The Dark Crusade- A Karl Edward Wagner Podcast

Episode 3.2 ‘Dark Crusade’ — Part 1 — These Vibes are Bad

Painting ‘Dark Kingdom’ by Frank Frazetta

First published: 1976 Warner Books (“In the Lair of Yslsl” first published in Midnight Sun 1, 1974 edited by Gary Hoppenstand)
Nominated: 1977 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel

This month we are bringing you Part 1 of our coverage of Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane novel Dark Crusade. I recently read Fantasy Newsletter numbers 38 and 39, from July and August 1981, that feature a two-issue interview with Wagner. It is a lengthy interview that covers a lot of Wagner’s thoughts on how his career started and his character Kane. Highly recommended.

I can’t state enough how awesome the painting ‘Dark Kingdom’ by Frank Frazetta is. Earlier, Frazetta had painted a cover for the Kane novel Bloodstone and Wagner claims the sales from that book, which allowed him to publish Dark Crusade, were due solely to the cover art. (I would disagree.) Do yourself a favor and look at a high quality version of ‘Dark Kingdom’ here. I love the detail of his crazed eyes looking down at the skeleton below him. It can’t be fear of the dead, is it fear of what he’s wrought? Brilliant.

Thanks for joining us for another episode as Season 3 ramps up. Next month we’ll be coming back with Part 2 of our coverage of Dark Crusade. Till then, stay safe, healthy, and keep those axes sharp!

Hosts: Jordan Douglas Smith and Jonathan Gelatt
Theme music: F. N. York

Molly Hatchet’s “Flirtin’ with Disaster” (1979), German cover by Tom Edwards (2015), Italian cover by F. Brunner (1992).

Episode 3.1 ‘Raven’s Eyrie’ — Gothic by the Numbers

Raven’s Eyrie
First Appearance: Chacal #2, Spring 1977 eds. Pat Cadigan and Arnie Fenner

(Warning: Sexual Assault is discussed in this episode)

We are back for season three of The Dark Crusade podcast. Once again I’ll be joined by Jonathan Gelatt as co-host as we delve into the second third of Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane stories. Below are links to some of the things mentioned in this episode. And another special thank you to Charles Edward Williams Jr., Rick McCollum, and Rusty Burke for sharing their story about working on Raven’s Eyrie. Check out the cover and pages 1& 9 below.

As far as different iterations of the story go, we forgot to mention the 1993 abridged audio recording by Sunset Productions read by Roger Zelazny. Yes, THAT Zelazny.

Eternal Champion-Armor of Ire is here.

Michael Bukowski-Seventh Church Ministries
Check out his new book here.

‘The Room in the Dragon Volant’ (appears in Through a Glass Darkly) by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

‘The Traveller’s Story of a Terribly Strange Bed’ (appears in After Dark) by Wilkie Collins

A Night on the Borders of the Black Forest by Amelia B. Edwards

And now what you’ve all been waiting for — the pages!

Written by Rusty Burke
Pencils by Rick McCollum
Inks and Lettering by Charles Edward Williams Jr.

Next episode: The Dark Crusade: Prologue thru Chapter XIII
Co-hosts: Jordan Smith and Jonathan Gelatt
Music: F. N. York

Season 3 is Coming!

Grab your reading materials now, season three begins in March!

NecronomiCon Guest of Honor Interview: Victor LaValle

Victor LaValle is the author of seven works of fiction and one comic book. His most recent novel, The Changeling, received the World Fantasy Award, the British World Fantasy Award and the Dragon Award for Best Horror novel, among others. His novella, The Ballad of Black Tom, won the Shirley Jackson Award and was a finalist for the Nubula, Hugo, Bram Stoker and World Fantasy Award among others. It has been translated into nine languages. He lives in New York City with his wife and kids. He teaches at Columbia University.

Interview Schedule:

Wednesday, August 7th: Paul Tremblay
Friday, August 9th: Kenneth Hite
Monday, August 12th: Sonya Taaffe
Wednesday, August 14th: Peter Cannon
Friday, August 16th: Molly Tanzer
Monday, August 19th: Victor LaValle
NecronomiCon Souvenir book exclusive: Dempow Torishima

Information for NecronomiCon 2019—the international festival of weird fiction, art, and academia in Providence, RI. info

Art by Andrea Sparacio info

Music from https://filmmusic.io:
“Symmetry” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

NecronomiCon Guest of Honor Interview: Molly Tanzer

Art by Andrea Sparacio

Molly Tanzer Molly Tanzer is the author of Creatures of Will and Temper, Creatures of Want and Ruin, and the forthcoming Creatures of Charm and Hunger. She is also the author of the weird western Vermilion, which was an io9 and NPR “Best Book” of 2015, and the British Fantasy Award-nominated collection, A Pretty Mouth. Her Mythos fiction exists within those dark absences in Lovecraft’s own work, whether she’s writing about the Asenath Waite as a cheerleader or a Nepali sherpa struck mute by the colour out of space. She lives in Longmont, CO.

