Invading Mars

The first thing that strikes any Earthling visiting Mars for the first time is that Mars is old. The seas and lush vegetation of its youth have given way to anemic canals and barren rock and sand. Many of its canal cities are more ancient than Sumer--and even these are young compared to the ruins that dot the dust-choked wastes.

The Great Powers of Earth came to Mars hoping steal knowledge and wealth from the dying world. It was the first planet to be conquered with the arrival of the Age of Space and with good reason. The 1898 invasion that had nearly ended the human race had come from the red planet, after all. When man mastered the psychic technologies of the Invaders, it was only natural to want to strike back.

The Invaders weren’t actually from Mars, of course. That had only been a staging point. But the old canal cities of the true Martians had been waystations for space travelers in the past, and they still held ancient secrets. In the arid wastes there were underground complexes, the abandoned redoubts of ancient Martian civilization, constructed when they burrowed in to survive their world growing inhospitable. These subterranean ruins contain treasures both magical and mundane.

Treasure-hunters, thieves, and spies flock to the colonial cities. The British and French have governmental presences and peacekeeping forces. The Americans are represented by soldiers of fortune and freewheeling traders. The Russians are divided between White Russian spies, dreaming of a czarist resurgence, and Communist agitators, looking to make Mars more Red. German agents of the Nazi Ahnenerbe or the more shadowy Vril Society search out secrets for their mysterious “Aryan” masters in Agartha.

The Martians themselves tolerate these new invaders like all the others over the millennia. The canal and Lowland dwellers are generally solicitous and eager for Earth coin--though there are occasional small scale uprisings, and always there are rumors of murderous cults that wish to purge Mars of alien influences. The grim highlanders, however, seldom recognize colonial authority. They act as bandits and are often organized around fanatical ghazaerai monks.

Post-Apocalypitc Drive-In

Pull in at A Field Guide to Doomsday (remember to let your ticket-dodging friends out of the trunk) and get ready for Devastation at the Drive-In--a free pdf collection of posts by Justin Davis fashioning Mutant Future monsters from shlocky films:

Your Blood Will Chill...When faced with the Cinderkid from The Children (1980).
You'll Feel A Bit Unconformtable...As you learn the horrible truth of the Fangbaby from It's Alive (1974).
You'll Be Confused...By the Bleast from God Monster of Indian Flats (1974).
You'll Be Amused...By the improbability of the Ro-Man from Robot Monster (1953).

Check it out at Justin's site.  Bring your own popcom.

Veterans Day

In honor of Veterans Day here are a few of comics' stellar servicemen...

Where else to begin, but with Sargeant Joe Rock? The Rock of Easy Company fought his way through World War II--and beyond.  Brave and the Bold #108 had him teaming up with Batman to take on the Devil.

Captain Simon Savage may not be as well known as Sgt. Rock or Sgt. Fury, but he also led an eccentric commando squad known as the "Leatherneck Raiders." Those soldiers knew how to surf--which puts them one up on the Howlin' Mad Commandos.

Captain Ulysses "Gravedigger" Hazard outdoes them all.  He overcame polio and racism to become a one-man special forces unit and even led Easy Company briefly--but only after he broke into the Pentagon just to prove himself!

Happy Veterans Day to all the nonfictional veterans, too.

Beneath Rock Candy Mountain

It’s imparted by the sagacious urban druids that contemplate on street corners and rumored by stoned hobogoblins that pass canned heat ‘round campfires that there is an earthly paradise hidden in the great mountains of the West. The wondrous land’s fame has even spread to the world we know, where balladeers longingly recount the virtues of the Rock Candy Mountain or the Hobo’s Paradise.

The hidden mountain valley (so the tales claim) sits in the benevolent shadow of a mountain of candy (or at least with the appearance of such) and boasts trees which grow cigarettes, whiskey running in streams, and ponds of hearty stew. The inhabitants of the valley comport themselves like those in small towns elsewhere, but they are unfailingly friendly, even deferential, to the lowliest of visitors—perhaps especially the lowliest. No crimes against property are prosecuted; in fact, everything is given freely.

