 10018.

 

Sweet Pickle Books (New York City, NY) I mean, what’s not to love about a store that sells used books AND jars of pickles? It’s a very narrow, heavily stocked store, so I’ll admit that I sometimes feel a little claustrophobic in there, but I love the selection of both books and pickles. Certain days of the week, if you donate 5 books you get a free jar of pickles in return! Located at

 

Three Lives & Company (New York City, NY) Another wonderful independent shop in Manhattan. No used books, but well-stocked with warm, friendly staff. Located at 154 W 10th St, New York, NY 10014, not far from the landmark Stonewall Inn.

 

Shakespeare & Company (New York City, NY). There are stores with this name all over the world (most notably in France). Until recently, this was a small chain around Manhattan but now there’s only one location still open, with a small café at the front and a broad selection of titles in all genres. Located at 2020 Broadway, New York, NY 10023, near Lincoln Center.

 

The Eloquent Page (St. Albans, VT) I travel once a year to St. Albans for work and pay at least once visit to this used bookstore every time I’m there. I can highly recommend their Arthurian and gaming sections in particular, but there’s bound to be something for everyone here. Located at 70 N Main St, St Albans City, VT 05478.

 

Studio Moonfall (Kenosha, WI) Paid my first visit to this shop earlier this month and will gladly go back whenever I’m in the Kenosha area. They have a ton of stuff from various small press genre publishers, a small selection of used books, and a nice selection of original coloring books created by the store’s owner. Located at 5031 7th Ave, Kenosha, WI 53140.

 

The Inner Child (Kenosha, WI) Another comic and collectibles store I visited for the first time recently after years of hearing about it. The sheer amount of comic book related stuff in this store is overwhelming, in the best possible way. All manner of comics and magazine back issues, along with action figures, posters, DVDs, video games, statues … It was well worth the visit (for my collection, if not for my checking account) and I’m eager to return.

 

Downtown Books (Milwaukee, WI) Another store I’ve only visited once, a year ago, but this multi-room used bookstore will always have my heart because they were willing to dig through a packed warehouse to help me rebuild my paperback Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators set, a fond childhood memory. Hoping to get back there soon. Located at 624 N Broadway, Milwaukee, WI 53202.

 

The Iliad Bookshop (North Hollywood, CA) Another store I get to perhaps once a year but always find a small pile of books to acquire. Like Downtown Books, the store is a bit of a maze, but a fun maze. With cats. And a wonderful façade that book lovers will appreciate. My second favorite place to find Arthuriana. Located at 5400 Cahuenga Blvd, North Hollywood, CA 91601.

Also, a couple of small chains (meaning only a few stores, usually in the same geographic region):

McNally-Jackson Books (5 locations in New York City) I mostly visit the Rockefeller Center location but have been to several of the others. One of the things I love about these stores is the layout: entire sections dedicated to fiction from various parts of the world. On the second floor of the Rockefeller Center location, there are shelving units (rather than one shelf) not just for fiction from America, Canada, and the UK, but for countries across Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and Pacifica. Of course, they also have the usual genre sections, a ton of non-fiction, and a fun pens-and-journals area.

 

The Open Book (4 locations in Los Angeles area) I’ve only been to the location in Canyon Country/Santa Clarita of this used bookstore chain, but I love it. They have great SF and fantasy sections, an ever-interesting stock of vintage paperbacks and hardcovers, pulp magazines, DVDs, CDs, and vinyl. Last visit, I found some vintage hardcovers of Mission: Impossible, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and The Adventures of Spin & Marty.

So tell me about your favorite Indie Bookstores and where they are. I travel a lot for work, so I’m always happy to find new stores to visit!

Tuesday Top Ten(ish): My Trip to London

I recently took my first trip outside the continental United States (barring one short work trip to the Toronto area 15 or so years ago). I journeyed to London the week of Thanksgiving (in the US). Why there and why then? Well, my friend Paul Spiteri has been inviting me to visit (as he invites lots of people) … and my goddaughter Morgyn was spending the fall semester of her senior year of college over there for an internship. So I thought, “maybe it’s time to take Paul up on his offer AND give Morgyn a family visitor a little bit sooner in the semester (her mom and sister spent 10 days surrounding Christmas with her). So I had two wonderful, knowledgeable tour guides to the city, which eased my anxiety about being in a new place for the first time. (Yes, I know: I travel for a living for my full-time job. I should be used to being in unfamiliar places by now. And yet, 18 years in, I still get various levels of anxiety — and my first international travel by plane certainly added to it.)

My tour guides: Paul and my goddaughter

We packed a ton of stuff into 5 short days, to the point where Paul and I had to sit down and have a recap session over tea and a late-night snack so I wouldn’t forget where we’d been and what we’d seen. We prioritized what I wanted to see/do into three groups, and we got to most of the “1s,” several of the “2s,” and a few places that hadn’t been in the plan but occurred naturally as we wandered. I came home with a head cold / ear infection, some souvenirs, a small handful of books, and toooo many photos that I neglected to post daily to my Instagram. So, to make use of at least a few of those photos and to kick off the TOP TEN(ISH) feature for 2025, here are my Top Ten(ish) Experiences from my London trip, in no particular order:

 

The Wold-Newton Meteor, Natural History Museum

Paul and first met online thanks to our shared interest in the works of science fiction author Philip Jose Farmer. Farmer was the author of biographies of Tarzan (Tarzan Alive) and Doc Savage (Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life), in which he posited that not only were the great heroes and villains of literature actual living people, but also that many of them shared a genetic history that could be tracked back to the first meteor to land in England and be recognized as having come from outer space: the meteor that landed at Wold Cottage in 1795. The village of Wold Newton was too far to make a visit to during my short visit, but the meteor itself is in the Natural History Museum. (But not in the section the guidebook says its in, which was closed for renovations. Thankfully, we found it in a different section.)

