Weekly Geekly Rundown for April 5, 2024
Why Do We Always Have to Fight Against Losing Our Geeky History?
Losing our Geeky History one Medium at a Time
I have been a fan of Geoff Engelstein and his GameTek podcast (now Substack) for a very long time. I backed the Kickstarter that resulted in the first edition of his GameTek book and regularly refer to it when trying to think of things to write about or insights I want to randomly insert into a discussion of game design. He often writes things that make me stop and think for a moment. His most recent post on his experience at the Sid Sackson auction was one of those moments.
In the article Geoff writes about how important Sid Sackson was as a designer and how amazing it was to attend the auction of his collection.
Side trek time.
For those who don’t know, Sid Sackson essentially invented the Eurogame as we think of it today with Acquire. I’m not saying that he made Europeans like table top games, that would be absurd given the millennia long obsession Germans have had with card games, rather that the games he was designing set the standard for the kinds of mechanics that a lot of modern Eurogames incorporate. To be sure, there were many other influential designers, but the fact that an American designer’s mechanical preferences are part of the DNA of Eurogames is no small amusement to me.
If you ever get a chance, pick up a copy of Sid Sackson’s Gamut of Games and give it a read. It and Jon Freeman’s A Player's Guide to Table Games, revised and republished as The Playboy Winner's Guide to Board Games, are quintessential tomes if you want a glimpse at the gaming world of the late 1960s and the early to mid 1970s.
Okay, enough of the side trek.
One thing that really struck me in Geoff’s discussion of the auction was how the auctioneers had no idea what the really valuable items in Sackson’s collection were. They mistakenly thought that the licensed items would be worth more than lesser known titles when the opposite was true. Collectors were interested in the genuinely rare items and not the items that were mass produced, but associated with a well known IP.
This small moment got me thinking about how bad we are as a society at preserving the history of significant cultural artifacts. It seems that no matter the genre or medium, we always have a period where we fail to realize how much we and future generations might want to know the history of a phenomenon we love.
How many early fantasy fanzines are completely gone from our records? For every fanzines like The Fantasy Fan that managed to survive the ravages of time, there are likely dozens (if not hundreds) of fanzines that are not even memories now. Those lost memories have have provided important glimpses into the early days of the fantasy and science fiction scene.
How many pulp magazines have disappeared? While there are people actively working to preserve, discover, and share as many pulps as they can find, their work is hindered by the fact that so many of the magazines were thrown away as “valueless.” I’m not talking monetary value, rather historical value. There are issues and runs completely missing from the historical record.
This is even true of Radio Serials and Radio shows. Almost 200 episodes of The Shadow radio show do not exist, heaven only knows how many total episodes of radio shows have vanished into the ether. Though interest in preserving radio shows had already increased, let alone the move to preserve film, by the time the first Doctor Who episodes were being filmed the BBC still carelessly failed to preserve episodes of the show. Today there are 97 episodes that no longer exist as they were filmed. Since people often recorded the audio of these episodes you can listen to them, but you cannot watch them. It’s a huge loss.
For me personally though, two of the greatest failures of fandom have been the failure to preserve video games and role playing game history. There is a lot of talk of the “18 pages of notes” Dave Arneson sent to Gary Gygax during the development of Dungeons & Dragons, but no one really knows what was on them. To be fair, Gygax might have accidentally thrown them away not knowing the later success of the game and thus their value. Even so, we have no real idea what the rule were that David Arneson’s game actually used. We know that he was inspired by Braunsteins that used rules derived from Strategos, but we have no real accounting of those rules. Okay, we also know that they included the possibility of lowly adventurers encountering 4 Balrogs. I was only able to discover this fact because I happen to own all the copies of Fantasy Games Unlimited’s long out of print magazine Wargaming. I got the issues cheap, even though they have exclusive articles by Rob Kuntz, because I don’t think a lot of people know they exist.
