Edited by Sarah Newton and Ian Hunter, BFS Horizons was a new magazine/anthology devoted to fiction, poetry, art and news produced for members of the British Fantasy Society. Newton left after the second issue. Meanwhile, BFS Journal edited by Stuart Douglas and chairman Phil Lunt became a fully nonfiction periodical with issue #14. It included articles on Brian Lumley’s Necroscope, an interview with artist Paul Hanley, and lots of media stuff.
Despite a sometimes-uncertain future, David Longhorn’s Supernatural Tales celebrated its 30th issue in 2015. The three editions published during the year featured fiction from, amongst others, Rosalie Parker, Katherine Haynes, Helen Grant, Lynda E. Rucker, Mark Valentine, Michael Kelly, Adam Golaski and Steve Duffy, Tom Johnstone, and Mike Chinn, along with book and media reviews by the editor.
The two editions of Rosemary Pardoe’s The Ghosts & Scholars M.R. James Newsletter featured the usual fascinating mix of articles, fiction and reviews, while Jim Pitts contributed some nice artwork to both issues.
The first issue of The Hyborian Gazette, published by Steve Dilks for The International Robert E. Howard Fan Association was an old-school style fanzine that included sword & sorcery stories and poetry by Glen M. Usher, Adrian Cole and Lin Carter, amongst others, along with some interesting nonfiction from Jeffrey Shanks and Tim Marion and excellent artwork by Jim Pitts, Steve Lines and Yannis Rubus Rubulias.
Co-edited by Justin Everett and Jeffrey H. Shanks, The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales: The Evolution of Modern Fantasy and Horror was published by academic press Rowman & Littlefield. It included essays on how “The Unique Magazine” served as a “locus of genre formation and literary discourse community”, along with individual chapters on H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch and other authors, and their particular contributions to the pulp.
John L. Steadman’s H.P. Lovecraft and the Black Magic Tradition from Red Wheel/Weiser Books looked at the author’s influence on western occultism.
Published by Hippocampus Press, S.T. Joshi’s The Rise, Fall and Rise of the Cthulhu Mythos—yet another book about Lovecraftian fiction—was a revised and updated edition of a study first published in 2008.
Rebecca Janicker’s The Literary Haunted House: Lovecraft, Matheson, King and the Horror In Between from McFarland visited the haunted house genre while, for the same imprint, Tara Prescott edited Neil Gaiman in the 21st Century: Essays on the Novels, Children’s Stories, Online Writing, Comics, and Other Works. It collected nineteen essays along with an interview with Gaiman.
A revised edition of George Beahm’s The Stephen King Companion: Four Decades of Fear from the Master of Horror included a sixteen-page gallery of Michael Whelan’s artwork.
Issued under PS Publishing’s Drugstore Indian Press trade paperback imprint, Ramsey Campbell, Probably, edited by S.T. Joshi, was a hefty revised and expanded edition of the 2002 collection of essays, with an Introduction by Douglas E. Winter.
Edited by Christopher Sirmons Haviland for WordFire Press, The Synopsis Treasury presented thirty-two novel proposals sent by authors such as H.G. Wells and Robert A. Heinlein to publishers, with selected commentary by those still-living writers.
Compiled by J. Gordon Melton and Alysa Hornick for McFarland, The Vampire in Folklore, History, Literature, Film and Television: A Comprehensive Bibliography chronicled the penetration of the undead into all areas of western society. Monsters and Monstrosity from the Fin de Siècle to the Millennium edited by Sharla Hutchison and Rebecca A. Brown looked at how the genre had helped shape popular culture, while Kyle William Bishop’s How Zombies Conquered Popular Culture: The Multifarious Walking Dead in the 21st Century was also available from the same publisher.
Edited by collector Roland Trenary, Mahlon Blaine’s Blooming Bally Bloody Book from publisher Grounded Outlet was an autobiographical memoir illustrated with drawings by the often-controversial artist himself.
Edited by Stephen Jones and featuring a Foreword by Neil Gaiman, The Art of Horror was subtitled An Illustrated History as genre experts David J. Skal, Jamie Russell, Gregory William Mank, Kim Newman, Richard Dalby, Barry Forshaw, Lisa Morton, S.T. Joshi, Bob Eggleton and Robert Weinberg explored ten iconic themes illustrated with posters, book and magazine covers, and other ephemera, along with original artwork by more than 100 featured artists. These included Clive Barker, Jim Burns, Edd Cartier, Vincent Chong, Peter Cushing, Les Edwards, Virgil Finlay, Gary Gianni, H.R. Giger, Basil Gogos, Graham Humphreys, Alan Lee, Dave McKean, Ian Miller, Bruce Pennington, J.K. Potter, Clark Ashton Smith, Michael Whelan and Bernie Wrightson, amongst many others.
