Posted in Comics, Reviews, Swashbuckling, Zorro on February 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I was understandably geeked when I discovered that there would be a new Zorro comic this year, and written by Matt Wagner, no less. (That it’s by Dynamite, the same company who’ve been releasing the current Lone Ranger comics, which I’ve heard are pretty good, is a plus.) So, naturally, when the first issue came [...]
Posted in Best Author Ever, Musketeers, Rants, Swashbuckling on January 20, 2008 | No Comments »
My girlfriend is currently reading The Three Musketeers for the first time, which naturally fills me with delight. That she is reading the most swashbuckling of all novels, by my favorite author of all time, and reading the same beaten copy that began my love for Dumas, is wonderful. It’s also a great way to [...]
Posted in Administrative, Obsessive Compulsive Stuff, Rants, Swashbuckling on January 18, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I have, so far, done my best to avoid talking much about my own writing. After all, what’s the point of being so self-indulgent, especially when I don’t actually have anything published which I can shamelessly shill? Nonetheless, the feeling of a weight off the shoulders is incredible right now, as I just finished editing [...]
Posted in Pirates, Reviews, Salgari, Swashbuckling on January 7, 2008 | 3 Comments »
So, I know that I have already rambled a good deal about the insanely-popular, but virtually unheard-of to English-speakers, series character known as Sandokan. (For your edification, I previously discussed him here and here.)
Having now read the first book, Sandokan: The Tigers of Mompracem, I must say that I can see what all the fuss [...]
Posted in Pirates, Salgari, Swashbuckling on January 1, 2008 | No Comments »
Sorry I’ve hardly been here, but I needed recuperative time back home with the family. On both plane flights, however, I amused myself with the first book in the aforementioned Sandokan series. It’s quite a lot of fun in an adolescent sort of way, and I don’t mean that as a bad thing, but I’ll [...]
Posted in Reviews, Shellabarger, Swashbuckling on December 22, 2007 | 1 Comment »
The film Captain From Castile is a beautiful first half of a historical epic. The first time I saw it, I hadn’t read the book and yet it was still more than clear that its ending was tacked on, and took place a good deal before the book’s ending would have. What’s more, the movie [...]
Posted in Reviews, Shellabarger, Swashbuckling on December 20, 2007 | No Comments »
“… Not that Pedro de Vargas knew what nerves were, but they still functioned.”
There is something immensely comforting, especially in these colder winter months, about picking up a gigantic, hardbound, historical adventure–about taking that first glance into an era and world and saying “I’m going to be here for awhile.” Knowing that one has a [...]
Posted in Cool Stuff, Pirates, Salgari, Swashbuckling on December 13, 2007 | 1 Comment »
So, in my many searches for the best in historical, swashbuckler-type adventure fiction, I have more than once stumbled across the name of Emilio Salgari–usually mentioned by native Italian-speakers who lament that they cannot share his greatness with their English-speaking friends. The premise behind his most popular character, Sandokan, stuck out to me especially: Sandokan [...]
Posted in Comics, Swashbuckling, Zorro on December 5, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Sorry for so much comics coverage recently, I try to deal pretty evenly with comic books and… uh, book books.
Anyway, I remember there being a Zorro comic sometime in the 90’s that I looked at for about two seconds before being real disappointed with it, what’s more, there have been some very bad uses of [...]
Posted in Shellabarger, Swashbuckling on November 26, 2007 | No Comments »
So, I just recently started reading Samuel Shellabarger’s Captain From Castile, which I’ve desperately wanted to read for years. Shellabarger is an incredible writer of historical swashbucklers, and the Tyrone Power movie (which the above picture is from) had just the right mix of spectacle, excitement, and an incredibly disappointing ending that left the viewer [...]
Posted in Best Author Ever, Cool Stuff, Swashbuckling on November 5, 2007 | No Comments »
Gasp… sputter… incredulity… Why did no one tell me?!
Explains The New Yorker:
This long-lost novel by the nineteenth-century master of the swashbuckler was discovered in decidedly twentieth-century fashion, on microfilm in the National Library in Paris. A breathless seven hundred and fifty pages, the unfinished manuscript nominally concerns a young velvet-suited nobleman “whose pallor bespoke a [...]
Posted in Administrative, Cool Stuff, Swashbuckling on November 5, 2007 | No Comments »
So, had I been the good little fact checker that I should be, I would have already noticed that the new Michael Chabon book that I mentioned the other day, Gentlemen of the Road, has in fact already finished its serializing in The New York Times Magazine. All things considered, that makes a lot more [...]
Posted in Administrative, Cool Stuff, Swashbuckling on November 2, 2007 | No Comments »
Michael Chabon has clearly stolen my idea… and I discover this fact on my birthday, no less!
Ok, no he hasn’t, and in fact I’m rather elated at the prospect of Gentlemen of the Road, his newest novel. (Although yes, it is really my birthday today. Rejoice.)
Essentially, Chabon has decided to take his “write about things [...]
Posted in Administrative, Blogroll, Cool Stuff, Flynn, Movies, Pirates, Sabatini, Swashbuckling on September 19, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Melody over at Redeeming Qualities has invented a holiday that warms me right to my little heart. So read the book, watch the movie, maybe save the life of a revolutionary, liberate a bunch of slaves, or sack Cartagena if you like, because it’s Captain Blood Day!
Posted in Best Author Ever, Movies, Musketeers, Reviews, Swashbuckling on September 4, 2007 | 4 Comments »
So, apparently Turner Classic Movies is the place to go for strange, obscure, generally not-good swashbucklers. (For the record, they show alot of good movies too.) Not long after my recent discovery of the abysmal The Black Knight, I was treated to a double bill of films starring someone I’d never heard of: Louis Hayward. [...]
Posted in Best Author Ever, Comics, Cool Stuff, Movies, Pirates, Swashbuckling on August 28, 2007 | No Comments »
I haven’t intended for this blog to become a look at only comic books and movies, I swear it. Prose coverage is, as always, in the works as well, and meant to be the bulk of what is done here. Nonetheless, I must share with you a cool new cover, and the greatest team-up of [...]
Posted in Movies, Reviews, Swashbuckling, Zorro on August 27, 2007 | No Comments »
Phew, ok, so it’s been awhile since I last worked on my gargantuan undertaking to cover (most of) the breadth of the Zorro mythos, but I guess that’s kinda fitting considering that I’m also skipping ahead nearly fifty years from the last part that I covered.
But first of all, for those who have no idea [...]
Posted in Movies, Swashbuckling on August 25, 2007 | 1 Comment »
One of my favorite films of all time is finally going to come out on DVD. As a child I damn near wore out the VHS copy, and when I say that there is pretty much no film that I’ve been as desperately awaiting, (at least, not since Adventures of Robin Hood came to DVD) [...]
Posted in Pérez-Reverte, Reviews, Swashbuckling on August 23, 2007 | 1 Comment »
And worst of all is the person who acts as exegete of The Word–whether it be from the Talmud, the Bible, the Koran, or any other book already written or yet to come. I am not fond of giving advice–no one can pound opinions into another’s head–but here is a piece that costs you nothing: [...]
Posted in Movies, Reviews, Swashbuckling on August 20, 2007 | No Comments »
I came across the strangest movie the other day. Apparently, in 1954, Alan Ladd made an Arthurian swashbuckler called The Black Knight. Who knew?
The first thing that strikes one about such a film, is how ridiculously misplaced Ladd is in the lead. For those who don’t know, Alan Ladd is mostly known for stalking about [...]
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