There’s a reason I keep mentioning that Gygax and Kuntz played in a game a Arneson’s house prior to the existence of D&D as a game and it’s to help preserve some knowledge about the early days of the hobby. I think that collectors, and I’m certainly one of those, have an obligation to share the information we have. I know I’m not alone in this. Many collectors feel the same.
As bad as some collectors may be in hoarding both the items and information about them from the general public, most collectors do so out of a duty to preserve. I’ll be sharing more insights from the Wargaming magazine and more excerpts from the British Model Soldier Society’s Newsletter. That publication is the first place that Tony Bath’s medieval miniatures rules were published. Thankfully, the editor and collector John Curry does great work collecting old and forgotten wargaming rules. Similarly, I’m grateful to Brett Bernstein of Precis Intermedia who has done Yeoman’s work preserving lost or hard to find role playing game products.
Weekly Film Article Cavalcade
The Lamentations of Luke Y. Thompson
Luke has a number of reviews this week, but the one that really stood out to me and scratched my nostalgia itch was his review of the Mondo Gambit action figure. Luke gives the figure a very positive review and points out that fans can get all the coolest stuff in the regular version of the figure if you are budget conscious…and can find a copy of the sold out figure. You can see why in the photo gallery he includes at the end of the piece. While there are a couple of excellent photographs of the figure in the main article, the Gambit shuffling image stands out to me, some of his best shots are at the end. Check them out and let me know what you think.
Gambit is one of my favorite super heroes for four key reasons. He combines nostalgia I have for a favorite Champions role playing game called Blackjack, the City of New Orleans, Ricky Jay, and Explosions. Since Blackjack was my Ricky Jay inspired Champions character, that’s probably technically only three things, but I’ll count it as four because I’m going to highlight each.
I’ve loved card magic since I was a kid and for a time I practiced card tricks to the point where I was getting okay at a few basic techniques. I can still remember a couple, but I’d have to practice for a few months before I would break those out for friends at a party/barbecue. What I’ve always loved about magic is how appreciation of it goes in three stages. First is wonder at the illusion. The viewer is fooled and amazed. Then there is the period of discovery when you learn how things are done and you are amazed at how simple and mundane the majority of effects are. For some, this period kills all love of magic due to boredom and disappointment. For others, like me, this opens up a way of looking at the world. The last stage is one where you are once again fooled and amazed. It is where you watch magicians who are so skilled that even when you know what they are doing, you don’t see it and you are once again amazed.
Great illusions combine a variety of simple effects and are a kind of poetry. It’s a living art that requires engineering, psychology, and dexterity. My love of this practice, and the fact that I lived in Reno, NV led to me creating a superhero called Blackjack who threw cards like Ricky Jay with the exception that Blackjack had a variety of “special” cards like Green Arrow’s arrows.
Ricky Jay, of course, was the master of the card throw. Luke says that throwing cards accurately is a super power, and I agree, but it is a super power that exists in the real world and Ricky Jay was the best at it.
His act combined Carnie/Con Man banter with charm and skill. It is no wonder that David Mamet hired Ricky Jay as both a performer and “con” consultant for his directorial debut House of Games. For fans of films depicting grifting, or those who have read the classic works by Walter Gibson on Bunko, the plot of House of Games was as predictable as the sunrise. Of course, that’s because the cons are real cons and they are depicted well in the film. As much as the film is supposed to be a sexually tense neo-noir film on the level of Body Heat. It has some moments, but doesn’t come close to the raw sexuality of Lawrence Kasdan’s film. Where it does shine though is in Ricky Jay’s performance. He absolutely steals the show early in the film and demonstrates why he is one of maybe five or six actors who can deliver Mamet’s dialogue in a manner that seems natural. Though Ricky Jay has a New York accent, one can imagine that Gambit’s Cajun accent would be best performed to a Ricky Jay rhythm.
As for loving explosions and mutants…doesn’t everyone?