British poster artist Graham Humphreys also had his own retrospective volume out. Drawing Blood: 30 Years of Horror Art featured 140 examples of the cult horror film illustrator’s work, along with commentary by Sam Raimi and Kim Newman. The book was available in a £150.00 boxed edition of just 500 copies which came with a signed and numbered giclée print. It was supported by an exhibition of the artist’s work at London’s Proud Camden gallery, which ran from the end of October through to the end of November.
Edited by Mike Hunchback and Caleb Braaten, Pulp Macabre: The Art of Lee Brown Coye’s Final and Darkest Era from Feral House/Sacred Bones Records was basically a companion volume to the 2005 study The Life & Art of Lee Brown Coye by Luis Ortiz, who contributed the Foreword to this book. Concentrating on the pulp and regional artist’s later work, it included commentary from Karl Edward Wagner, David Drake, Robert Weinberg, Les Daniels, David Stuart Schiff and others.
Edward Gorey: His Book Cover Art and Design included almost 100 full colour covers by the artist, along with an essay by Steven Heller.
R.L. Stine’s picture book, The Little Shop of Monsters, was colourfully illustrated by Marc Brown, while Pete Von Sholly contributed the colourful artwork to Joe R. Lansdale’s Christmas Monkeys.
British artist Jim Kay supplied the art for a new illustrated edition of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (aka Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for those Americans who don’t know what “Philosopher” means), the first in a series of editions of the Potter books illustrated by Kay. A £135.00 deluxe slipcased edition featured a foldout of Diagon Alley.
Beautifully reproduced from the original 1929 edition by Centipede Press, God’s Man: A Novel in Woodcuts by Lynd Ward contained a fascinating historical Preface about the artist by Barry Moser and two essays by Ward himself. It was limited to 300 signed copies.
From the same imprint, Harry O. Morris: A Portfolio was a career retrospective and autobiography of the American artist who helped popularise photo-collage work.
Having taken over the editorial and publishing reins of the annual Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art with the previous volume, editor John Fleskes’ Spectrum 22 featured more than 450 works by over 240 artists. Gary Gianni contributed a profile of Grand Master Award winner Scott Gustafson.
Perhaps the most bizarre crossover title of the year was Dark Horse Comics’ Archie vs. Predator, in which the all-American teen and his friends were stalked by the alien hunter.
Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden expanded their 2012 illustrated novel Joe Golem and the Drowning City into the five-issue Dark Horse series Joe Golem: Occult Detective, and Mignola also teamed up with Ben Stenbeck for same company’s Frankenstein Underground, which introduced Mary Shelley’s character into the “Hellboy” universe.
Joe Frankenstein from IDW Publishing concerned a teenage Frankenstein and an urbane Monster battling vampires.
The Fly: Outbreak was a five-part sequel to David Cronenberg’s 1986 movie (and its sequel), written by Brandon Seiffert and illustrated by the enigmatically named “menton3”. IDW offered variant covers on each edition.
The second issue of the same publisher’s Godzilla in Hell was written and painted by Bob Eggleton and included a special “Inspirations” section by the artist.
For fans of Charles Band’s 1980s movies, Action Lab Comics released a new series of Puppet M
aster comics while, over at Dynamite, H.P. Lovecraft’s mad doctor battled the servants of Cthulhu in a new series of Re-Animator comics.
To celebrate Vampirella’s 45th Anniversary, Nancy A. Collins’ five-issue mini-series from Dynamite, Vampirella’s Feary Tales, featured such writers and artists as Joe R. Lansdale, Steve Niles and Stephen Bissette, amongst others, putting the scantily-clad vampire into their own twisted versions of classic fairy tales.
From Space Goat Publishing, Evil Dead 2: Tales of the Ex-Mortis featured stories that expanded the movie mythology.
In August, an incredibly rare copy of Suspense Comics #3 (Continental Magazines, 1944) realised $173,275 at auction, setting a world record for a non-superhero comic book.
Nancy Holder wrote the official movie novelisation of Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak. It was also available as a 500-copy signed, numbered and slipcased hardcover from Titan Books.