 

Jack the Ripper Tour, Whitechapel

Tour guide MP Priestley in the white hat, pointing.

Can’t go to London and not do a Jack the Ripper tour, especially when your goddaughter’s student flat is in Whitechapel! We had a truly fantastic tour guide by the name of MP Priestly. He was supposed to split the group with a coworker, who called out sick. So he took all 40 (or so) of us, adjusting the tour to stop at places where bigger groups could fit. Along the way, we passed at least a half-dozen other such tours. I think we lucked out. Priestley’s style kept the group involved and interested even as he had to adjust for the larger than normal group size. He had copies of his book One Autumn in Whitechapel with him. So of course I bought it (not pictured). He also carried a small projector with him and showed images of the crime scenes (some pretty gory) on building walls.

Boat Ride Down the Thames

Friday was the one day Morgyn was completely free of work and school obligations, so we spent the day walking along the Thames to Westminster (passing the original and new sites of the Globe Theatre, the National Theatre, the Golden Hind, the Clink Museum, the Anchor Pub where Shakespeare likely drank and wrote, and many other such sites), then we boarded a tour boat down the Thames. We got a lot of architectural history delivered by a very witty man who made it clear he was not a tour guide, just a crewman who happened to know a thing or two. Here’s me with the Tower Bridge in the background.

 

Greenwich/Royal Naval College/Royal Observatory/Market

“Legs Astride the Meridian!”

One of my favorite movies is Beautiful Thing (from which stems my longtime crush on Ben Daniels), and one of my favorite lines of dialogue (delivered by said Mr. Daniels) is “Anyone fancy a trip to Greenwich? Legs astride the Meridian, as they say? No? Me neither.” So of course, Morgyn made sure we did the Thames boat tour all the way to Greenwich. We saw the Cutty Sark, we did a quick trip through the Royal Naval College, then did the trek up the hill to the Royal Observatory. The view from up there is fantastic, well worth the shortness of breath. The Observatory is now a museum, filled with fascinating history and artifacts – but for me, the big moment was, you guessed it, standing with my feet astride the Prime Meridian, with Morgyn’s feet facing mine. After we made it back down the hill, we ate a late lunch at a wonderful tavern, and then hit the Greenwich Market, in which I found some British editions of Phil Farmer books, along with the novel Alfred Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry (my father’s favorite Hitchcock film) was based.

 

Baker Street/Praed Street/Slough House

Go to London and not seek out the digs of The Great Detective, The Great Detective’s Protégé, and the great Jackson Lamb? Perish forbid! Thankfully, there’s an actual Holmes Museum with a front door that claims to be 221 Baker Street (geographically, that number is really a few buildings up the block, but whose quibbling?), and what a fun tour that was. So much great Holmes-connected memorabilia. And a very friendly and photogenic (and maybe a bit flirty?) police bobby out front.

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stopped writing Holmes’ adventures (the second time), American author August Derleth asked if he could continue the series. Doyle said no, so Derleth created Solar Pons, a protégé of Holmes and placed his offices at 7 Praed Street. There’s no blue circular plaque denoting the literary importance of the location, but that didn’t stop Paul and I from finding it.

I have become a big fan of Mick Herron’s Slough House books (thanks, like so many, to the very excellent television adaptation starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb). What I thought was just a filming location (126 Aldersgate Street, near the Barbican train station) is actually the building that inspired Herron to write the first book!

 

Peter Pan, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Paddington too

Trying to hit as many landmarks related to my favorite fiction as I could, we had to stop by the Peter Pan stature in Kensington Gardens.

My paternal grandmother’s maiden name was Milne. Until someone proves otherwise, I am content to believe that I am (distantly, at best) related to Christopher Robin. Paul located a house in London where AA Milne lived for a time. No sign of Pooh Bear.

My favorite bear in childhood was Pooh. My sister’s was Paddington. Had to visit Paddington Station and take a photo with the statue (and also buy my sister a Paddington Bear, of course).

 

Sir Richard Francis Burton’s Tomb (Mortlake)

One of the few trips Paul and I took out of the city proper was to the village of Mortlake to see the ornate tomb of Sir Richard Francis Burton, explorer, translator, and subject of a short biography written by Philip Jose Farmer (a fictional Burton also plays a large role in Farmer’s Riverworld books). There is a plexiglass panel at the back through which you can see the caskets of Burton and his wife. Eerie, but cool.

 

Bram Stoker’s Ashes (Golder’s Green)

The other trip outside the city proper that Paul and I took was an absolute must for me: the resting place of Bram Stoker (and his son), in Golder’s Green Crematorium. I didn’t realize you needed an appointment because Stoker’s urn is in a locked building but thankfully groundskeeper Dan (Paul’s new best mate!) showed us around. So many people have been cremated there. I could fill a post just with the plaques and urns we saw (including Sigmund Freud and his wife; Anna Pavlova; Keith Moon and Peter Sellers to name a few. I somehow missed Sir Cedric Hardwicke who starred in some of my favorite Universal horror movies).

