Van Helsing 2 1/2

I've been following a very talented film editor's work: Dan Oles, going by the handle "bloodrunsclear" on youtube. He's made some very impressive "fake" trailers for films that will never come out, but you wish would: a more faithful Neverending Story, a brilliant conception of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and a truly extraordinary teaser for Fallout that I can see as a genuine article. He also made a nice trailer for a computer animated Conan, using footage from various game cutscenes.

Then he made this.



This doesn't exactly help with the Solomon Kane/Van Helsing comparisons, but it's scary how easily the two films bind together. It's slick and professionally done, but it kind of makes my skin crawl at the same time.

Barack the Barbarian

Oh Yes.



"Know, O Prince, that between the years when economics drowned the Soviets and, and the years of the rise of the Sons of the Fallout, there was an age Undreamed Of, when shining cities lay spread across the world like scattered diamonds beneath the stars. Germany, France, Great Britain, The Russian Federation, Brazil with its dark-haired women and towers of industry, India that bordered on the mountainous land of Pakistan, Japan with its shadow-guarded tomes, China with its accountants of steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was America, reigning supreme in the Dreaming West. Hither came Barack, the barbarian, black-skinned, solemn-eyed, axe in hand: an attorney, a senator, a slayer, with gigantic economic trials and gigantic promises of reforms, to tread the old ways of the US under his shined size-11 shoes..."

Taranaich's Top Ten Dinosaurs

Why? Why not? I like dinosaurs.

Fantastic Beards

What is it with fantasy authors and beards?

Van Helsing 2

The film Van Helsing was released in May of 2004. The hero, Gabriel Van Helsing, is not the same character as Bram Stoker's 1897 Dracula character Abraham Van Helsing, the character whose name and role as Dracula's foe - and nothing else - inspired the former.

Kyūketsuki Hantā Dī, or Vampire Hunter D, was first published in 1983, predating Van Helsing by twenty-one years.

Solomon Kane first appeared in the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales, in the story "Red Shadows," one of the first Sword-and-Sorcery tales. It predates Vampire Hunter D by fifty-five years, and Van Helsing by seventy-six years.

The next person who says Solomon Kane is a Vampire Hunter D ripoff or unofficial sequel to Van Helsing, is going to get shot by a cannon.

And so it hath begun...

Introductions are in order: I'm Al Harron, literary adventurer. To date, my claim to internet fame is being a blogger on the esteemed Cimmerian blog, one of the premier websites for discussion and news regarding Robert E. Howard, J.R.R. Tolkien and other classic fantasy authors. I also go by the handle Taranaich at the official Conan forums, and developer of the Conan: Total War modification for Medieval 2: Total War.

Being a very scholarly website, The Cimmerian requires a rather high level of composition and sobriety, and dealing with subjects related to its primary aims. This blog, then, is devoted to anything else my wandering brain trips upon during its meandering through the desert of musings, running the gamut of higher subjects like history, folklore, mythology and palaeontology to pop culture like Transformers, Star Trek, Futurama, western animation and comics.

Since The Cimmerian is the primary focus of my free time, with Conan: Total War secondary, this blog will be occasional and rambling, little rhyme or reason, and nowhere near as rational as I try to be elsewhere. So, watch this space...