Before Tomorrowland was a “distant prequel” novel to the Disney movie, set in 1939 and credited to Jeff Jensen and artist Jonathan Case, with story input from filmmakers Brad Bird and Damon Lindelof.
Screenwriter Mark Stay’s novelisation of the children’s SF film Robot Overlords also included an original short story and the shooting script.
Alien: River of Pain by Christopher Golden was a tie-in to an enduring movie series, as was Tim Lebbon’s Predator: Incursion, the first in the “Rage War” series.
Actor Simon Pegg supplied a new Introduction to Dawn of the Dead, George A. Romero and Susanna Sparrow’s 1978 tie-in to Romero’s classic zombie movie.
Jay Bonansinga’s Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead: Invasion was the sixth tie-in based on the popular comics and TV series.
Nancy Holder also wrote Beauty & the Beast: Some Gave All, and other TV tie-ins included Once Upon a Time: Red’s Untold Tale by Wendy Tolliver and The 100: Homecoming by Kass Morgan.
Doctor Who: City of Death by Douglas Adams and Gareth Roberts was a novelisation of the original TV scripts by Adams, based on an original idea by David Fisher. Doctor Who: The Drosten’s Curse by A.L. Kennedy, Doctor Who: Deep Time by Trevor Baxendale, Doctor Who: Big Bang Generation by Gary Russell and Doctor Who: Royal Blood by Una McCormack were more tie-ins based on the BBC show.
Joanne Harris was amongst the authors who contributed to Doctor Who: Time Trips: The Collection, featuring eight original novellas about the TV Time Lord.
Paige McKenzie’s The Haunting of Sunshine Girl was a young adult tie-in to the ghostly YouTube web series, credited to the show’s leading actress.
Batman: Arkham Knight by Marv Wolfman and Batman: Arkham Knight: The Riddler’s Gambit by Alex Irvine were based on the comics-inspired video game, while Margaret Stohl’s Black Widow: Forever Red, Jason Starr’s Ant-Man: Natural Enemy and Deadpool: Paws by Stefan Petrucha were all based on the Marvel Comics characters.
John W. Morehead edited The Supernatural Cinema of Guillermo del Toro: Critical Essays for McFarland, with an Introduction by actor Doug Jones. The same imprint published Classic Horror Films and the Literature That Inspired Them by Ron Backer, A Christian Response to Horror Cinema: Ten Films in Theological Perspective by Peter Fraser, Horror Films by Subgenre: A Viewer’s Guide by Chris Vander Kaay and Kathleen Fernandez-Vander Kaay, and The Creature Chronicles: Exploring the Black Lagoon Legacy by Tom Weaver, David Schecter and Steve Kronenberg, with an Introduction by Julie Adams.
Brenda S. Gardenour Walter studied the history behind our fears in Our Old Monsters: Witches, Werewolves and Vampires from Medieval Theology to Horror Cinema, and editors Markus P.J. Bohlmann and Sean Moreland collected Monstrous Children and Childish Monsters: Essays on Cinema’s Holy Terrors.
Roberto Curti used information drawn from official documents and original scripts to write Italian Gothic Horror Films: 1957-1969. Also from McFarland, Michael R. Pitts’ RKO Radio Pictures Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films, 1929-1956 looked at the Hollywood studio’s genre output.
If you don’t know who Lionel Belmore, Arthur Edmund Carewe, E.E. Clive, Forrester Harvey, Halliwell Hobbes, Brandon Hurst, Noble Johnson, Edgar Norton, Edward Van Sloan and Ernest Thesiger were, then the answers could be found in Jim Coughlin’s Forgotten Faces of Fantastic Films from Bear Manor Books, which spotlighted the careers of twenty-two obscure character actors. Gregory William Mank supplied the Foreword.
Thommy Hutson’s retrospective in-depth look at the series of Freddy Krueger films, Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, came with a Foreword by creator Wes Craven.
Brian Taves’ Hollywood Presents Jules Verne: The Father of Science Fiction on Screen from University Press of Kentucky looked at screen adaptations of the French author’s work.
The second volume of Midi-Minuit Fantastique: Une intègrale augmentèe edited by the late Michel Caen and Nicolas Stanzick was another hefty, 750-page hardcover from French publisher Rouge Profond. This volume reprinted four more issues of the influential 1960s film magazine and came with with a Prèface by iconic actress Barbara Steele and a bonus DVD.
Perhaps the best indication yet of the paucity of creativity to be found in Hollywood studios these days, 2015 was the year of the remake, the reboot and the re-imagining at the movies.
