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Post by Michael Connolly on Apr 21, 2021 10:31:40 GMT
I actually did a long time ago. It was prompted by an interest in the Fourth Crusade and the Cathars and some horror novels which incorporated topics like Manichaeism. I can't remember much about the particulars, it seemed awfully complicated and of course the catholic church destroyed it at best as it could, the usual behavior. The psychology was interesting though, the bit with the Demiurg and so on. An elaborate construct. It is always interesting how genre writers used to incorporate such topics into their tales. How Stoker put the catholic faith and its tools so much into the foreground in Dracula or how American pulp writers like Hoffman Price, Quinn and the gang took the nonsense about the Yazidis for granted and made them devil worshippers.
I’m more interested in the early Gnostics (not that the Cathars aren’t also interesting). It’s been argued (tenably, I think) that some of their books predate some of the ones in the canonical New Testament. But my favourite is the second-century Apocryphon of John which offers vast amounts of potential for incorporating into supernatural fiction (all those weird animal-headed angels that the demiurge created, for instance). It’s certainly an elaborate construct - one Gnostic book (third century, I think), the Books of Jeu, continues to be as unfathomable as the Voynich Manuscript! Still, I find them just as believable (or unbelievable) as the canonical books (I did say I’m not a Christian - I could never forgive Jesus for the way he treated pigs and fig trees - and Judas!). What have I started this time? It gets worse. "M.R. James was prompted to characterize The Egerton Genesis as 'the most puzzling, and also, in view of the wonderful qualities of its drawing and colouring, one of the most fascinating' of all manuscripts he had ever seen." Puzzling is one word for this:
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Post by andydecker on Apr 21, 2021 17:14:32 GMT
What do they do on the last panel? Cutting it off or a circumcision? Weird.
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Post by helrunar on Apr 21, 2021 18:23:32 GMT
It's a circumcision scene. I can't recall the specific episode but the one in the upper left hand panel seems to show Sarah attacking Hagar the Egyptian--which I don't recall at all from the old King James translation of the Bible. The MS might include material from a non-standard recension. I love God as a hand or shrouded face emerging from a multi-colored cloud--that's very Monty Python. There are very good digitizations available here of all the pages: www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Egerton_MS_1894Wishing you all the best-- Steve
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Post by Michael Connolly on Apr 23, 2021 10:12:43 GMT
Right, I've read the Preface. While M.R. James has written it very clearly with no academic obfuscation (as I expected), he hasn't interested me enough to read the rest of it. There aren't even any pictures!
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Post by Shrink Proof on Apr 23, 2021 11:59:28 GMT
While I thought the same when I saw this reprinted in an issue of Ghosts & Scholars, I think that James McBryde's less formal illustrations have more life in them. Nonsense, that illustration is clearly the work of Glen Baxter.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Apr 28, 2021 11:40:18 GMT
I've just re-read "An Evening's Entertainment" which reminded me about the Douglas brothers who used to live up a local lane. So long ago that I can't remember when, I was first told that one of them cut off his brother's head then proceeded to cut off his own. Of course he could only get so far before he himself died. For some strange reason this real-life and gruesome grand guignol gave their house a bad reputation. But did this really happen? Yes and no. One of them only cut his brother's throat and then his own. Whew, that's okay then. It is just an everyday story of country folk.
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Post by sickdrjoe on Oct 19, 2021 4:12:47 GMT
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Post by andydecker on Oct 19, 2021 14:29:49 GMT
Surprised no one's mentioned these. Comic adaptations scripted by Leah Moore & John Reppion and ill'd by divers hands, published by Self Made Hero. Well, I have never seen this. Didn't even knew this publisher existed. Another small press of so many. And the writers are not someone I personally keep myself informed about. I read some of their work in 2000 AD, and have zero recollection what it was about. They sure didn't leave an impression. But this seems to be a decent adaption. But I avoid most of these kind of works nowadays. I browsed a few Lovecraft adaptions and there wasn't one which could kindle my interest. In most cases the art didn't appeal to me. I kind of don't know what is the point of these projects any longer. Do we truly need the next graphic adaption of The Outsider, just to name one?