Courtney Howard’s View from the Center Seat
Courtney Howard was fairly impressed with the recent Omen sequel, Omen: The First Omen. She though it had a good mix of dread and blasphemy that echoed the earlier entries in one of horror’s classic franchises. I find religious horror to be a very hit or miss genre in general. For every Omen and Omen II, both are classics for different reasons. The first for the dread it invokes and the second for the sadness. The scene where Damien talks to his brother is heartbreaking and sets the stage for every possible evil Damien could later commit. It’s a moment of choice.
And that’s what religious horror films often come down to and where they succeed or fail. How do they depict the moment of choice? The Prophecy, a low budget but effective film that launched a series, asks what happens when angels are asked to make a leap of faith when they can no longer hear God. On the flip side is Stigmata. When Gabriel Byrne’s priest is asked “How is your faith these days Father?” by a possessed Patricia Arquette, it is presented as a moment of doubt and crisis. It’s a moment that made me laugh. My response would have been something akin to, “Well, it was pretty bad, but at the moment it’s shifted from faith to knowledge, so at least I’ve got that going for me.”
A key to a successful religious horror film is to take the religion seriously. That doesn’t mean to believe in the religion, it just means to act as if those who believe in it actually believe. Even if the point of a religious horror film is that religion is a lie, that is best done having that revelation hurt a character who believes. Michael Moorcock’s Behold the Man, a deeply sacrilegious and potentially angry novel, is powerful to the point of sadness even as it attempts to shock with sexual imagery.
The best horror provides a kind of catharsis and religious content provides rich soil for such tales, it also provides ample fertilizer for terrible movies. Based on Courtney’s review, this new Omen film looks like it belongs in the first category. My own judgements on the film will have to wait. I am blessed with a wonderful wife, but one of the ways we are an “opposites attract” couple is that I really like horror movies and she really doesn’t.
Mendelson’s Melodic Meanderings
Scott Mendelson reviews Dev Patel’s latest action film Monkey Man over at The Outside Scoop. The review is a positive, if mixed, recommendation for the film only mentions John Wick once, and only then to dismiss arguments that the film was trying to be the next John Wick. That I’ve used that film title more times discussing Scott’s review that he did is a testimony to how well written the review is and Scott’s actual knowledge of film and appreciation for genre films. I’m eager to see the film and see where it fits in the modern action library. Is it more Nobody or is it more The Night Comes for Us? Scott argues that it’s closer to the second. That’s one of my favorite recent action films, but it’s also one that left me exhausted.
Rethinking a Negative Review
I think every film fan has a critic with whom they have a love/hate relationship. For Luke Y Thompson, there’s a particular critic he refers to as L.A.’s Worst Critic in an ongoing internet argument I wish Luke would leverage for more views and readership. Conflict can be good and I think critiquing critics who’ve decided on the quality of a film prior to even watching it are worthy of criticism.
As for me, I am an opponent of the critics who reject genre fare and only promote films that are on the “Supposed to Like List,” or at minimum have qualities of other films on the list. I talked in some detail about this list in the February 9th, 2024 Weekly Geekly Rundown. I’m not a fan of the kind of gatekeeping that recognizes as legitimate art only films that meet some cineaste’s narrow view of film. Such critics are the literary equivalent of a Werner Herzog who wouldn’t eat his shoe. As much as I might disagree with some of Herzog’s statements about Television and Image, though a lot of that is a pushback against Warhol, the reason he ate his shoes was to say that “Film is for Everyone! Just go out and make your film!”
Because I pretentiously hate the pretentious, I have my own love/hate relationship with David Ehrlich over at IndieWire. I would venture to say that when it comes to genre, not art, films that one of my general heuristics is “If David Ehrlich hated this popular film, it must be fantastic.” My disagreements with Ehrlich have not stopped him from becoming a very prolific and respected film critic, because as much as I disagree with him he is both prolific and worthy of respect. One of the ways that he shows that he is worthy of respect is to be open to opinions contrary to his own.
Take for example his very negative review of the Blumhouse Fantasy Island film back in 2020. Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island, though well-crafted, has very little in common with most of the films on the “Supposed to Like List” of films. In his review, which falls in the David Denby tradition of snarking off about films you don’t like1, Ehrlich’s disdain is front and center.