 

Abbey Road and the Globe

I mean, again, can you love music, go to London, and not walk the zebra crossing at Abbey Road? And can you be a fan of theatre and not pay a visit to the original site of the Globe Theatre, the current site of the Globe Theatre, and the portrait of William Shakespeare?

 

Sir John Soane’s Museum

Of all the museums we visited (The British Museum, the Natural History Museum, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery), the one I wish we’d had more time in was the less well-known Sir John Soane’s Museum. I’m so glad Paul suggested it, even for the short half-hour we had in there. When Soanes turned his townhouse collection over to the Nation, he stipulated that the building be left as is. Which means nothing in this eclectic collection is labeled, and the basement (where much of the collection is) and certain interior rooms are very dark after the sun goes down … which in London in November is about a half-hour before the Museum closes.

Thanksgiving Dinner

In addition to being a fantastic tour guide, Paul and his wife Claire were veritable saints for hosting me all week, feeding me, and making sure I got on the right trains. On Thursday, while family and friends in the US were celebrating Thanksgiving, Claire cooked a wonderful traditional Thanksgiving dinner and Paul and Claire’s daughters (and soon to be son-in-law) joined us. One of the highlights of a highlight-filled week.

Theater Thursday: Top Ten(ish) Original Broadway Cast Albums

Just for a change of pace, and because I haven’t done a “Top Ten(ish)” post in a while, here are my Top Ten(ish) Original Broadway Cast (OBC) albums.

Yes, it skews heavily towards the 70s-90s. This is not a judgement. There are a lot of current new shows I enjoy songs from. It’s just that I don’t listen to cast albums the way I did back then, so these are the ones that are the most ingrained.

Note: these are my favorites, chosen for emotional/sentimental reasons.

Note 2: cast albums, not live shows. In high school I didn’t have many opportunities to get to Broadway, so cast albums were my only way to experience the shows (other than occasional Great Performances airing on PBS).

So, in no particular order, my Top Ten(ish) Original Broadway Cast albums:

1.      1776.  William Daniels, Ken Howard, Howard Da Silva, Betty Buckley, Ron Holgate … Okay, so I fell in love with the movie version first. My father bought the OBC that summer instead of the movie cast. “Sit Down, John,” “The Egg,” “But Mister Adams,” “The Lees of Old Virginia.” I even took a stab at “He Plays the Violin” (but changed “he” to “she” when anyone was listening as any closeted boy would do back then.

2.      BARNUM. Sorry, Greatest Showman fans. While I’m sure this 1980 musical was no more historically accurate than GS, it’s the Barnum musical I grew up on and will not be supplanted. The odds of it ever coming back to Broadway are infinitesimally smaller now that GS exists, but I guess I can hope for a City Centers Encores! production at some point. This was my first encounter with the wonders that are Jim Dale and Glenn Close.

3.      PIPPIN. Another “Saw the movie first” or rather “saw the film of the stage play on VHS first.” I love that filmed version (with William Katt as Pippin, Chita Rivera as Fastrada, and Martha Raye as Berthe) and was, admittedly, slightly disappointed at first the OBC had other folks in those roles. But I warmed up to them (John Rubenstein, Leland Palmer, Irene Ryan) and wore that vinyl (as with the two above) out.

4.      ASSASSINS. Okay, maybe this is cheating because it was Off-Broadway, but something just clicked with me the first time I heard that cast: Victor Garber, Jonathan Hadary, Terrence Mann, Debra Monk, Lee Wilkof, Greg Germann, Patrick Cassidy, Annie Golden. Dark humor was definitely my jam in 1990.

5.      HAMILTON. I may not listen to OBCs quite the way I used to … but I think the Hamilton OBC was in the CD player of every rental car I got for my work travel in 2016-17. This was probably the last time I so obsessively listened to an OBC album for a show I hadn’t yet seen.

6.      SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET. Another case where I’m almost positive I saw the televised version of the stage play before hearing the cast album, got obsessed, bought the vinyl, played it incessantly. To my mind, there will never be a better Mrs. Lovett than Angela Lansbury, and I’m split as to whether Len Cariou or George Hearn is the better Sweeney. And oh, look … there’s Victor Garber making his second (but not last) appearance on this list.

7.      JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT. Another entry that’s kind of a cheat. Someone gave me a cassette of the 1971 US release of a 1969 Decca Records recording of a 39-minute version of the show, with an all-male (or mostly male) cast including David Daltrey as Joseph and Tim Rice himself as Pharoah. I don’t remember who sang the Narrator, as that cassette tape got worn out and turned out to not be replaceable. Of course, when the OBC album came out, I picked it up. Which was after (I believe) a high school trip to see it.

8.      DOONESBURY. In the early 80s, Garry Trudeau decided it was time for his characters to graduate college, enter the work force, and start aging the way real people (as opposed to comic strip characters) do. To accomplish this … he put them in a Broadway musical. Another show I never got the chance to see, but man did I love this album (which I believe has only ever been issued on vinyl). There’s so many quippy, snarky, at-the-time-topical lyrics. The political stuff was fun, but songs like “Another Memorable Meal” (making fun of Mike’s cooking inability, which I pretty much share), “I Came To Tan” (Zonker’s ode to his tanning career), and “I Can Have It All” (Boopsie’s ode to the modern woman) still take up space rent-free in my brain. Also, the cast included Mark Linn-Baker, Lauren Tom, Gary Beach, Kate Burton, and Keith Szarabajka. Also never revived.