Adventurers, notorious hard cases (or thinking of themselves as such), scoff at those yarns. Calloused to eldritch horrors and exotic treasures alike, they’re disinclined to get misty over vagrants’ fairy tales of a hobotopia. Still, a few have caught the fever and gone looking over the years. As far as is known, none have returned.

Even in the tales, the way to the Hobo’s Paradise isn’t easy. Though the trail’s exact location is unknown, it’s believed to run treacherously through the cold heights of the Stoney Mountains. Mine slavers and road agents haunt the lower parts of the trail, while apemen guard the more remote passes.

These may not be the only dangers. Certain heterodox urban druids believe that this Paradise may not be what it appears from a distance. The air that should be fresh and sweet is instead choked with the stench of an abattoir. The whiskey streams are spiked with methanol and cause blindness, delirium, and death. And the smiling, wooden-legged constables and comic railyard bulls, aren’t benevolent—and aren’t even human behind their skin masks.

Could be that more than teeth rot in the shadow of the Rock Candy Mountain.

For the Garrisons at the Old School Heretic family of blogs.

Warlord Wednesday: Curse of the Unicorn

Let's re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"Curse of the Unicorn"

Warlord (vol. 1) #72 (August 1983)

Written by Cary Burkett; Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Dan Adkins

Synopsis:  Morgan and Shakira arrive in the real Castle Deimos in the after passing through Jennifer’s magic mirror portal.  She’s glad keeping it open all this time paid off and allowed two to get home.

Morgan plans to tell her about the somewhat grim future they visited, but first he just wants to rest.  Fate has other plans however, as something comes through the still-open portal:

Trying to stay out of its way, Shakira is scratched by the unicorn’s horn. The creature bolts down a hallway.  Morgan, laughing at the absurdity it all, doesn’t notice another visitor following behind.  Morgan fights with the tall stranger while he yells at Jennifer to close the damn portal.

Morgan gets the upper hand, but the stranger isn’t giving up.  Finally, Jennifer puts him to sleep with a spell. 

They’d like to send him back to his own world, so Jennifer plans to enter his mind like she did with Rostov to find out where he came from.  While she’s preparing, Shakira in cat-form (miffed at being laughed at) scratches Morgan on the leg.

Ignoring them, Jennifer enters the strangers mind and gets his story:

The gifts even included the hand of the chief's daughter, Lianthe.

Unfortunately, Wynah Hunnuh's happiness didn’t last long.  He returned from a hunting trip to find everyone in his village dead.  The old chief lingered long enough to tell him that the unicorn he captured brought a plague.

Waynah Hunnuh built a pyre for his people.  He vowed to avenge them by hunting and slaying the animal responsible for their deaths.  He surrendered his old name and becomes Scarhart, the name without a tribe.

The hunt wasn’t easy.  He tracked the beast deep into the enchanted forest of Vulnicarn, and ultimately through a strange waterfall—which Jennifer surmises is a portal just like her mirror.

Suddenly, Shakira falls ill and collapses.  The unicorn’s contagion was passed to her when it scratched her!  Luckily, Jennifer has a plan that might save her:

Morgan rushes out to track the unicorn and bring it back alive.  Reading its tracks, he finds the beast is heading back to the Terminator, the band of darkness at the border of Skartaris.

Meanwhile, Jennifer is so intent on tending Shakira, she doesn’t notice Scarhart awaken.  He knocks her unconscious and makes his escape.  He has a quest to fulfill and plans to let no one stop him from killing the unicorn.  Like Morgan, he quickly picks up the animal's trail into darkness.

A distance ahead, Morgan follows the animal into a grove of weird plants.  He wonders how they grow here without sunlight.  Then, he finds out when he sees the unicorn struggling in their tendrils: They're carnivorous!

Morgan frees the unicorn, but now he’s in the plant’s grasp.  He manages to mortally wound it, but he’s still held in its death grip and blacks out out from the struggle. 

From a ridge above, Scarhart clutches his tomahawk and watches the battle…

Things to Notice:

• This is the first issue written by someone whose last name isn't Grell.
• The Terminator is so dark here Morgan needs a torch.  Previously, its generally been portrayed as a land of eternal twilight.

Where It Comes From:
This first non-Grell penned issue of Warlord features a Grell staple: the unicorn.  Unicorns have played a role in issue #3 and issue #12.