In his review of Fantasy Island, there is a line that perfectly exhibit’s Ehrlich’s brand of snark and critical dismissal of some filmgoers. This like comes at the moment he writes about about the thematic element that brings depth to the subplots on Fantasy Island. Like St. Brigid in the new film Irish Wish starring Lindsay Lohan, Mr. Roarke gives the visitors to the island what they need rather than what they want. In examining that element Ehrlich writes, “But — and here’s the catch! — people need to be careful what they wish for. Aladdin learned that lesson, Brendan Fraser in “Bedazzled” learned that lesson, and now a bunch of attractive television stars are going to learn that lesson or die trying” (emphasis mine).
In my opinion, Ehrlich is doing one of three things here. In the first instance, maybe he hasn’t seen the brilliant Dudley Moore and Peter Cook vehicle that was directed by the almost always brilliant Stanley Donen (I forgive him for Saturn 3). I doubt this is the case as that version of Bedazzled, like Peter Sellars’ The Magic Christian, is very much on the “List” of comedies you are supposed to like. It’s more likely that he thinks that his readers won’t be familiar with the original and so has chosen this movie as a way to talk down to his audience. Though I personally think that he thinks readers will be familiar with both versions of the film and he’s purposely chosen the worst of the two to add a dash of snark. The thing is that there is already enough snark in the piece. So much so that if snark was salt and his critique were a lake, the brine shrimp population would compete with Mono Lake.
Okay, so I’ve critiqued Ehrlich and given the hate part of the love/hate relationship. Now for the love. A great reviewer and editor, and Ehrlich is also an editor, is willing to re-evaluate opinions and to listen to counter arguments. Given that Ehrlich is the senior film editor, I doubt that any reviewer gets published without him at least giving the nod to the piece. That’s why I found the fact that IndieWire recently published a reexamination of the Blumhouse Fantasy Island in which Jim Hemphill writes a full throated defense of the film.
That this review, and other recent defenses of poorly received films, was published just as Criterion Channel is streaming a selection of Razzies films acknowledging the value of pure genre fare is likely less than coincidental. Then again, as pretentious as IndieWire can be they’ve always hated the Razzies as much as I do. So…we are back to the love/hate relationship that falls more along the lines of love but disagree with.
Glimpses from the Substackosphere and Bloggerverse
This week’s glimpses from the Substackosphere and Bloggerverse is HUGE, so I’ll have to keep commentary to a minimum. Make sure that you check these out as there is a lot of interesting stuff this week.
Starting things off with Matt Thompson’s Critical Hit Parader. As per usual, Matt brings us a combination of gaming and music. First by providing us with a song inspired by the Crawl! zine for the Dungeon Crawl Classics role playing game. It’s not often that a gaming zine gets a punk rock overture, but issue 13 of Crawl! got one and Matt’s on the case.
Even more interesting to me was his exploration of having an “Appendix LP.” Long time gamers are all familiar with Gary Gygax’s Appendix N, a list of literary works that inspired the creation of Dungeons & Dragons. A list that should be better read today as it would provide a nice common ground for the many genres of play in the modern version of the game, some of which are grounded in Appendix N tropes without knowing it. Instead of rekindling Appendix N debates, Matt wants to examine the songs that inspire us in play. I’ll say that for me, I always ALWAYS use The Anvil of Crom from the Conan Soundtrack to signal when chatting has ended and gaming time has begun.
Are there any words more dreaded by players and DM’s alike than “it’s what my character would do?” These are the words that enable role playing as a concept, but they are also words used to excuse toxic behavior. Paul Frickerexplores this concept in his latest The Frickerverse post.
Two great entries from Stan! this week. First he shows us his cartoony homage to 1983’s classic D&D adventure Ravenloft on his 50 Years in the Dungeon Substack. Then he provides an in depth interview with the author of the adventure. Stan has been a part of the gaming community for a long time and he’s got a rich knowledge of the medium. Check out his illustration and his interview.