9.      MAYOR. Another Off-Broadway cheat, another show that has never been revived and probably never will be (even for City Center Encores! this would be a stretch), given how precise a look at a certain era of New York City it is. I believe “You Can Be a New Yorker, Too!” is a cabaret favorite amongst the NYC theater set. I also love “Hootspa,” “What You See Is What You Get,” “I Want to Be the Mayor,” and “The Last I Love New York Song.” The original cast included Lenny Wolpe as The Mayor.

10.  CITY OF ANGELS. Oh, look, another Cy Coleman musical that’s never been revived on Broadway. Fairly sure my obsession with this one is my father’s fault. He bought it for the jazzy score and Manhattan Transfer-like “Greek chorus.” I kept it in constant rotation on CD because it was about the golden age of Hollywood and a writer and his private eye creation. My two favorite songs are “You Can Always Count on Me” (which I now love singing a gender-flipped version of) and “Funny,” which was one of the songs my college voice teacher (the late, great Professor Joe Cook) assigned because while I didn’t have faith I could sing it, he did. And I still can. Also, look at that cast: James Naughton, Gregg Edelman, Rene Auberjonois, Randy Graff, Dee Hoty, Kay McClelland, Carolee Carmello.

11.  CHESS. Okay, yes, I know you’re thinking “now you’re really cheating, that’s a concept album!” And I loved that concept album, played the vinyl constantly, pretty much wore out the CD as well – but I also loved (as many people apparently did not), for all its flaws, the OBC cassette tape I had with Phillip Casnoff, Judy Kuhn, David Carroll, and Harry Goz. If nothing else, it was the first time I heard “Someone Else’s Story,” which was not on the concept album; it’s been a favorite song ever since.

12.  CAMELOT. Another one that I came to through the movie. Took me a bit to get used to Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, and Robert Goulet in place of Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, and Franco Nero, but again: I warmed to them quickly enough. And surprise surprise (to me): in the play version, Mordred (played by Roddy McDowall) has a song all about how being naughty is more fun than being good! (“The Seven Deadly Virtues” is not the greatest villain song ever written, but I will choose it every time.)

13.  INTO THE WOODS. A world in which all the fairy tale characters not only co-exist but interact, and some of them are related to each other? I was already a fan of cohesive fictional universes (thanks Edgar Rice Burroughs, Philip Jose Farmer, DC Comics, and Marvel Comics) by the time this musical debuted, and I was smitten from first listen. There have been some excellent revival casts, but give me Chip Zein, Joanna Gleason, Danielle Ferland, Robert Westenberg, Bernadette Peters, Kim Crosby, Ben Wright, and Tom Aldredge any day.

14.  A CHORUS LINE. I mean, when your mother yells at your father to “stop playing that song where the kids can hear!” (I’m looking at you, “Dance Ten / Looks Three”), of course you need to listen to the whole cast album every time she’s not home. (She’d have had apoplexy over certain parts of “Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love” as well, if she’d paid attention). And maybe my obsession with “I Can Do That” should have been a sign of things to come (spoiler alert: not that I’d be a dancer. I can’t dance.)

15.  JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR/GODSPELL. Ending the list on a tie. These two shows are so inextricably linked in my mind not only because they tell the same story from different directions but because songs from each wound their way into our high school chorus and church folk group performances (Yes, I was in the folk group at my Roman Catholic church. Are you shocked?) I may not have listened to either straight through as much as I did the other entries on this list, but those songs were part of the soundtrack to my high school years and after, so I can’t leave them off. (And there’s Victor Garber, showing up for a third time!)

Honorable Mention: OKLAHOMA. My father owned a stack of 78 RPM vinyl, even though the format had long since been discontinued. Among them were the cast albums (plural, yes) of the original Broadway cast of Oklahoma. Alfred Drake, Howard Da Silva, Celeste Holm … I didn’t know who most of them were at that time, but this is probably the earliest Broadway cast album I can recall listening to, so it holds a special place despite not being listened to as much as the others (piling all those thick 78 vinyls up took effort, man!)

 Now, how about hitting comments and letting me know what YOUR favorite Original Broadway Cast Albums are. No judgement! I woke yuck your yum if you don’t yuck mine!

I’ve always loved live theater, and in the past couple of years I’ve been making a stronger effort to see more of it. Theater Thursday is a new occasionally series where I talk about live theater, both shows I’ve seen recently and shows I’ve loved in the past.

BOOKS AND BROADWAY 2024

Every year, I try to make sure my birthday week includes visits to bookstores and to Broadway. But 2024 was the first year my friend Margaret and I did an organized “Books and Broadway Crawl,” focused on indie bookstores in lower Manhattan.

Our trip this year included:

·       10.16 miles of walking,

·       3 PATH and subway rides,

·       2 meals (and 1 snack stop),

·       8 bookstores

·       14 books for me (15 if I include the gift I bought for a friend)

·       1 Broadway show

·       1 jar of pickles

·       A lot of sweat from the 80 degrees (Fahrenheit) weather

·       3 wonderful friends (in addition to my day-long companion)

·       Too many laughs to count

So I figured I’d write a post-Crawl post and provide as many links to the bookstores we visited as I can.