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Post by sickdrjoe on Oct 19, 2021 15:52:39 GMT
Yes I believe both authors and imprint are splinter projects of 2000AD.
And the "point" is simple: to keep James works' alive, and viable, to a new generation further removed from Victoriana than ever before, in the midst of - if I may be allowed to mount a podium briefly - current social trends which increasingly threaten to reimagine/repurpose such work in the name of promoting an agenda utterly alien to the era - or suppressing them into total obscurity.
Besides, the art's not half-bad.
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Post by andydecker on Oct 19, 2021 16:57:30 GMT
Yes I believe both authors and imprint are splinter projects of 2000AD. And the "point" is simple: to keep James works' alive, and viable, to a new generation further removed from Victoriana than ever before, in the midst of - if I may be allowed to mount a podium briefly - current social trends which increasingly threaten to reimagine/repurpose such work in the name of promoting an agenda utterly alien to the era - or suppressing them into total obscurity. Besides, the art's not half-bad. Really? I discovered on their website that they have a lot of Ian Culberd's art on sale. I am not the biggest fan of his style, even if his Brink with Dan Abnett is truly great. I doubt that Selfmadehero has ties with the Rebellion Group, but who knows? As for Victoriana, you are right of course. I shudder when I think how terrible the tv-adaptions of Haunting of Hill House and Turn of the Screw have been. The art in the James books looks indeed not bad.
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Post by humgoo on Oct 20, 2021 3:48:20 GMT
And the "point" is simple: to keep James works' alive [...] This sounds a bit sad. It's not like MRJ's tales are on life support and need to be spoon-fed to the young as "classics that no one reads". They're addictive, moreish. In fact I found The Collected Ghost Stories one of the very few single-author collections that I can read from cover to cover. Even the weaker ones ("The Tractate Middoth" etc) have their moments (and what moments!). That's not to knock the comic adaptations, of course. Also Ramsey Campbell's introduction to the first volume is very, very worth reading: Has anyone put it better? The last sentence seems to be a reaction against the Paragraphgate (© dem bones 2012).
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Post by ropardoe on Oct 20, 2021 8:52:10 GMT
The first point is that there is, in my experience, a great deal of interest (growing, in fact) in MRJ’s stories among younger people and school children, so no need to produce newer versions for them. The second is that these graphic adaptations aren’t intended for children. They are for adults who are into graphic novels etc. And they are actually very good. Reppion and Moore have adapted the text of the stories very sensitively, and the artwork is mostly excellent. So there!
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Oct 20, 2021 9:26:25 GMT
The first point is that there is, in my experience, a great deal of interest (growing, in fact) in MRJ’s stories among younger people and school children, so no need to produce newer versions for them. The second is that these graphic adaptations aren’t intended for children. They are for adults who are into graphic novels etc. And they are actually very good. Reppion and Moore have adapted the text of the stories very sensitively, and the artwork is mostly excellent. So there! Young people increasingly read fanfiction. It's a boom area, and I think lockdown has increased its popularity immensely. At least it is reading, and hopefully they can use it as a jumping-off point to other literature, but mostly its an escape into a favourite world, and supplies a personal need. Harry Potter is a popular one, and superhero stories based on the film and TV characters, not usually the comic ones. There are subgenres, like gay romance, where the characters date each other.
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Oct 20, 2021 9:41:02 GMT
I found a fanfiction site where they write Cthulhu Mythos crossover fiction. Here is the list of stories.
