Showing posts with label Blood and Thunder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blood and Thunder. Show all posts

Friday 1 March 2013

Writing What You Know

Back in University, I made this cover for one of the most important books in my early life. Sadly the ACD Estate never got in touch with me, but them's the breaks.

Been very quiet here on The Blog That Time Forgot. A little too quiet. But, as ever, don't mistake lack of information as dearth of activity, for I've been very busy on what amounts to a perilous journey of self-discovery, where I'm looking at myself, my place in the world, and how I can help others in my situation.

Truth is, despite wearing my heart on my sleeve and being very open about my emotional reactions to artistic stimuli, there are some things I don't want to share with the world at large. Things that are a part of me,  which are most certainly not harmful or wicked by any standard, but which are still deeply misunderstood and prone to misinterpretation. It seems preposterous to not want to "come out" about something that you shouldn't have to "come out" about, but recent events - tragedies, scandals, whatnot - have led me to be reticent about it. At the same time, I look at the people I know who share this thing: younger than me, maybe more naive, growing up in a very different environment that's better in some ways, worse than others.

I'm not ready to be fully open about just what that thing is. Truth be told, I'm sure if I told some of you, you'd say "what, that's it?" and it wouldn't change your opinion of me whatsoever. If that were your reaction, then trust me, I had no doubts. But until then, this is going to be a part of myself I only reveal to few.

What I have no difficulty sharing is my feelings on art, and specifically, where I want to go with it. Being a fan of Conan Doyle, Burroughs, Howard, Merritt, Haggard, and all manner of adventure authors, it should be no surprise that my artistic aspirations are very much in their field: tales of brave and bombastic souls seeking out new worlds and people and life, challenging the universe to unveil its secrets, trekking and voyaging and journeying through hostile terrain and uncharted territory. Certainly I've watched a lot of fellow fans of the genre go on to produce their own works. I'll have a look at some of them here.


Saturday 24 April 2010

Triangulation: Roy Thomas, Blood & Thunder, and A Personal Note

There were two pretty big pieces of news this week.

First off, Roy Thomas is returning to Conan. While I have many, many problems with Thomas' myriad adaptations, there are a number of considerations which make me cut him some slack, in comparison to the likes of Busiek and Truman. For one, Thomas was wrestling with the Comics Code Authority, the draconian institution dedicated to making comics safe for tiddlypeeps, and as a result, perpetuating the "comics are for kids" fallacy. (No medium can be restricted to a demographic, people.) He also had the De Camp juggernaut to contend with, where he pretty much had to use De Camp's existing pastiches for many stories, including the maligned "The Hand of Nergal" and "The Treasure of Tranicos."