Once we got into the city, I told Margaret my plan to buy one book per bookstore. You’ll see how well I did with that.

Our day started at Bibliotheque (54 Mercer Street), where we had a nice brunch (bacon and egg on a wonderful bun for me, with tea (earl grey, hot … if you know, you know), egg and cheese on a roll for Margaret, and we shared a pain au chocolat as well) followed by some browsing. Knowing my love of all things Macbeth-related, Margaret pointed out a recently released novel called Lady Macbeth, by Ava Reid, which I eagerly grabbed. And I found a hardcover of Peter Beresford Ellis’ Macbeth: King of Scotland 1040 – 1057 in the “rare books” glass cases that was actually not very expensive and so grabbed that as well.

Bacon and egg sandwich, tea, and two books related to Macbeth? The trip was off to a great start! (Interested parties should know that at dinner time, Bibliotheque is also a wine bar, but we weren’t going to be downtown late enough to return…)

We next meandered south/east-ish to The Mysterious Bookshop (58 Warren Street), one of my favorite bookstores ever, anywhere, and one of only three on this trip that I’d been to before, although not in over a year. After some browsing (and picking out a birthday present for a friend), I found Tonight, Somewhere In New York: The Last Stories and an Unfinished Novel by Cornell Woolrich. If you know me, you know that Woolrich is one of those authors I can never read enough of, so buying it was an easy decision. Also picked up an interesting looking mystery by an author I’ve never read before, Kenneth Fearing, called The Big Clock.

Thence it was off to Sweet Pickle Books (47 Orchard Street), where the jar of bread and butter pickles came from. But also Strange Tales from Japan: 99 Chilling Stories of Yokai, Ghosts, Demons, and the Supernatural, collected and retold by Keisuke Nishimoto and translated into English by William Scott Wilson, and Something Nasty in the Woodshed, a mystery by Kyril Bonfiglioli, which I only discovered later in the day is actually the third book in the author’s Charlie Mortdecai series. As with the Fearing book at Mysterious, I bought this based on the cover art and the back cover description, and somehow missed the “third book” indicator on the bottom of the front cover.

The employee working the register at Sweet Pickle heard us mention our book crawl and after we described where we’d been and where we were planning to go, he suggested we visit Bluestocking Cooperative (116 Suffolk Street), NYC’s only queer/trans/sex worker run, employee-owned, bookstore. I only made one purchase there, Bugsy and Other Stories by Rafael Frumkin, but I’m sure I’ll be back for more. (I also made a small donation to their operating fund.)

Thence it was back onto the planned itinerary and off to P&T Knitwear (180 Orchard Street), which after Sweet Pickle I really expected to be selling knitting goods alongside the books. No knitting stuff in sight (although the store’s history connects to a sweater and shirts store in the 1950s), but I did find two books: Tatyana Tolstaya’s post-apocalyptic novel The Slynx and Bolivian author Giovanna Rivero’s short story collection Fresh Dirt from the Grave, translated into English by Isabel Adey.

Next stop was McNally Jackson’s SoHo location (134 Prince Street), which I had never been to. Loved it just as much as the Rockefeller Center location I’ve visited quite a few times (see below). I’ve been meaning to start collecting the British Library’s Tales of the Weird anthology series (because we all know by now just how much I’m a sucker for “trade dress” book series) and decided to finally bite the bullet and pick up Glimpses of Unknown: Lost Ghost Stories and Queens of the Abyss: Lost Stories from the Women of the Weird, both edited by Mike Ashley.

It was time for a breather, something to drink, and a snack. Margaret found Fellini Coffee (120 Thompson Street in SoHo). An iced coffee and Danish for her, an iced chai tea and slice of lemon cake for me, with a water to go … and we were off for our last “lower Manhattan” bookstore.

I’ve been to Three Lives and Company (154 W. 10th Street) several times, and it, like the Mysterious, is one of my favorite indies to visit in NYC. This time, I picked up Don’t Look Now, stories by Daphne Du Maurier (since re-watching The Birds earlier this year I’ve finally be reading an author I’ve previously overlooked) and Rock Crystal, a novella by Austrian/Czech author Adalbert Stifter, translated by Elizabeth Mayer and Marianne Moore, with an introduction by W.H. Auden.

By this point we were ready to not be walking for a while, so we took the subway up to midtown, where we were meeting friends for dinner … but we were an hour early, so we walked over to the McNally Jackson Rockefeller Center location, where I picked up a copy of Sol Yurick’s The Warriors, the novel on which the cult classic 1979 film was based. (It didn’t even occur to me to look for a few more British Library of the Weird titles, even though this is where I first became aware of them.)

Dinner was at Arriba Arriba, one of my favorite Mexican restaurants in NYC (762 9th Avenue) – great food (the fajitas are to die for), great wait-staff. And great company, as I got to introduce my college friends Margaret and David to my writer friends Claire and Carlos.

Then it was time for Margaret and me to head to The Hudson Theater to see Once Upon a Mattress, my review of which will be posted on Thursday.

Lest people wonder why I didn’t visit The Strand, or Forbidden Planet, or The Drama Book Shop: I was at two of the three just a week ago. I picked up a Parke Godwin hardcover I’d been looking for at The Strand (The Tower of Beowulf) and a Macbeth-related script at The Drama Book Shop (macbitches by Sophie McIntosh). And the backpack was heavy enough without also hitting Forbidden or Midtown Comics this trip.

