There will be more new posts here eventually, but I’m still very busy with work, estate stuff and a sick mother in hospital, so there’s not a lot of blogging right now. However, I got some new toys and have some Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre toy photo stories in the works.
Meanwhile, I’ve been busy elsewhere, so here are some links where you could find me of late:
At Galactic Journey, I delve further into the Lancer Conan series, particularly into what were then the last three volumes, chronicling Conan’s later career as King of Aquilonia and beyond. Actually, I was just supposed to cover Conan of the Isles, still the chronologically final Conan story, by L. Sprague De Camp and Lin Carter, but I also did The Hour of the Dragon a.k.a. Conan the Conqueror by Robert E. Howard, because it’s just so damned good, and The Return of Conan a.k.a. Conan the Avenger by Björn Nyberg and L. Sprague De Camp, which is basically fanfiction, but bridges the gap between The Hour of the Dragon and Conan of the Isles. There was a further volume by De Camp and Carter called Conan of Aquilonia, which does show us Conan and his teenaged son Conn, but that doesn’t come out until 1977.
There’s also a segment about the latest protests and legal battles of 1968, which gives us the proto-RAF being the raging arseholes that they were, a reminder that Horst Mahler wasn’t always a terrible person (and honestly, nothing short of “replaced by an android or a pod person” can explain Horst Mahler’s 180 degree political turnabout) and of course Beate Klarsfeld’s legendary exercise in Nazi punching, when she slapped ex-Nazi and then West German chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger. Until very recently, Kiesinger was considered the worst chancellor postwar Germany ever had, though Olaf Scholz seems intent to give him a run for his money. Though at least Olaf Scholz is not a Nazi. He’s just incompetent and possibly a fraud. As for Beate Klarsfeld, she’s still alive at 84 and a really awesome woman and I still think it’s a pity that she did not get to be German president, because she would have been a much better choice than Joachim Gauck.
In Germany, the year 1968 is permanently associated with student protests and the counter culture. The veterans (or would-be veterans) of those protests were my teachers and they kept on raving how awesome 1968 was and how it was the year of miracles. As a result, part of me always wished I could have been alive and conscious then and experience the protests and the general. But revisiting 1968 for Galactic Journey, it suddenly doesn’t look nearly as great. For starters, a lot of the big protests actually happened the year before, most of the protests involved a lot of violence, usually on the side of the police, but also on the side of the protesters, and a lot of the big names of the 1968 counter culture were actually arseholes. Which shouldn’t have surprised me, considering many of my teachers, but it still did.
I also was on the Light On Light Through podcast with host Paul Levinson and Joel McKinnon of the Seldon Crisis podcast. In the main episode, we talk about season 2 of the Foundation TV-show, since we’re all big fans of the books. However, there’s also a second episode taken from the pre-chat where we talk about the new (and possibly final) Beatles song “Now and Then” and also talk about the Beatles’ adventures in Hamburg St. Pauli.
Going back another thirty years in time from the 1960s to the 1930s, I was also on the Postcards from a Dying World podcast with host David Agranoff and Steve Davidson of Amazing Stories. We discuss the Sci-Fi Hall of Fame anthology from 1970, edited by Robert Silverberg, which collected the best science fiction stories published before the inception of the Nebula Awards in 1965, as voted upon by the members of the then newly formed SFWA, and in particular the first story, “A Martian Odyssey” by Stanley G. Weinbaum, originally published in 1934. The audio only version is here, while the video version is here.
Finally, since I promised you new toys and stories, enjoy this sneak peak featuring Whiplash and his estranged brother Ceratus, leader of the Caligars, i.e. the alligator people living in the caves of Subternia. Whiplash has been a Masters of the Universe mainstay since the 1980s, but his brother Ceratus only appeared in a few episodes of the 2002 cartoon. However, they actually made a figure of him in the Masters of the Universe Classics toyline and was lucky enough to get him.
Ceratus, leader of the Caligars, poses for an official portrait. Unfortunately, it was not possible to persaude him to smile for the camera.
Meanwhile, his wayward brother Whiplash is exploring the caves of Subternia.
Ceratus confronts Whiplash.
You dare show your face in Subternia again, traitor?
Hi, brother. Missed you, too. Well, not really.
You’re a disgrace to our people, Torrant. And what are you wearing?
Uhm, armour.
We are Caligars. We do not need armour. And you look ridiculous.
Well, I think it looks cool and menacing.
It’s purple. Bright purple.
Says the guy who’s wearing earrings. And a nose ring.
My rings are my badge of office as leader of our people. And what’s your excuse?
Yeah, rub it in that you got to become king and not me. Jerk.
Oh, cursed be the day our mother laid the egg that hatched you. And now get out of my sight and run back to Skeletor.
***
That’s it for now. I hope to have more for you soon, once life calms down a little.
sending...
Is Whiplash wearing the helmet with horns to compensate for the fact that Ceratus has much bigger ears?
The size of the ears is very important among the Caligars and shows how manly a man is, so Whiplash of course wants to make up for his shortcomings, while Ceratus likes to show off his large manly ears.
Though the true reason Whiplash wears a purple horned helmet is that someone dug into the Mattel archives and found some early concept art for the character, where he wears a helmet and armour. They’re currently making quite a few figures based on the early concept art.