Search Results for: New Edge Sword

ARAK Issue 1: The Sword and the Serpent!

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In the summer of 1981, DC Comics proudly presented “the coming of a great new hero who stalks the fear-haunted shadows of an age of darkness” — Arak, Son of Thunder! Arak was brought to life by Roy Thomas, who’d cut his sword-and-sorcery eyeteeth launching the most successful S&S comic-book franchise ever over at Marvel (the line of Conan titles), and penciler Ernie Colon. It had all the earmarks of such titles — swashbuckling action, magic, monsters, and mayhem —…

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Goth Chick News: Blade Slays Again…

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I might be one of the few fans of the Marvel comic Blade to actually admit to liking the screen adaptations staring Wesley Snipes. New Line Cinema released the trilogy of Blade movies between 1998 and 2004. They were based on the half-breed vampire slayer character created for Marvel Comics by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan debuting in 1973’s The Tomb of Dracula #10. Granted, not all three movies were created equal, but I thought the first one was solid and…

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New Treasures: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Seven, edited by Jonathan Strahan

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I always look forward to the Best of the Year anthologies. It’s an annual ritual, like the arrival of spring, heralding new hope and rebirth for the land. Or something. Over the next few months, we’ll see several of them, from Rich Horton, David Hartwell, Gardner Dozois, Stephen Jones, and Paula Guran, just to name a few. But the season kicks off every year with Jonathan Strahan’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, certainly one of the most interesting…

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The Next Generation comes to New Pulp

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Attending Windy City Pulp and Paper Con in Chicago reinforced the fact that the burgeoning New Pulp world is quickly becoming as diverse as the classic originals. While most people tend to stereotype pulp as falling between sword & sorcery, hardboiled detective fiction, and costumed avengers, it was really far more broad in its appeal, encompassing everything from sci-fi to swashbucklers to boxing tales to romance to humor. A few months ago, I spotlighted Pro Se Presents for doing an…

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Vintage Bits: Sword of Aragon

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I’m a huge fan of computer games, and especially role playing games. Perhaps the thing I enjoy most about them is they’re so clearly descended from the hobby I loved as a teen — desktop role playing and Dungeons and Dragons, itself a direct descendent of Sword & Sorcery as written by Robert E. Howard, Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny, and Fritz Leiber. The things I cherished as a young man have grown up and conquered Western Civilization. The only thing…

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New Treasures: Gygax Magazine, Issue #1

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I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the hottest thing in role playing at the moment  is the rise of OSR. The Old School Renaissance has captured the interest of thousands of players — many returning to gaming for the first time in decades — and fostered the birth of a fresh generation of dynamic new companies. We’ve featured some of the best products here on the BG blog, including Carcosa, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, Dungeon…

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Wake Up to a New World With Awakening: The Art of Halo 4

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I took the family to Best Buy yesterday to buy a new phone for my wife. They didn’t have anything below $250, so we trooped back to the car to return to the Verizon store. My teenage boys, flush with dog-sitting money, were the only happy shoppers, chortling excitedly in the back seat over a copy of 343 Industries’ Halo 4. I got some scattered details over breakfast this morning. Master Chief, hot-babe AI Cortana, abruptly awakened from deep sleep, a Covenant…

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Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars, Part 8: Swords of Mars

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“But my memories of that great tragedy are not all sad. There was high adventure, there was noble fighting; and in the end there was — but perhaps you would like to hear about it.” Guess who’s back? John Carter, who for the twenty years of real time since The Warlord of Mars has only served the role of a cameo character, is once again the hero and narrator of a Martian novel. And for the first time, he goes…

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Robert E. Howard: The Sword Collector’s Sword Collection

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When I wrote “Robert E. Howard: The Sword Collector and His Poetry” in August 2010, it was to highlight REH’s interest in swords. The article listed each type of sword mentioned in his poems along with a definition, a photo and a snippet showing REH’s usage of it in verse. At that time, the photograph at right was not available. In fact, it is one of three that were discovered earlier this year by Howard scholar Patrice Louinet, showing Robert…

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How I Met Your Cimmerian (and other Barbarian Swordsmen)

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It was the summer of 1969. Very much like the one described in the song by Bryan Adams. I quit the rock and roll band I’d been playing with since high school, went to work with my Dad, and had just finished reading The Lord of the Rings; a year earlier, while still in high school, I’d read The Hobbit. Now, after completing my magical journey through Middle-earth, I was totally hooked. I had found a liking — no, a…

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