And just to complete the books part of the birthday week: on the Monday of the week, I picked up The God of the Woods by Liz Moore from my local indie, Sparta Books, and on Saturday I paid a visit to Stanza Books in Beacon NY and picked up the new Stephen Graham Jones (I Was a Teenage Slasher) along with Allen Bratton’s modern queer reworking of Shakespeare’s Prince Hal (Henry Henry) and the fourth book in Mick Herron’s Slough House series (Spook Street).

And that completes Books and Broadway 2024! On top of what I picked up at Pulpfest earlier in the month, I have probably TOO MUCH to read … but as a friend often points out, buying books and reading books are two different hobbies.

the birthday week book haul

PULPFEST 2024 Report

Those who follow me on Instagram or are friends with me on Facebook know that I spent this past weekend (actually, 5 days: July 31 to Aug 4) at Pulpfest in Cranberry, Pennsylvania. Pulpfest is a convention dedicated to the pulp magazines of the early 20th century (so called because they were printed on pulp/newsprint paper as compared to the “slick” magazines). It’s a convention I look forward to every year, probably my favorite. (Yes, I also love Readercon, held in Quincey, Massachusetts in July, but for different reasons.)

Before I talk about why I love Pulpfest so much and tell you a bit about this year’s convention, allow me to present you with a photo featuring every pulp magazine I own:

 

Yes, that’s it. Five pulp magazines. One issue of Startling Stories (which happens to include stories by the great Robert Bloch and also John Broome); one issue of Doc Savage (including the novel The Flaming Falcons); three issues of Planet Stories (one of which has a story by Fredric Brown, another of which has a short novel by Gardner F. Fox). And I am perfectly fine with the fact that I only own five pulp magazines, none of them in any salable condition (in fact, they were all gifts from a friend, duplicates of his own collection).

So why go to a convention dedicated primarily to pulp magazines, if I don’t collect pulp magazines?

Camaraderie.

See, Pulpfest is really three conventions in one. While the focus of Pulpfest panels is the preservation of the history of pulp magazines in all their multi-genre splendor (pulps ranged from romance/spicy to horror, adventure, mystery, western, science fiction, fantasy, and probably some genres I’m forgetting, to the “single character” pulps (both heroic, like The Shadow, The Avenger, and Doc Savage, and the villainous, like Doctor Satan.)), they also have welcomed FarmerCon (dedicated to celebrating the work of Philip Jose Farmer) and ERBFest (dedicated to celebrating the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs). And next year (2025), Pulpfest will expand to being “FOUR conventions for the price of one!” with the addition of DocCon, celebrating Doc Savage.

I started going to Pulpfest because of FarmerCon. I’d been online friends for quite a few years with a group of fans of Philip Jose Farmer and was finally convinced to meet them in person when Pulpfest relocated from Columbus, Ohio to Pittsburgh (Cranberry) Pennsylvania around 2018. I could (and will, one of these days) write an entire post, or even series of posts, about how Phil Farmer’s books (most notably, his fictional biographies of Tarzan and Doc Savage) inspired and intrigued me. Among the group of Farmer fans, I am easily the least knowledgeable about Farmer and his works. But that’s okay, they don’t hold it against me. They welcomed me with open arms, and I absorb their knowledge (and their book recommendations and writing advice) eagerly. These people have become more than friends (and far more than just online acquaintances) over these past few Pulpfest/FarmerCons.

Many of the FarmerCon folks are also big fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs – another relatively early influence on me (thanks in part to an adult neighbor who lent me some of the novels after seeing me reading some Marvel and DC Tarzan and John Carter of Mars comics), and another author about whom I am the least knowledgeable among our friend group when we gather. (See above for why I’m fine with that.) This year, it was decided to hold an ERBFest as part of Pulpfest, including the 2024 Dum Dum Banquet (if you’re fan of the Tarzan books, you know why it’s called that).

Many of the FarmerCon and ERBFest folks are also big fans of Doc Savage. You see where this is going – lather, rinse, repeat the above.

I LOVE (yes, in all caps) just hanging out and talking with all of these people in the hotel lobby until way later than is healthy for me, as well as attending panels and dinners and wandering the dealers’ room having conversations with the people I know, and people I’ve never met before. I usually don’t stop smiling and laughing the whole time I’m there unless I’m sleeping. These folks are “good medicine,” as my father used to say.

The panels I attended this year included:

·       “The Women of Edgar Rice Burroughs,” where panelists Cathy Mann Wilbanks (Vice-President of Operations at Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc.) and Bernice Jones discussed both the real women in Burroughs’ life (his mother, daughter, and two wives) and the strong, independent, progressive-for-the-time women in his fiction (Jane Porter Clayton, wife of Tarzan; Dejah Thoris, wife of John Carter of Mars; Duare, wife of Carson of Venus; Maggie Lynch, the main character of Burroughs’ novel The Girl From Farris’s; and many others). If there was one complaint from the attendees, it was that the panel wasn’t long enough to cover all of the strong, capable female characters Burroughs created (notable absences: Meriem, wife of Korak (son of Tarzan); Betty Caldwell and Llana of Gathol (from the John Carter books); and Virginia Maxon (from Burroughs’ The Monster Men).

