Thursday, January 31, 2019

Buried, Steampunk Apocalypse, and Vincent Price

BURIED. We're buried in snow today on the west coast of Michigan, and will most likely be buried-plus tomorrow. Looking out from inside warmth, it's easy to see how close humans are to destruction. Mother nature is a bitch, and all we have are systems for warmth and protection few of us fully understand.

Today, over at the Gods of Aazurn webcomic, Ms. Vedma has a visitor. We now know a reason the Vedma Cult exists.

Read and enjoy, but know the end of this storyline is revealed in the Gods of Aazurn: Witches graphic novel, now up on Kickstarter at StrangeHorror.com. You can show your enthusiasm for the work and the free stuff you get all year from these emails at the Kickstarter.


STEAMPUNK APOCALYPSE. If you've been reading these messages for a while you already know about Kevin LaPorte of Inverse Press. His Clown Town stories appeared way back in Indie Comics Magazine #3.

Kevin and company are in the last days of a Kickstarter, Last Ride for Horsemen: It's the Apocalypse in Steampunk.

"The desolate town of Promise enjoys neither food nor water, precious resources obliterated by the horsemen Famine and Pestilence (in our previous two chapters, BOTH available via this Kickstarter campaign!), both ghosts of dead men wronged by local land baron, Wilbur Fairless. Now comes the horseman War in the guise of another, quite petite, missing acquaintance of the old tycoon. She ignites battle with his current paramour, the sitting Mayor of the place, and all of them – along with gun-for-hire Cager Dobbin – play out their rivalries in ultra-violent fashion while eluding the starving new cannibals of Promise."

You will like this comic. Hell, you will like all three of these comics, all offered in this Kickstarter.


FREE VINCENT PRICE. I'm surprised how many Vincent Price fans don't know that, from 1944 to 1951, he was the voice of Leslie Charteris' character Simon Templar, better known as The Saint.

Velvet-voiced Price was perfect for the character. In an era when radio was filled with hard boiled detectives and police procedurals, The Saint stood out. Self confident, with looks, wealth and wit, Simon Templar was a bit of a dandy, enjoying the finer things in life.

Yes, I enjoy Roger Moore's Saint on television, 1962 to 1969. But I have read many of the pulp stories, which began in 1928, and Vincent Price the actor comes much closer to The Saint character I envisioned in print. 

The radio plays can be listened to or downloaded from the Internet Archive here. Unfortunately, there are misnamed duplicates included. But, hey, it's free.

If you don't know who Vincent Price is, well, I just don't know what to do with you --


Take care, do good things for yourself and others, listen to music, and lift up your head to look around occasionally -- you deserve the big picture.

In glorious service to our Aazurn overlords,
Gary Scott Beatty
StrangeHorror.com



2 comments:

  1. Vincent Price only played the Saint from 1947 to 1951. Edgar Barrier and Brian Aherne played the Saint in 1945. There was no radio Saint in 1944.

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    1. Thanks for the clarification, Ian! There are 91 radio plays on the Internet Archive, but several doubles.

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