et me confess to a secret sin: I read encyclopedias for fun. Now, I know this vice is not to everyone's taste. However, I suspect that there are many more of my trivia- and factoid-devouring kind out there than is commonly assumed. And I know one fellow member of this species who is intent on sharing his vast hoard of knowledge with the rest of us. That man is Jess Nevins. Jess runs several sites where you can learn about the myriad fictional heroes created during the long history of popular literature. One site is devoted to Victorian exemplars. Another focuses on comic-book protagonists. But the one under examination today covers the years from the end of Victoria's reign to 1939.
Pulp and Adventure Heroes of the Pre-War Years is basically nothing more—and nothing less—than a mammoth online encyclopedia organized by character name. Click on a letter of the alphabet—the choices represented under each letter are arrayed nicely on the main page—and you are brought to the generous blocks of text detailing the history of everyone from Dusty Ayres to Zorro.
The mad fecundity of the pulpsters thus presented is astounding. The reader will be moved to a deep nostalgia for a time never personally experienced, when legions of fans eagerly awaited the next installment of, say, the adventures of Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood. And, of course, the hokey absurdity of some characters provides plenty of laughs. How about "The Man with the Molten Face," whose prosthetic facial features could be altered—after a good hot soak—into a number of identities?
Finally, Nevins' links are outstanding. Often within an entry he provides buttons for reaching pages on the author in question or even entire e-texts. His master list of other pop-culture sites is astonishing as well. There's enough information here to croggle even Doc Savage!
— Paul Di Filippo
Site of the Week—October 21, 2002
he thesis of The Mexican Movie Gallery is plain enough: "Mexican cinema art of [the '50s and '60s] is generally superior to American theater graphics of the same time period." Now, given the plethora of classic movie posters that Hollywood generated during this era, the adherents of south-of-the-border graphics have a tough fight to wage to convince the general public of their contention. But if you visit their site, you'll soon be swayed at least gently in their direction.
Here you'll encounter the arresting, boldly colored, melodramatic imagery that advertised the films featuring such luminaries as El Santo, Mil Mascaras and the Aztec Mummy. These homegrown heroes, several of them masked wrestlers, starred in lurid, action-packed thrillers that some viewers feel are the quintessence of B-movie-making. On this site, you'll marvel at clear, crisp reproductions of such lobby-art masterpieces as Santo vs. the Martian Invasion, which depicts Santo gamely aiding a green alien and wielding a bulbous raygun, and at Neutron vs. the Death Robots, the so-called death robots appearing to be humans wrapped in copper sheathing and wearing hairy masks.
But the Mexican film industry also translated the visions of U.S. filmmakers for the native audience. Take a gander at what they did to George Pal's War of the Worlds and you'll realize that while SF is an international language, its accents are quite different around the globe. And don't hesitate to use the link to the Agrasanchez Film Archives, which offers an even wider array of Mexican iconography. Unfortunately, a second link, to CineMexicano, is broken. Perhaps El Santo could leap this virtual chasm, but not us.
— Paul Di Filippo
Site of the Week—October 14, 2002
ounded in 1938 by no less a figure than Orson Welles, and debuting with a broadcast of Dracula, The Mercury Theater On the Air (and its later incarnation, The Campbell Playhouse) was a bold experiment in bringing classic fiction to a new medium. Now avid fans of radio drama can tune into these voices from the past, thanks to this Internet labor of love by Web master Kim Scarborough.
The site itself serves as an archive of the original Mercury and Campbell shows. Downloadable versions of the broadcasts (most in both RealPlayer and MP3 format) are available for the lion's share of the originally aired episodes. These broadcasts do take some time to download, but they are well worth it—their sound quality is top-notch, and their content thoroughly enjoyable. Also featured on the page is an essay on the history of the radio program, which tells how Welles created the show and lists the many luminaries of stage and screen who participated in various episodes.
The Mercury Theater On the Air is probably best known for its panic-inducing broadcast of War of the Worlds in October of 1938, and it is clearly a great-ancestor of the anthology programs that followed, a seed from which The Outer Limits and the Twilight Zone eventually grew. Unlike these mutant offspring, though, Mercury's radio plays were not confined to the SF genre. Visitors can expect to find a range of readings on the site—Treasure Island, Julius Caesar and almost everything in between.
Still, there are many speculative classics—A Christmas Carol and Around the World in 80 Days come to mind—for purists to enjoy. Even more interesting is a 1940 conversation between H.G. Wells and Orson Welles, which covers, among other things, the War of the Worlds panic in the context of the very real war occurring in Europe at the time. The SF offerings the site does include, in other words, are prime material.
— A.M. Dellamonica
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