In a bit of irony (perhaps intentional), the story has a plague coming from world with pseudo-Native American culture to world with a pseudo-European feel, reversing history.

Images from the City

More weird things from the City...

The wizard was rich, eccentric--and dead.  His house awaited adventurers' brave enough to try to seize what treasure he had left behind.  The fresh bodies decorating the facade were only a mild deterrant.

The Hissmen sort of resembled gatormen, but they were much smarter and more dangerous. The attacks ended as mysteriously as they started. What they did with the humans they took back to their subterranean world, no one every discovered.

No one would have guessed the unassuming old lady was a witch. That’s before her dollhouses with their ritual dioramas--each room replicating (and causing) a recent murder--were found.

City officials were never happy with the public danger the monster trade represented, but of course, mail order businesses presented a question of jurisdiction.

The Bestiary and Bill

Tim’s post about monster manuals over at Gothridge Manor got me to thinking about an interesting monster book from back in the day: The Bestiary (1986) from Bard Games. It was part of the “Atlantean Trilogy” which included The Lexicon (a setting book) and The Arcanum (a rule book). The Bestiary was co-written by Stephan Michael Sechi (creator of Talislanta) and, most interestingly, featured art by then popular comics artist Bill Sienkiewicz:


The stats were for the Arcanum system but that was close enough to AD&D at a glance that conversion wasn’t too difficult.

The Bestiary separated the stats and fluff--and it gave quite a bit of fluff, which was written “in world.” While this isn’t fashionable in some circles these days, it did allow most of the book to perhaps function as a reference for players.  Kind of a unique approach.

Warlord Wednesday: Gateway to Doom

Before we move into the post-Grell issues of DC Comic's Warlord, let's re-enter the lost world of... 1982, and examine Warlord's first annual. The earlier installments of my issue by issue review can be found here...

"Gateway to Doom"

Warlord Annual #1 (1982)

Written & Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Rodin Rodriguez

Synopsis: 
Morgan and Shakira rescue a haughty Princess Alisandre and a well-meaning, but inept minstrel, Tristan, from savage sub-men. The princess and her entourage was on the way from Kalabas to Groniko where she is to wed King Marselus.

Morgan points out the sub-men didn’t attack for no reason, but because the group blundered into a holy site. He shows the two the ancient Atlantean ruins and the remnants of the technology wielded by the sub-men’s ancestors.

Alisandre is utterly uninterested in the lesson in humility Morgan’s trying to teach. She does, however, recognize a minstrel doesn’t cut it as a guard, and offers to pay Morgan to help them. Morgan agrees, but tells them he’s up for no nonsense:

Offended, Alisandre pulls a dagger to stick in Morgan’s back, but that just gets her a scratching from Shakira’s claws. The princess gets even more indignant when Morgan tells her she’s got to leave most of her belongings behind so they can travel light. Before they go, Shakira (in human form) gets into a little scuffle with the princess:

The group begins their travels, Alisandre with a sore behind, and lovestruck Tristan doting on her. Shakira and Morgan decide to help poor Tristan out. They throw a small lizard into the pool where Alisandre is bathing so Tristan can rescue her from it. That doesn’t turn out so well:

While Morgan’s killing the bigger reptile, soldiers in horned helms are kidnapping Alisandre to give her to “Tarantis.” Our heroes track her to the fortress city of Doomgate, but Shakira doesn’t think the chances of a rescue are good:

Despite that dire prediction, the three sneak in as entertainers. While Shakira and Tristan perform, Morgan goes looking for Alisandre. He finds her, but in trying to find their way out of the maze of tunnels, they take the wrong one:

They manage to get by the spider Tarantis, but it gives chase. Morgan manages to eventually make it follow him through the narrow space between two stone columns. It’s bulk breaks them and the giant statue they supported seems to stomp Tarantis as it topples.

The group is reunited and make their escape. Outside the city, Morgan can’t take it anymore and gives Alisandre a lecture on how she treats Tristan. She’s touched, but explains to Tristan the realities of the world:

The group arrives in Groniko, and Alisandre gets to meet her betrothed for the first time:

Things to Notice:

• This is the first annual, but an editorial at the end tries to make the case that "annual events" have been occuring in Warlord since the beginning.
• Tristan is so smitten with Princess Alisandre he misses Shakira's flirting.

