Monsters, mashups, and popular culture
I have a special request for all my fellow Star Wars fans – but especially the ones who remember when it all started. I’ve got a couple of questions about the fandom and marketing that, as much as I already know, I’m just not up to speed on. It’s partly for a work project (more info … Read more
On this blog I’ve previously written about Travis Louie and Dan Hillier, two fine artists whose work I’ve been researching. I also wrote a post for the Victorianist on Colin Batty, who paints monsters onto old Victorian cabinet cards. A fourth artist whose work I’m writing about is Kevin J. Weir, though he wouldn’t necessarily … Read more
This post contains minor plot details from seasons 1-3 of Penny Dreadful. Read on at your own discretion. You may recall that I spent the first part of the year reviewing the last season of Penny Dreadful for the Victorianist blog. In my final post, I talked a bit about the show’s intertextual relationships with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; … Read more
‘Man is a rope, fastened between animal and Übermensch – a rope over an abyss.’ —Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Prologue) Before I embark on this review, I should point out that I am neither Australian nor Aboriginal. I don’t research either of these cultures either, so there will be gaps in the areas of the series that I can actually address. You … Read more
This week started off with some exciting news: I get to draft a chapter for Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling, a collection of academic essays on the franchise edited by Dan Hassler-Forest and Sean Guynes. This collection is scheduled for publication in 2017, to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the first film … Read more
‘I’m afraid the truth is vastly overrated’ – Lord Melbourne, ‘Doll 123’ (Victoria, episode 1) After a busy summer, I’ve spent the last few weeks catching up on all the reading and viewing I had on hold. Last week, a scathing review by James Delingpole sent ITV’s Victoria to the top of my must-watch list. The show, he wrote, is ‘silly, facile … Read more
On a beautiful long weekend at the end of August, I experienced my very first major steampunk event. The Asylum Steampunk Festival – so-named because of the converted mental asylum that forms one of its key venues – takes place every year in Lincoln, and is the largest and longest-running event of its kind in the UK. … Read more
Today I won’t be posting a new research blog, because I’m busy running the international Victorianist conference ‘Consuming (the) Victorians’ (BAVS 2016). In addition to being a co-organiser, I’m behind all the conference website and social media for the event. So check out our website, look us up on Twitter (@BAVS2016), and see what we’re up to (or … Read more
This week’s guest post was written by Daný van Dam, who recently submitted her PhD on postcolonial neo-Victorian fiction at Cardiff University. Together with Megen and with Akira Suwa, she is putting together a special issue of the online journal Assuming Gender on the theme of ‘Consuming Gender’ (submission deadline 16 October 2016, see here). At … Read more
A few weeks ago I introduced you to ‘Lady Got Bustle’, a steampunk rendering of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s 1992 hit ‘Baby Got Back’. This video was just a bit of fan-made fun, but steampunk is a musical genre in its own right. Happily for my research, it’s chock full of monsters and strange creatures. There’s actually not as much ‘punk’ … Read more