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Post by lemming13 on Jun 15, 2011 11:17:36 GMT
Just got my box and I'm over the moon. In fact I woke up the elder spawn from his pit of doom with my overly loud sounds of delight. Thank you very much indeed.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 10, 2011 12:02:52 GMT
No problem. The Call of Cthulhu, adapted by Ian Edginton and illustrated by D'Israeli. The Haunter of the Dark, adaptation Dan Lockwood, art Shane Ivan Oakley The Dunwich Horror, adaptation Rob Davis, art INJ Culbard The Colour Out of Space, adaptation David Hine, art Mark Stafford The Shadow Over Innsmouth, adaptation Leah Moore and John Reppion, art Leigh Gallagher The Rats In the Walls, adaptation Dan Lockwood, art David Hartman Dagon, adaptation Dan Lockwood, art Alice Duke. The cover art is Ben Templesmith. To be honest, most of the art is at least average compared to most graphic work I've seen, (with the exception of the Mark Stafford, which is a shame because he can and has done much better, but perhaps is because he wasn't familiar with the story and was working from misleading guidelines) but let down far too often by rushed and sloppy scripting. Dan Lockwood and David Hine, I am looking straight at you.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 9, 2011 12:29:19 GMT
Finished the Donald Glut, and as entertaining a piece of trash as I have read of late. And finally managed to get to the end of the Oliver Onions collection. So now I'm on to In Ghostly Company, Amyas Northcote; Thorne Smith; and back to the Deathnote manga set.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 9, 2011 12:24:51 GMT
On Casablanca, though it was based on a play (unproduced at the time of the filming), according to several members of the cast and crew the script-writers were actually completing scenes and handing the pages to the actors the day they were due to be filmed. A lot of characters don't appear in the play at all, and the chronology was changed. But it doesn't appear to be true that the ending was changed - in the play, Ilsa goes off with Victor with Rick's blessing. Though Ingrid Bergman did say in more than one interview that she did not know which man she was going to end up with till the final scene was filmed. But Rick is arrested by the Nazi Captain (not Major) and there is no possibility of that beautiful friendship with Renault. And none of the actors appear to have known how that final scene with Strasser, Louis and Rick would turn out till the last day, which kept their performances fresh. The studio chose the play because they wanted to make a film about Nazis and freedom fighters in North Africa to cash in on the successful liberation of North Africa, and they had spent a lot on the sets for The Desert Song.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 9, 2011 12:14:26 GMT
Oh, that explains it - that's one of the best for art and editing both. Try The Colour Out of Space - that's been sloppily edited, and to be honest I thought the art work wasn't well thought out (the family affected by the colour start out looking like deformed idiots, which really does detract from the impact of their decay under the influence of the alien intrusion).
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 8, 2011 16:12:30 GMT
Impromptu movies are often batter than highly planned affairs. I'll admit to being very fond of Casablanca (not for the romance so much, though in the blu ray Ingrid does twinkle most astonishingly, but for the political thriller running under the amours, and the vivid supporting characters - Peter Lorre, Claude Rains, Mischa Auer, Sidney Greenstreet), which was one of those - 'we've got a North African town set, some Arab, Nazi and French military costumes, and all these contracted actors with nothing to do - go make a script!' The picture quality on my copy isn't bad, but the sound could be better; I'll have to look out for the blu ray.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 8, 2011 15:59:44 GMT
Sorry, KC, got to disagree with you there - the artwork is good on one or two, but mostly no better than average, and the cuts aren't well done. Like I said before (twice) as a graphic story enthusiast I understand the need to edit and reformat stories for a new medium, but I don't see the need to make a botch job of it and make it look as though the original author didn't know how to write. Word for word reproduction isn't necessary, but keeping the sense and continuity of the story is only fair to the author. If you really want a good graphic intro to Lovecraft, like I said, I'd go for the John Coulthard stuff; the artwork there is uniformly superb and the stories very well adapted to the medium. The Starry Wisdom has a few items that don't really work for me, and isn't all illustrated, but the Alan Moore story The Courtyard is excellent.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 7, 2011 8:26:27 GMT
I watched it in my railway mania the other night; it is a corker. But I couldn't help feeling my copy had been edited down a bit, as I remembered Savalas' role being a bit larger than it was on rewatching. He got a brief scene at the railway station, a couple of short ones on the train and then a brief shamble as a zombie. Am I right? Has it been cut? I have the 2Entertain version, it runs 83 minutes.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 7, 2011 8:22:39 GMT