Notes:

It's hard to know where this issue occurs specifically in the Warlord chronology.  The unofficial Warlord Index places it between issue #54 and #55, but I'm unable to find anything in the issue that argues for specific placement there.  All we can say is that it probably occurs sometime during Morgan's second wanderings with Shakira, before he is reunited (again) with Tara and saves Jennifer from Deimos.

Hobogoblin Garbage Kings

The City generates a lot of garbage, and most of it goes to the expansive Klaw Island landfill. Marshy Klaw Island has always had a sparse human population, but the coming of the landfill with its hills of garbage and pits of refuse has drawn gangs of hobogoblins.

The hobogoblins have divided up into tribes with zealously guarded territories. They mine the garbage for usable (and saleable) items. Hobogoblin “alchemists” have become adepted and making various minor potions with the most dubious of alchemical wastes, and can distill hooch from virtually anything organic.

The hobogoblins must defend their holdings from monsters of various sorts, attracted to the waste. They’ve been able to train giant rats as guard animals to protect their settlements from giant insects, aggressive fungi, or hungry otyughs. In years past, inbred wererat clans sometimes contested the hobogoblin hegemony, but periodic eradication and vaccination campaigns by City sanitation officials seemed to have sharply curtailed (if not eradicated) nyfitsanthropy on the island.

Hobogoblin legends tell of the first and greatest of the landfill kingdoms, Wastenot, a scrap Atlantis now sunk beneath the brackish waters of Lake Zathogua. Hubris of the swells in Wastenot led to neglect of due tribute to the beast of the lake, and all of Wastenot’s “grandeur” was pulled down by pale and vengeful tentacles in a single night.

Gormenghast...with Pictures

I got home Friday to find the months-delayed Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy from Overlook Press waiting at my front door.  For you Mervyn Peake fans out there (and I know there are some of you!): It was worth the wait.  It's a handsome hardcover volume with an introduction by Michael Moorcock and illustrations by the author himself.  Like Swelter here:

One might wish for more professional illustrations, I suppose (Charles Vess, or the like, maybe) but seeing Peake's concepts of his own characters is great. 

For those unfamiliar with Peake or Gormenghast, here's bit of tease from the publisher:

"Enter the world of Gormenghast. The vast crumbling castle to which the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, is Lord and heir. Titus is expected to rule this Gothic labyrinth of turrets and dungeons, cloisters and corridors as well as the eccentric and wayward subjects. Over the course of these three novels--Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus Alone --Titus must contend with a kingdom about to implode beneath the weight of centuries of intrigue, treachery, manipulation and murder."

There's also an official Mervyn Peake website here with more insights into the author and his works, including Gormenghast.

Two-Fisted Monsters

White Wolf gave us monsters as protagonists, but they wound up being so angsty. For the more pulp minded gamer--who likes they’re vampires more Dracula Lives! than Interview with the Vampire--here are some monstrous inspirations:

A bruiser made from dead bodies is pretty pulpy already, but Mark Wheatley combined Mary Shelley’s brainchild with crime fiction, creating Frankenstein Mobster. Grant Morrison’s version of the monster is sort of a pulp adventurer in Seven Soldiers of Victory and now appearing monthly in Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. In the 1977 novelette "Black as Pit, From Pole to Pole" Waldrop and Utley have the monster wandering into a Pellucidar-esque Hollow Earth.

Werewolves have shown up as bikers and Nazis. Dan Brereton’s Nocturnals gives us a two-fisted scientist who suffers from werewolfism (as the Comics Code would have it) leading a team of monsters. Marvel’s Man-Wolf winds up a modern wolf-man in a Medieval fantasy world as Stargod.

Dracula gets into all sorts of historical adventures in the aforementioned Dracula Lives! reprinted in Essential Tomb of Dracula, vol. 4 (tragically, without the two encounters with Solomon Kane!). Forever Knight gave us a vampire police detective. Nancy Collins’s Sam Hell, the Dark Ranger, is an Old West vampire fighting supernatural menaces in “Hell Come Sundown.” Of course, Kate Beckinsale as a werewolf-hunting vampire (in tight leather) in a sort of action riff on Romeo and Juliet still might be a little angsty, but I'll mention it anyway.  Mainly for the tight leather.