·       “Flinch!Fest,” focused on current and recent releases from small press publisher Flinch! Books, during with Flinch co-publishers Jim Beard and John C. Bruening read passages from their stories in the western anthology Six Gun Legends, Bruening’s novel The Midnight Guardian: Gods and Sinners, and the Flinch anthology Quest for the Space Gods: The Chronicles of Conrad von Honig, which led into panel guest Brian K. Morris reading from the newest Flinch release, Quest for the Delphi Occulus, which Morris wrote for the press and which also features Conrad von Honig.

·       “The Universe According to Edgar Rice Burroughs,” during which ERB Inc Vice-President of Operations Cathy Mann Wilbanks and Vice-President of Publishing / Creative Director Christopher Paul Carey were joined by Joe Ferrante, one of the producers of the upcoming John Carter of Mars: the Audio Series (currently funding on Kickstarter), to discuss the audio project (including a video message from Sean Patrick Flannery, who will be voicing John Carter)  before launching into announcements of the next slate of ERB Universe books (including a new Land That Time Forgot novel, Fortress Primeval, by Mike Wolfer in 2025, as well as the very soon to release A Princess of Mars: Shadows of the Assassins by Ann Tonsor Zeddies (the first full length Dejah Thoris novel) and several projects featuring Victory Harben), as well as the next slate of books in the Edgar Rice Burroughs Authorized Library.

·       “Farmercon XIX Panel,” moderated by Keith Howell, during which Meteor House Press publishers Paul Spiteri and Win Scott Eckert discussed the recent Meteor House releases of The Full Account (which combines, in alternating chapters, Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days with Philip Jose Farmer’s The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, which tells the same story from a different, more science fictional, angle) and the Secrets of the Nine Omnibus (which brings together under one cover Farmer’s A Feast Unknown, The Mad Goblin, and Lord of the Trees, as well as some connected short stories and essays by Eckert, Frank Schildiner, and others). They were joined by Meteor House author Sean Lee Levin, who talked about his non-fiction release Crossovers Expanded: The Secret History of the World Volume 3 as well as his fiction debut chapbook The Lazarus Cabal.

Sadly, due to my own poor scheduling, I had to miss several panels, including “Burroughs, Farmer, and Pulp,” in which author Craig McDonald interviewed one of my favorite artists, Douglas Klauba, about his work on various book covers for Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc and Meteor House. I would have loved to listen to Doug talk about his process.

I also got to see the world premiere of We Are Doc Savage, a documentary about Doc Savage fandom directed by Ron Hill, which will soon be making the film festival rounds. I readily admit I teared up several times, and finished the documentary thinking not only how wonderful Doc Savage fandom is in general and how the Doc Savage stories have influenced so many people but also thinking “Damn, I know some really incredibly cool and wonderful people,” since so many of my friends were interviewed for the film.

And of course, I bought stuff. Too much stuff. No pulps, but a lot of paperbacks, some hardcovers, two art prints (one by Doug Klauba, the other by Mark Wheatley), some comics, and a small pile of DVDs. On the vintage paperback side, I made progress filling in some series I’m re-collecting (including Dark Shadows and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) and started (and possibly completed) two more (Strange Paradise and Mathew Swain). I also found a first edition hardcover of the novelization of Miracle on 34th Street. And I bought current releases from the tables of small press publishers Flinch! Books, Becky Books, Stormgate Press, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., and Meteor House, as well as from authors Craig McDonald and Brian K. Morris. If you’d like to see pictures of everything I purchased, head on over to my Instagram page.

I could go on and on about the dinner time and late-night conversations; there were SO MANY in-jokes, and so many instances of just basking in friends talking about the things they love. But this post is already way longer than my usual.

Pulpfest 2024 is over … but Pulpfest 2025 (including Farmercon XX, ERBFest, and DocCon!) is a mere 53 weeks away: Thursday, August 7th through Sunday, August 10th, 2025, at the Doubletree by Hilton in Cranberry, PA. Join us!

Macbeth Monday: WHY?

It is no secret that Macbeth is my favorite play by Williams Shakespeare. I will see every live production I can. I have many of the filmed versions on DVD (but not all, especially if you include all the pastiches and “based loosely on…” films). I have comic book and graphic novel adaptations, and more novels and non-fiction books about both the real King Macbeth and Shakespeare’s version than I have ever managed to read.

But if I’m being honest … I have no idea when my obsession with this Shakespeare work started.

 Most of my lifelong pop culture obsessions I can trace back to my father. His love of classic black and white horror films and Abbott and Costello led to my love of all things connected to Dracula. His love of musicals (Broadway and film) and classic Disney (animated and live action) led to my love of all things Arthurian (thanks to the Broadway cast album and movie versions of Camelot and the Disney animated classic The Sword in the Stone). My wildly diverse musical taste (Barbershop Quartet to hard rock)? My love of slapstick comedy and fast-talking comedy duos? My continuing to root for the Mets and the Giants despite rarely watching sports on television anymore? All Dad’s fault.

But Macbeth? Not sure I can toss the credit/blame his way on this one. He was not a fan of Shakespeare (except when there was a musical connection, as in Kiss Me, Kate). Yes, he and his brothers were first-generation Americans of Scots descent (both of my paternal grandparents came from Scotland as adults). But he never seemed to care about his Scots heritage (possibly because of bad blood between him and my grandfather, who passed when I was young), so I doubt Macbeth would have come up in that context.