So we have Lovecraft's universe crossed with:
Harry Potter (22) Doctor Who (13) Worm (9) RWBY (8) My Little Pony (7) Sherlock Holmes (6) Naruto (4) Mythology (4) High School DxD/ハイスクールD×D (4) Evangelion (3) Lord of the Rings (3) Godzilla (3) Warhammer (3) Chronicles of Narnia (3) Dungeons and Dragons (3) Dresden Files (3) Fate/stay night (3) Mass Effect (3) New Tricks (3) Sherlock (3) Dracula (3) Frozen (3) My Hero Academia/僕のヒーローアカデミア (3) X-overs (2) Daria (2) Pokémon (2) Misc. Books (2) Marvel (2) Bible (2) Fullmetal Alchemist (2) Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2) Familiar of Zero (2) Hetalia - Axis Powers (2) Conan series (2) Coraline (2) Prototype (2) Downton Abbey (2) Minecraft (2) Legend of Korra (2) Loud House (2) X-Men (1) Sailor Moon (1) DC Elseworlds (1) Misc. Comics (1) Transformers/Beast Wars (1) Power Rangers (1) Parodies and Spoofs (1) Sonic the Hedgehog (1) White Wolf (1) Powerpuff Girls (1) Man From UNCLE (1) X-Com (1) 1984 (1) Final Fantasy IX (1) Final Fantasy VII (1) Smurfs (1) NiGHTS (1) Cowboy Bebop (1) Peanuts (1) Invader Zim (1) Gilligan's Island (1) IT (1) Halo (1) Avengers (1) One Piece (1) Kim Possible (1) Shadowrun (1) Fire Emblem (1) Bleach (1) Azumanga Daioh (1) Alice in Wonderland (1) Lost (1) Frankenstein (1) Supernatural (1) Gothic (1) Black Lagoon (1) Haruhi Suzumiya series (1) Rozen Maiden (1) Little Mermaid (1) WALL-E (1) Rosario + Vampire (1) Professor Layton (1) Phineas and Ferb (1) Touhou Project (1) Gyo (1) Space Trilogy (1) It (1) Hobbit (1) Cinderella (1) Dollhouse (1) Incredible Hulk (1) K-ON!/けいおん! (1) Inspector Morse (1) Katawa Shoujo (1) Glee (1) Alpha and Omega series (1) Romeo and Juliet (1) Medaka Box/めだかボックス (1) Web Shows (1) Draka series (1) Puella Magi Madoka Magica/魔法少女まどか★マギカ (1) Battle: Los Angeles (1) Monster High (1) American Horror Story (1) Romeo & Juliet (1) Gravity Falls (1) Hannibal (1) Steven Universe (1) Kantai Collection (1) Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka (1) Big Hero 6 (1) Five Nights at Freddy´s (1) Star Vs. The Forces of Evil (1) Gate - Jietai Kare no Chi nite, Kaku Tatakeri (1) Undertale (1) Prisoners (1) KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World (1) Taimanin Asagi (1) Hareluya II Boy (1) Pippi Longstocking (1) Monster Girl Encyclopedia (1) Little Nemo in Slumberland (1) Mahou Shoujo Site/魔法少女サイト (1) Owl House (1)
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Post by ropardoe on Oct 20, 2021 10:18:05 GMT
The first point is that there is, in my experience, a great deal of interest (growing, in fact) in MRJ’s stories among younger people and school children, so no need to produce newer versions for them. The second is that these graphic adaptations aren’t intended for children. They are for adults who are into graphic novels etc. And they are actually very good. Reppion and Moore have adapted the text of the stories very sensitively, and the artwork is mostly excellent. So there! Young people increasingly read fanfiction. It's a boom area, and I think lockdown has increased its popularity immensely. At least it is reading, and hopefully they can use it as a jumping-off point to other literature, but mostly its an escape into a favourite world, and supplies a personal need. Harry Potter is a popular one, and superhero stories based on the film and TV characters, not usually the comic ones. There are subgenres, like gay romance, where the characters date each other. I love fanfic - I’ve always loved cross-over fanfic, and (once I was introduced to it in the ‘80s) slash fanfic. Also nowadays I enjoy the more inventive creepypasta. People are writing it from love rather than to gain a reputation or for money, and I love that. So it’s not just for the young folk - I’m very, very old!
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