I bet with a little digging I could think of something for the mummy--but start with those and the get those creatures on the loose.

Warlord Wednesday: The Journey Back

Let's re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"The Journey Back"

Warlord (vol. 1) #71 (July 1983)

Written by Mike Grell (Sharon Grell); Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Bob Smith

Synopsis:  In Castle Deimos in the Skartaris we know, Jennifer Morgan keeps a vigil at her magic mirror, holding open the portal in the hopes that her father and Shakira will make it home. We see a crystal ball among decorations in her sorcerous laboratory (which may be important later).

In future Australia, Morgan and Shakira make their way on horseback across the Outback to the southern coast. Morgan figures the best way back to their time is in the inner earth, even though the colonized and heavily populated Skartaris of this age isn’t the one they know. He thinks they’ll need a boat to Antarctica, but when they get there they find a connecting bridge has been built, leading right to the inner earth. They head down to a trading post to book passage.

When Morgan pays in gold coins, the clerk gets suspicious he might be a “mutie” and calls the law. Morgan shoplifts a few things off the shelves and takes off before the cops arrive. On horseback, our heroes race through the town and onto the bridge. Morgan knows the authorities will just be waiting on the other side. He formulates a plan…

On the distal end of the causeway, two border guards in a flier have already been alerted to our heroes’ presence. They swoop in to arrest them. With a little transformation trick, Shakira and Morgan get the drop on them:

They commandeer the flier:

Morgan flies okay, but they hadn’t counted on defenses. Other fliers come after them and they’re shot down. They try to make a run for it, but the guards shoot Morgan, knocking him unconscious.

He awakens, still groggy, to find himself with Shakira behind a dumpster near a house. The guards are still out looking for them. Shakira climbs through an open window and—finding the owner inside—threatens him with Morgan’s pistol.

Luckily, the guy speaks Skartarian, and even more luckily, he’s a medic. He’s able to bandage Morgan’s wound and give him a transfusion. He tells them his name is Gyre, and mistakes them for members of some militant Skartarian faction.

They tell Gyre they need to get to Castle Deimos to meet someone and (surprisingly) he knows the place! But is Morgan well enough for travel?

They hail a flying taxi and take it through the streets of an utterly transformed Skartaris to Castle Deimos…

The old castle has been turned into a troop outpost and all the equipment inside removed. Feeling defeated, Morgan thinks they might as well go in and have a drink. About “4 Bourbons later” Shakira notices something—a crystal ball just like the one in Jennifer’s sanctum. Gyre tells them it’s from the actually Castle Deimos, like of the decorations.

At that moment, the television news report declares Morgan a mutant fugitive. The bar crowd starts to get ugly. Then, Shakira notices something else:

The mirror over the bar is Jennifer’s magic mirror! Our heroes leap through and arrive back in their own time.

Things to Notice:

• This is the first issue with a cover by someone other than Grell.
• The letter column of this issue features a letter by a Matt Brandal who says he's a Dungeon Master in "Dungeons and Dragons" and he's used Morgan's adventures as adventures in his game, because his player's don't read Warlord.
• Amazingly the magic mirror portal stayed open over centuries.  They just don't build them like that anymore.

Notes:
This is the last Grell penned issue of Warlord of this volume.  It would be nearly a decade before he writes the character again.

I'd Play That Game

I think this would make a great incident in a weird (or just slightly quirky) Western game.  Note that ol' "Rail Splitter" Abe seems to have chosen to take on Scalphunter in the oval office--meaning he's wrestling in an official capacity.

Done...

With the Weird Adventures manuscript, at least.  There's still some proofing, layouts, and minor (hopefully) edits to be done, of course, but since those things have been proceeding apace, there's actually not much of that left either, barring something unforseen.

It looks like it will come out between 140-150 pages, based on the number of words, and depending on how illustrations fit in, and the like.  Over 100 pages have been layed out so far.