Gil Kenan’s Poltergeist, an unnecessary remake of Tobe Hooper’s 1982 movie, updated the story about a family moving into a cursed suburban home. Sam Rockwell was the father whose youngest daughter (newcomer Kennedi Clements) was the centre of supernatural attention, and Jared Harris the flamboyant TV ghost hunter called in to help. Sam Raimi was a co-producer, and an extended cut was released on DVD and Blu-ray that included an alternative ending.
In June, Universal’s belated sequel/reboot Jurassic World took the record for the biggest opening in movie history, with a US debut of $208.6 million and an overseas launch of $315.6 million. This, despite a total lack of chemistry between stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard as they ran around the rebuilt theme park trying to save a pair of young brothers from a genetically-created hybrid dinosaur, “Indominus rex”.
Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer were also so devoid of any screen chemistry as super-spies Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., one wonders why director Guy Ritchie even bothered to pretend his film was a reboot when it had nothing in common with the stylish 1960s TV series after which it was named.
The best thing about the time-trippy 3-D Terminator Genisys was that Arnold Schwarzenegger was back as not one, but two Terminators in an overlong story that attempted to reboot the series in a different timeline.
Thirty years after the last entry in the series, Australian director George Miller brought back his post-apocalyptic anti-hero (now played by Tom Hardy) in Mad Max: Fury Road. However, the real star of the reboot was Charlize Theron’s mechanical-armed Imperator Furiosa, who lived up to her name amongst the dystopian desert mayhem and destruction.
Set forty years after the first film, Helen McCrory’s group of schoolchildren were unwisely evacuated during World War II to the haunted Eel Marsh House in Hammer’s disappointing sequel The Woman in Black: Angel of Death.
With its alien creatures apparently inserted as an afterthought, Tom Green’s disappointing Monsters: Dark Continent was set ten years after the events in Gareth Edwards’ superior Monsters (2010), when “Infected Zones” had spread throughout the world.
Jennifer Lawrence’s boring rebel Katniss Everdeen led her band of fighters against the dystopian society of President Snow (Donald Sutherland) in the overlong The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 2, which was hopefully the final entry in the derivative YA series based on the books by Suzanne Collins.
Dylan O’Brien’s Thomas and his fellow survivors from the first film found themselves in anything but a safe haven in Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, the second film based on James Dashner’s series of best-selling young adult novels. Meanwhile, Shailene Woodley and Theo James were on the run from Kate Winslet’s evil overlord in The Divergent Series: Insurgent, the sequel to Divergent (2014) an
d based on the YA novel series by Veronica Roth.
A misguided attempt to reboot a third incarnation of the Marvel franchise with a new cast of younger and ethnically diverse younger characters resulted in Fantastic Four crashing and burning at the summer box-office (it took just $25.7 million on its opening weekend). Director Josh Trank even ended up criticising his own movie on Twitter the day before it was released, which probably didn’t help matters.
Unfortunately, Joss Whedon’s all-star sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron decided to quickly wrap-up its story about the team of bickering superheroes—including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow and more—trying to bring down HYDRA, and instead pitted them against the titular CGI villain (a sentient robot voiced by James Spader), who looked as if he had wandered in from a Transformers movie.
At least J.J. Abrams’ eagerly-anticipated Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens was the best Star Wars movie since the initial trilogy, as original stars Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill (along with Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew and a surprise Max Von Sydow) teamed up alongside newcomers Daisy Ridley and John Boyega to prevent the evil First Order from using a planet-destroying device to defeat the Resistance. We may have seen it all before (and we had), but Abrams infused his film with an infectious nostalgia and sense of joie de vivre that pasted over the plot-holes.
The Force Awakens grossed almost $248 million during its December opening weekend in the USA, beating Jurassic World‘s record of six months earlier.
Guillermo del Toro channelled the spirits of Edgar Alan Poe and Roger Corman in his sumptuous-looking Gothic mystery Crimson Peak, which trapped Mia Wasikowska’s aspiring novelist and Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain’s strange siblings in a bizarre ménage à trois in the eponymous decaying house.
Despite the title, Paul McGuigan’s delayed Victor Frankenstein was less about James McAvoy’s maniacal doctor seeking the secrets of life, and more about his confidant and assistant Igor (Daniel Radcliffe). Mark Duplass played a researcher who brought his dead girlfriend (Olivia Wilde) back from the dead in The Lazarus Effect.
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