Subscriber machine J.Q. Graziano had a number of excellent posts recently. Too many for me to share in good conscience, so I’ll have to write a post later about the one I left out this week. In his first Rediscovered Realms post, for April 1, he presented an overview of the classic Grimtooth’s Traps series from Flying Buffalo Games. When you read J.Q.’s article, I want you to take a look at the lower left hand corner of the first book. You see that “Blade” logo?
There was a time in Flying Buffalo’s early history where they were really beginning to grow. A part of that growth was that their local printer decided to offer them a very favorable deal involving extended credit. This allowed for the production of the Grimtooth and Catalyst lines. At some point prior to 1985, Dave Arneson also became part owner of Flying Buffalo. I’m not sure of the amount, or timing, of his investment but I’m going to venture to guess that it was after his settlement with TSR. Notably, many companies received support from Arneson around that time.
In addition to his article on Grimtooth’s, J.Q. is doing something I’ve considered. He is going to be doing a giveaway. If you subscribe or share an article from his site this month, you can get some pretty sweet swag. I haven’t hit 1,000 subscribers yet but if I do I might just follow suit.
Jim Zub has some excellent advice for fans of Conan and burgeoning writers over at his The Zubstack. My only quibble is that he doesn’t also recommend de Camp’s Conan stuff. I know, I know. That’s heresy. I get it. I do, but I firmly believe that without de Camp we wouldn’t be reading Conan as much as we are today. Yes, Howard is better. Miles and miles better. Yes, Sprague was fixated on mid-20th Century Freudian analyses of Howard’s suicide. Have you read Sprague’s self-examination in his autobiography? He’s pretty Freudian there too. He was as mean to himself as he was to Howard. We should not forget that mid-20th Century was all about the Freud. The first real critique of Freudianism I remember reading/seeing was Hitchcock’s critique at the end of Psycho, and if you don’t think that’s a critique then we need to watch it together and have coffee afterwards. Rope and Psycho are Hitch’s assaults on academia.
Anyway. I’m in the read all the Conan camp. Some is 18+ year Scotch. That’s the Howard. Some is Redbreast. That’s the Zub and the better pastische authors. Then there’s the Jim Beam and Sprague de Camp is the Jim Beam of Howard writers. He’s a far cry from the best, but he’s good enough to give you the taste.
For real thoughts on Sword & Sorcery fiction, rather than my more pop tastes, I highly recommend this month’s entries from Kevin Beckett at Just The Axe, Ma'am and Lyn Perry’s regular Sword & Sorcery round up. They are the Macallan to my Seven Devils Caldwell Night Rodeo.
Role Playing Game Recommendation
There are a lot of people working hard to make sure that we have a record of the history of role playing games. In Jon Peterson and Shannon Appelcline we have two scholars writing and publishing invaluable histories of the table top gaming hobby. What we have too few of is people working hard to preserve access to the games. One of those people is Brett Bernstein of Precis Intermedia. For the past couple of years, he’s been expanding his library of “Classic Reprints” to include a number of hard to find but influential games. One of his more recent entries is Sir Pellinore’s Favorite Game. Brett describes the game in the following way.
Sir Pellinore's Favorite Game was the third of three editions virtually lost to time (see the 1978 First Edition). Available once again, this game illustrates the pioneering spirit of early tabletop role-players, as they created their own systems, often inspired by the first RPG and its derivatives.
The simple yet familiar system plays quickly and offers a few twists, such as spending experience not only to rise in level, but also increase attribute ratings. Attack rolls are percentage-based, but there is a handy chart for using 2d6 instead. Reputation also plays a factor in the game, not only for persuasion and loyalty, but also for accomplishments, like slaying dragons. The combat mechanics are complemented with rules for foraging, hunting, disease, jousts, battles, and ships.
This piece of gaming history is a must for collectors and old-school gamers. With the original virtually impossible to find, this classic reprint of Sir Pellinore's Favorite Game has been remastered for a clean print and is readily available at a low cost.