That was my problem, David; it wasn't editing, it was butchery. As I say, I've got a number of graphic works in my library which feature versions of existing stories (not all by HPL), and this is the first time I've found such clumsy and unacceptable chopping. The Ligotti collections, Nightmare Factory 1 and 2, have cut down the stories, but the continuity was maintained and the important elements retained. In this case, major parts of the stories have been cut to where it doesn't make sense any more. I knew why because I was familiar with the originals, but readers new to Lovecraft might actually think his stories were this disjointed and badly crafted, and that upsets me. It is unfair to any writer to hack their work like this.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 6, 2011 8:44:02 GMT
If no-one else is bidding for them I'd love the Ramsey Campbell, TED Klein, Frank Belknap Long and Fritz Leiber books too. I can do paypal, no problem.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 6, 2011 8:40:23 GMT
How about the Thing On the Doorstep, old HPL's tale of familial bodysnatching? The liquefying corpse on the doorstep is pretty slimy. Likewise M. Valdemar in Poe's tale.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 6, 2011 8:35:54 GMT
Had a sudden outbreak of train fever during the spawns' latest holiday, possibly a subconscious desire to escape from chattering pre-teen girls constantly asking me what I was doing ('preparing for a ritual human sacrifice, care to volunteer?' is apparently not the best way to shut them up and make them leave any more, damn it). So I sat down with Horror Express, Death Line and the Japanese Ghost Train. Epic entertainment.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 6, 2011 8:27:46 GMT
I saw glowing reviews of this collection on Amazon and thought - why not? I have had some excellent graphic versions of Cthulhu Mythos stories (I sincerely recommend John Coulthard's magnificent versions, and the collection The Starry Wisdom) - but this isn't. The art is average, on the whole, and a bit poor in some, and the stories have been badly edited. I can understand the need for a bit of cutting to make Lovecraft's stories a bit punchier, but in this case they haven't even bothered to make sure the cuts leave the story consistent. In The Haunter of the Dark, for instance, they cut out all references to the missing reporter Lillibridge until Blake finds his body in the church, then carry on under the assumption that you (and Blake) already have all the information they sliced out about who this dead man is. And why cut out the FBI raid from Shadow Over Innsmouth? Beats me. I certainly wish I hadn't wasted my money on this, anyway.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 6, 2011 8:18:59 GMT
Been reading the collection The Spinoza of Market Street, and enjoying it immensely. Singer is a remarkable writer, his picture of pre-WWII Poland is really vivid and fascinating. Not all the stories have been genre, but like a lot of Eastern European writers Singer often uses fairytale conventions and themes to make a point, and some of them are quite creepy.
The Spinoza of Market Street - an aging student of philosophy is forced to confront real life for the first time in decades. The Black Wedding - an excellent tale which doubles as psychological horror and outright supernatural horror. A Chassidic rabbi is tormented by demons, and his curse also affects his daughter. A Tale Of Two Liars - a pair of con artists con each other. The Shadow Of a Crib - a doctor with a fondness for Schopenauer turns up in a little Jewish community. Shiddoch and Kuziba - a demon mother comforts her child which is having nightmares. Caricature - an elderly professor has a nagging wife and a manuscript he is supposed to edit. The Beggar Said So - a chimney sweep moves to a new town on the advice of a wandering beggar. The Man Who Came Back - a doting wife revives her beloved husband from death, with unforeseen consequences. A Piece of Advice - an ill-tempered man seeks a cure for his anger. The Poorhouse - residents of a poorhouse swap their stories. The Destruction of Kreshov - the tragic tale of an unusually lustful Jewish couple.
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Post by lemming13 on Jun 6, 2011 8:06:29 GMT
I do rate the Signalman myself, partly because it generates a good, doom-laden atmosphere; and mostly because it isn't a crude moral parable, unlike many of his other tales. The Haunted Man was just a much less polished version of A Christmas Carol in my book. And The Haunted House began well but went nowhere, if I'm thinking of the one with the framing narrative about friends having a house party in a haunted house who agree not to tell each other their experiences till their last night. It seemed to me that he just didn't finish it. And is one of (or perhaps the only) story of an experience the one with the boarding school children playing harems? Not very ghostly at all, as I recall. I haven't read a lot of the others, though, I'll give them a go now I've finally finished Oliver Onions (apologies to any fans, but dear sweet Cthulhu that was heavy going).
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