I can’t even remember when I first encountered the play. I know it was before we studied it in high school. It may have been in the 1937 leatherbound edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare published by Walter J. Black, given to me in middle school by my Aunt Frances (who was not from the Scots side of the family), but did middle school me really randomly flip through the book and chance upon Macbeth some 1,100 pages in? I guess it’s possible. Or maybe it was a random Saturday or Sunday viewing of Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, his adaptation of Macbeth, on one of the local NYC television stations that filled weekend airwave hours with badly-dubbed Japanese martial arts and monster movies (another fave of my father’s, leading to my lifelong Kaiju affection) and occasionally threw in more high-brow dubbed fare.

The first live production I remember seeing was a touring company of British actors that came to Mahopac High School my senior year (or maybe it was junior). What I remember most about that production was that men played the Three Witches, something I’d previously only seen done in the comedy of Monty Python, Flip Wilson, the Carol Burnett Show, etc... In hindsight, it seems there wasn’t much memorable about the performance other than that it was the first time I saw Macbeth live. It certainly wasn’t the last.

Okay, so don’t remember my first encounter with the play, and only vaguely remember the first live production I saw. But the title of this post is “Why Macbeth?” As in, why is it my favorite?

Young me was definitely obsessed with the supernatural elements: the Witches, the visions, the ghost of Banquo! And probably a bit with the bloodshed as well. But definitely the supernatural elements. Middle school was also when I was becoming obsessed with Dracula and read Bram Stoker’s novel for the first time, and when my love of all things Arthurian was also ramping up (most of my classmates didn’t really like reading “Gawain and the Green Knight,” but man did I love it, because supernatural doings!) The more supernatural, the better!

But while those scenes remain favorites and are looked forward to every time I see the show, I’ve also come to appreciate Shakespeare’s depth of character in all the leads (Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo, and Macduff), and how they respond to prophecy and to plain fact. Even though The Bard was writing several hundred years before the British historian Lord Acton penned his famous phrase about power, I do think that Shakespeare was delving into the concept that “power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Macbeth starts the play as a loyal Thane, confused by why the Witches would address him with titles beyond his scope. It takes him a while to come around to the idea of murdering Duncan; he vacillates mightily before agreeing to do the deed. But it’s all downhill from there. Even having murdered his predecessor, he could still have been a good King, lived a repentant life – but once he has the power, he becomes paranoid and controlling, obsessed with the idea of a legacy the Witches promised to someone else. Corrupt. While at the same time, his wife descends into mental illness, depression, and suicide. Lady Macbeth’s move from enabler and co-conspirator to guilt-wracked sleepwalker is as moving as her husband’s shift from loyal Thane to genocidal despot. And in my mind, there is no doubt that they love each other deeply, from start to finish. I am NOT a fan of Shakespeare’s romances (Romeo & Juliet: ugh) but I think he manages to make it clear Macbeth and his Lady do love each other, which enables us to wonder: in different circumstances, what kind of power couple could they have been?

In his fantastic one-man show All the Devils Are Here, the actor Patrick Page traces Shakespeare’s development of the concept of the villain. Macbeth is of course included in the show. In a talk-back with the audience after the performance I saw in December 2023, Page said something that made me view Macbeth in yet another light. Responding to a question about how he finds his way into playing so many villainous roles, Page said that his first question is always “what does this person ultimately want?” And, he said, for Macbeth that is to overcome his fears. He’s afraid of the Three Witches, so he meets them head-on. He’s afraid of killing Duncan, so he does it. He’s afraid of losing the power he’s gained, so he has more people killed to protect it. He’s afraid of death, so when confronted with Macduff, not “of woman born,” but “ripped untimely from his mother’s womb,” Macbeth cries “Lay on, Macduff, and damned be he who first cries ‘hold, enough.’” I had never looked at the character, or the arc of the play, from that perspective before: conquering one’s fears.

I am also intrigued by the staging and costuming choices made by each new production. I’ve seen the show performed in “authentic” Scots dress of the period Macbeth takes place in (roughly 1040, when the real Macbeth reigned), in the dress of Shakespeare’s time, in Russian military uniforms of the Cold War, in modern dress, and more. Each choice brings distinct aspects of the script, and its relationship to our current day obsessions with power, wealth, destiny, and legacy, to light.

So. Why do I love Macbeth so much? There’s no one reason. I love the supernatural aspects, I love the commentary on power and motivation and guilt and paranoia, I love the power of the soliloquies. I also love that Shakespeare gave us what might have been the first written “alternate history” (because he knew darn well that his history of Duncan, Macbeth, and company was nowhere near the real history) with speculative fiction aspects – which might need to be the subject of a future Macbeth Monday post.

Do you also love Macbeth? Why or why not? And if not – what is your favorite Shakespeare play?

 

It is no secret that my favorite Shakespeare play is Macbeth. I’ve lost count of how many live productions of it I’ve seen, plus movie and TV versions I own in various formats, not to mention all the novels, graphic novels, and non-fiction books. Macbeth Monday is intended to be an occasional feature on the blog where I discuss whatever version or aspect of the story catches my attention at a particular moment.

There’s currently only one previous Macbeth Monday post, about Drunk Shakespeare NYC’s production. But I also posted my thoughts on Patrick Page’s All the Devils Are Here in a recent Theater Thursday post.