If you are interested in seeing an artifact of the early gaming community at an affordable price, I recommend checking this book out.
Music Recommendation
So the music recommendation is long this week and focuses on artist and producer Todd Rundgren who’s combination of progressive rock and pop has been extremely influential in modern music.
When it comes to songs, he’s probably best known for his classic love ballad Hello It’s Me. It’s a charming song, but it’s peaceful and semi-mainstream melody clash strongly with the prog rock costuming Rundgren wears in this episode of The Midnight Special. The costuming is appropriate for the performance of Black Maria at the 12 minute 50 second mark. Hello It’s Me comes in at about 33 minutes in.
Rundgren produced XTC’s Skylarking and I think you can really hear his melodic influences in “That’s Really Super, Supergirl.” You’ve got a sprinkling of jazz and progressive rock motifs in a post-punk song.
Once again stepping into the realm of alternative rock, Rundgren produced the Psychedelic Furs album Forever Now. While the 80s ballad “Love My Way” is the big hit on the album, I find the entire album to be fantastic and “President Gas” is my favorite track. Maybe it’s the dark and somewhat dissonant chords driving the song, or maybe it’s the more upbeat bridge before the final chorus.
Anyone who can produce Hall & Oates and end up with an R&B, Prog Rock, Psychedelic, Pre-Punk album is a master producer. While Daryl Hall’s vocals are beautiful as always and John Oates’ guitar maintains the same basic tone listeners are used to hearing, the album War Babies is a masterful experiment from the duo and it’s Rundgren’s influence that drives this creativity.
The album cover itself is reminiscent of National Lampoon’s 1972 comedy album Radio Dinner, at least in as much as both feature Ritz Crackers as a part of a balanced diet. Interestingly, both albums are immersed in the politics of the Baby Boom generation with Hall & Oates commenting on growing up as “War Babies” while Lampoon critiques the connection between the pop and the political. Many of the jokes, “Deteriorata” in particular, remain funny though they hit harder after a Google search to see what the exact things they are referencing are.
Classic Film Recommendation
I’ve mentioned before that I tend to like Hitchcock’s English films a little more than his Hollywood films. To be certain, he made his absolute best films during his Hollywood period (North by Northwest, Read Window, To Catch a Thief), but I find his English films “on average” to be better and I much prefer his original The Man Who Knew Too Much starring Peter Lorre over the remake. The wife/mother is a much more realized and empowered figure in that film.
One of the things that I like most about ALL of the Hitchcock films that I like is that they are at their heart romances. From The Lady Vanishes to To Catch a Thief, a love story is at the center and it makes all the stakes of the drama mean even more. Of all the romantic heroes that Hitch created, my favorite is Wilfred “Ordinary” Smith in 1950’s Stage Fright. Michael Wilding’s portrayal of Ordinary Smith presents him as a man of compassion, charm, and intelligence. While our young heroine is struggling to understand what is really going on, Smith is a step ahead. He’s a step ahead of the audience too. I don’t tend to be a fan of films that try to “fool the audience,” but as surprising as the end of Stage Fright was for me when I saw it for the first time, I never felt that the film “tricked” me. All the clues were there and Ordinary was always showing me the proper way.
Everyone in the cast is wonderful. Marlene Dietrich is a perfect villain, sexy and cold. Jane Wyman is engaging as the woman trapped between her loyalty to the man she used to love and her desire to help the man she has fallen in love with. Alastair Sim may be better known for his performance as Scrooge, but his humorous, lighthearted, and charming performance as Commodore Gill shows why his transformation at the end of Christmas Carol works so well. And Michael Wilding rivals Cary Grant for his charm. I would watch 100 Eve Gill films starring him if they existed. The chemistry the character has with her father and her romantic foil would make the foundation to a wonderful series of films. Thankfully, there are already a number of books that a creative screenwriter could adapt.
David Denby may have written a book called Snark about how it was killing the film review, but he made a career of snark himself.
Thanks for the HT!
Man, that's some fascinating history trivia about Flying Buffalo, thanks!