“The Shadow” — The Origin

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?”
“The Shad­ow knows”

With that, one of the most suc­cess­ful pulp char­ac­ters was intro­duced to the radio and mag­a­zine audi­ence. Even today, that phrase is rec­og­nized and the char­ac­ter remem­bered: the Shad­ow, who pos­sessed the hyp­not­ic pow­er to “cloud men’s minds”.

But The Shad­ow had a con­vo­lut­ed his­to­ry: he did­n’t always have that pow­er; in fact, he was­n’t a pulp char­ac­ter in the first place!

⇒ Con­tin­ue read­ing ““The Shad­ow” — The Origin”

November 17th, 2020 | Category: Fiction, Radio | Comments are closed

“Masters of the Universe: Teela’s Secret”

There was a change in car­toons in the 1970’s, fol­low­ing a mis­placed furor about vio­lence in chil­dren’s car­toons. Vio­lence, even car­toon vio­lence, was sud­den­ly for­bid­den. That was the rea­son you nev­er saw Thun­darr the Bar­bar­ian decap­i­tate any­one with his Sun Sword. It was why Cobra pilots always bailed out before their jets explod­ed. It was why GI Joe and Cobra used laser weapons that only seemed to affect tanks and jeeps instead of ordi­nary rifles and machine guns. (The lat­ter was also cheap­er to animate.)

It forced writ­ers to devel­op new and dif­fer­ent (or old and dif­fer­ent) sto­ries and plot devices on a week­ly basis.

Enter Mind Control.

⇒ Con­tin­ue read­ing ““Mas­ters of the Uni­verse: Teela’s Secret””

November 3rd, 2020 | Category: Cartoons and Anime, Comics, Comic Books, Comic Strips or Manga, Television, The HiM Collection, Toys | Comments are closed

Agents of S.W.I.N.G.

“Agents of S.W.I.N.G.” – an RPG by Postmortem Studios (2011)

Agent, the world faces many threats, threats more dan­ger­ous and more imma­nent than nuclear anni­hi­la­tion. You have been select­ed to join the secret guardians of the world.

A #Hyp­no­Me­di­a­Col­lec­tion entry.

An RPG based on British tele­vi­sion pro­grams from the Swingin’ 60’s and Rockin’ 70’s, from crime dra­mas to sci­ence fan­ta­sy. And, as with many RPGs, it includes rules for some form of hypnosis.

⇒ Con­tin­ue read­ing “Agents of S.W.I.N.G.”

November 2nd, 2020 | Category: Comics, Comic Books, Comic Strips or Manga, Games, Movies, Television, The HiM Collection | Comments are closed

Enchantment and Illusionism

“Enchantment: Fire in the Mind” and “Illusionism: Smoke and Mir­rors” by Mon­goose Pub­lish­ing. Two “Encyclopedia: Arcane” sup­ple­ments for the 3rd Edi­tion of Dun­geon & Drag­ons for their respec­tive schools of wizardry.

These books were writ­ten to aug­ment D&D with addi­tion­al spells, mag­ic items, feats and pres­tige class­es. This was pos­si­ble because of the Open Gam­ing and D20 Licens­es for 3rd edi­tion D&D by Wiz­ards of the Coast in the ear­ly 2000’s.

⇒ Con­tin­ue read­ing “Enchant­ment and Illusionism”

August 3rd, 2020 | Category: Games, The HiM Collection | Comments are closed

“Devil Girl From Mars” Publicity Stills

A whole set of images from the movie “Dev­il Girl From Mars”, post­ed by writer Bruce Sterling.

Patri­cia Laf­fan as the title character.

A real­ly awful aliens-from-space movie: Mar­t­ian woman Nyah (Patri­cia Laf­fan) comes to Earth to kid­nap Earth men to help repop­u­late Mars after a dev­as­tat­ing war between the sex­es. She traps a group of peo­ple inside an inn with­in an “elec­tric wall”, which allows the film to be shot in the stu­dio instead of on loca­tion. Nyah pos­sess­es the pow­er of invis­i­bil­i­ty and a hyp­not­ic stare, and a robot com­pan­ion named Chani who uses a dis­in­te­gra­tor ray. The movie’s ad line says it all: “She Want­ed to Take Young Men Back To Mars.” Com­par­i­son to “Mars Needs Women” are obvi­ous, even though the lat­ter was pro­duced over a decade later.

November 23rd, 2015 | Category: Movies | Comments are closed
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