So thanks to everyone for their patience and continued support!  I'm glad to be able to say the wait is nearly over.



 

Pop Quiz

Somehow this middle school City History Quiz circa 5888 slipped between dimensions and into my possession.  Number two pencils ready? 

Answers below...

1. C: Wychwire was so charismatic people often didn't notice the "irregularity" of his left lower appendage.  A cast of his hoofprint is on display at the City Historical Museum.

2. A: Who would give a vorpal sword away? And the Natives were unlikely to want Dwergen brides.

3. D. I'd like to think he reconsidered his frugalness in his last moments--but maybe not.

4. C. The "Golem of Capitalism" was reportedly gold-plated and had the head of a bull--or so the folk song goes.

5. A. There's a fanciful statue commemorating that sagacious serpent in Eldside Park.

Warlord Wednesday: The Outback

Let's re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"The Outback"

Warlord (vol. 1) #70 (June 1983)

Written by Mike Grell (Sharon Grell); Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Bob Smith

Synopsis: Outside a compound in the Australian Outback in a post-apocalyptic future, a woman with a rifle has the drop on Shakira and Morgan, who she thinks are “muties.” She hasn’t anticipated Shakira’s shape-changing abilities, however, and our heroes quickly get the drop on her.

Morgan proves their good intentions by returning her rifle to her. Still wary but willing to take a chance, the woman invites them back to the compound. There, they meet her male companion Dan and find out her name is Lisa.

Morgan and Shakira introduce themselves. Dan asks if Morgan is “named after the famous one.” Morgan doesn’t know how to respond to that.

Sitting in the couple’s retro-futuristic living room, Morgan asks them to catch him up on the major events since the Vietnam War. Lisa thinks he’s playing a game with them and leaves Dan to tell them while she feeds the livestock. Dan begins by explaining it wasn’t war (as Morgan had supposed) that caused the devastation, but instead toxic waste! The manufacture of the nuclear arsenals of the major powers that made war unthinkable slowly poisoned the earth. By 2089, the earth was nearing the end of human habitability.

The U.S. government had forseen this outcome for decades, and as far back as the sixties, had began planning for escape to another planet. In 1972, another option presented itself: a U.S. Navy expedition found the North Polar opening to Skartaris. In 2089, after the polar ice caps receded and the environment was in an advanced state of deterioration, the U.S. announced its 1972 discovery to the UN.

A committee was established to determine quotas for each nation. Within a year, the greatest migration in human history began. Those outside the quotas were left to live in a nightmarish world. The descendants of those who survived are mutated and primitive.

Meanwhile, in the inner earth, the native Skartarians were absorbed into the outer world population. An interesting element of Skartarian culture:

Dan and Lisa were born in Skartaris. Now, the population in Skartaris has grown too large, and the government has began offering special benefits to couples willing to become outer world pioneers.

Morgan contemplates telling Dan his story, but decides against it. He trades his gun and ammo for a saddle horse and he and Shakira set out again for the coast.

 

Things to Notice:

• "Mutie" is always a good slur for mutants in any work of fiction.
• Ironically, when faced with extinction, modern civilization those the same escape to Skartaris as ancient Atlantis.
• The next issue blurb actually gives the title of the previous issue.

Where It Comes From:
Escape from the earth as the solution to environmental devastation was probably inspired by the 1977 UK television program Alternative 3, or the 1978 novelization. The secret space program to leave the earth beginning in the 1960s seems directly borrowed from there.

The Life and Times of Johannes Cabal

Jonathan L. Howard's Johannes Cabal is a necromancer and (as one might expected) a disagreeable sort of guy, though not in the usual cackling villain sort of way. True, when we first encounter him in Johannes Cabal the Necromancer he’s running a travelling carnival as a cover for collecting souls for Satan--but he’s got important goals. Mainly, it's Cabal’s arrogance and disregard for social niceties that make him unlikable--but those qualities only make him more enjoyable to read about.

Cabal has appeared in three novels. The first tells the story of the carnival and features Cabal’s more moral brother, Horst (a vampire). The second, Johannes Cabal the Detective, has Cabal on the run in a Ruritanian crazy-quilt Europe and forced by circumstances to solve a series of murders on an airship.

Both of theses novels feature quirky characters and a good deal of humor amid the soul-stealing, political intrigue, and murder.

Cabal himself emerges as a more complex character than he first appears. He’s a misanthrope by all appearances, but he wants to conquer mankind’s greatest enemy--death.  He just doesn’t care overmuch who he’s got to kill or what amoral direction his “studies” have to take to do it.

The world of the novels is ours but with some differences: extra European nations, ornithopter-like aircraft, and a generally higher profile for necromancy, most prominent among them. The time period the stories takes place in is pretty vague, too; it mostly seems to be loosely Edwardian (maybe late Victorian), but with occasional mentions of science/technology that might even place it in the early 1960s.

The third Johannes Cabal novel is apparently out in the UK. Johannes Cabal: the Fear Institute is about an expedition into the Dreamlands, which sounds promising. Howard sprinkles the occasional Lovecraftianism in the other novels, so it will be interesting to see what he does there.

In preparing this post I ran across an article written by Jonathan Howard himself about Cabal on D&D website. I’ll let the author himself tell you how Cabal can inspire gaming. He even gives a character sheet!

I can say the novels are well worth a read.

In This Thrilling Episode...

If you have an interest in hero pulps or movie serials, you'll want to check out Curse of the Phantom Shadow on Kickstarter.  It's a film project by Mark Ross that's an homage to exactly those sorts of media.  Here's an excerpt from the synopsis:

The year is 1948 and the United States has a new enemy, The Phantom Shadow. This dark figure has diabolical plans for captured scientist Dr. Hammond and his War Department weapons of mass destruction. When the Phantom Shadow launches a missile attack on key locations in the United States, the government takes action.


There is only one man to call: elite government operative, Agent 236!  Agent 236 is dispatched to rescue Hammond and stop the Phantom Shadow's nerfarious plans.

Check out an excerpt on the project page here.  It's fun and looks like a labor of love for all involved.

Thraug's Head

Not so long ago, a patron at one of the saloons or beer gardens on the southeast riverfront of the City barony of Shancks might have encountered the not-quite-deceased head of a monster, preserved in a jar. If they sat close to the distorted and slack-mouthed visage in the murky liquid, they might have heard its muffled, gurgling whispers.

The head of Thraug was a fixture along the narrow peninsula that bore his name, Thraug’s Neck. Popular superstition held that the head was good luck--certainly its original owner would have agreed it was better to have it than not. Unfortunately, for the eponymous merman (or merrow, some say), his luck ran out the day he quarrelled with Jarus Shanck, one-time assassin turned landowner.

Opinions differ as to what precipitated the violent encounter, but historians and folklore agree that Jarus Shanck never did require much excuse for murder. His preservation of his opponent's head in jar of alcohol is also viewed as in keeping with his macabre sense of whimsy.

Shanck gave the head to a henchman who made it the centerpiece of a tavern he opened. And so began Thraug’s vigil: watching unblinking through smoke-smudged glass as those around him pickled themselves from inside out. Some strange magic kept the merman’s head alive and he was said to speak prophecy--usually the ultimate fate of the person listening. He could be enticed to answer specific questions at times, though his answers were circumlocutious. Other times his utterances were merely pained observations on the fickleness of fate and the ephemeralness of this world, which listeners never failed to find insightful and moving.

More than one aged barkeep will tell you (with a nostalgic gleam in his eye) that a few words from ol’ Thraug were always good for another round.

Warlord Wednesday: Links

Life interrupted my regularly scheduled review of the continuing adventures of Travis Morgan, the Warlord.  We'll return to that next week.  In the meantime, here's some Warlord-related links to check out:

MikeGrell.com - the official website of the original writer/artist and creator of Warlord.
The Warlord - Scott Dutton's great Warlord fansite.  He's also got a page of links.
Fanzing's "The Warlord Reading Guide" - A short analysis of the first Warlord series with recommendations.  Also look for "The Quotable Warlord" on the same site.
Hardin Art Studios - The blog of the artist who did great work on several issues of the most recent Warlord series.  The art on this post is his.
Edit: Jim Shelley suggests I add my college term paper style musings on Warlord as a fable on imperialism at the Flashback Universe.