http://mollytanzer.com

@molly_the_tanz

Interview Schedule:

Information for NecronomiCon 2019—the international festival of weird fiction, art, and academia in Providence, RI. info

Art by Andrea Sparacio info

Music from https://filmmusic.io:
“Symmetry” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

NecronomiCon Guest of Honor Interview: Peter Cannon

Peter Cannon is the author of H. P. Lovecraft, a volume in Twayne’s U.S. Authors Series; Sunset Terrace Imagery in Lovecraft, an essay collection;The Chronology out of Time: Dates in the Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft; and Long Memories: Recollections of Frank Belknap Long, a memoir. He’s the editor of Lovecraft Remembered and the co-editor with S. T. Joshi of More Annotated Lovecraft. His fiction includes Pulptime, a novella in which Lovecraft meets Sherlock Holmes; Scream for Jeeves: A Parody, a mix of Lovecraft and Wodehouse; Forever Azathoth, a story collection; and The Lovecraft Chronicles, a novel in which Lovecraft dies in 1960 instead of 1937.

Interview Schedule:

Information for NecronomiCon 2019—the international festival of weird fiction, art, and academia in Providence, RI. info

Art by Andrea Sparacio info

Music from https://filmmusic.io:
“Symmetry” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

NecronomiCon Guest of Honor Interview: Sonya Taaffe

Sonya Taaffe reads dead languages and tells living stories. Her short fiction and poetry have been collected most recently in Forget the Sleepless Shores (Lethe Press) and previously in Singing Innocence and Experience, Postcards from the Province of Hyphens, A Mayse-Bikhl, and Ghost Signs. She lives with her husband and two cats in Somerville, Massachusetts, where she writes about film for Patreon and remains proud of naming a Kuiper belt object.

a website: http://sonyataaffe.com/

a blog: http://sovay.dreamwidth.org/

and a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sovay

Interview Schedule:

Information for NecronomiCon 2019—the international festival of weird fiction, art, and academia in Providence, RI. info

Art by Andrea Sparacio info

Music from https://filmmusic.io:
“Symmetry” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

NecronomiCon Guest of Honor Interview: Kenneth Hite

Kenneth Hite has written or designed 100+ tabletop roleplaying games and supplements, including GURPS Horror,Call of Cthulhu d20, Trail of Cthulhu, Bookhounds of London, the Delta Green RPG, The Fall of DELTA GREEN, The Dracula Dossier, Night’s Black Agents, and Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition. Outside tabletop gaming, his other works include two volumes of Tour de Lovecraft, Cthulhu 101, The Thrill of Dracula, The Nazi Occult and The Cthulhu Wars, several Cthulhu Mythos short stories, the “Lost in Lovecraft” column for Weird Tales, and four Lovecraftian children’s books. An Artistic Associate at Chicago’s WildClaw Theatre, he served as dramaturg for their stage production of The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Half of the award-winning podcast Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff, he lives in Chicago with two Lovecraftian cats and his non-Lovecraftian wife, Sheila.

Interview Schedule:

Information for NecronomiCon 2019—the international festival of weird fiction, art, and academia in Providence, RI. info

Art by Andrea Sparacio info

Music from https://filmmusic.io:
“Symmetry” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

NecronomiCon Guest of Honor Interview: Paul Tremblay

Paul Tremblay has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book Awards and is the author of The Cabin at the End of the World, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts, and the crime novels The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland. His short story collection Growing Things and Other Stories was published this past July. He is currently a member of the board of directors of the Shirley Jackson Awards, and his essays and short fiction have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly online, and numerous year’s-best anthologies. He has a master’s degree in mathematics and lives outside Boston with his family.

Information for NecronomiCon 2019—the international festival of weird fiction, art, and academia in Providence, RI. info

Art by Andrea Sparacio info

Music from https://filmmusic.io:
“Symmetry” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Season Three and Necronomicon Providence Guest of Honor Interviews

Necronomicon2019

Hello, Wagnerds and Wagnerians! I hope this finds you well. I have two exciting announcements to make regarding the next season as well as some special episodes that will be arriving the next few weeks.

For those waiting patiently for season three of the podcast, I wanted to let you know the gears are warming up and we expect to start releasing episodes this Winter. Once again, I’ll be joined by co-host Jonathan Gelatt to explore another series of Kane stories. In season three we’ll finish our coverage of the collection Night Winds, move on to Death Angel’s Shadow, and explore our namesake novel; Dark Crusade. We’ll be changing the format up a bit and I hope to have some great surprises in store as well.

In exciting news, I was given the opportunity by the folks at NecronomiCon to interview this year’s Guests of Honor for the convention souvenir book. If you have never heard of, or been to, NecronomiCon it is a once every two-year convention held in Providence, Rhode Island, the birthplace of H. P. Lovecraft. The convention is a celebration of weird fiction, art, academia, film, and gaming. Hands down it is my favorite convention and well worth the pilgrimage.

Over the next three weeks, I’ll be releasing the recorded interviews with the guests of honor on this podcast. We asked them all the same five questions as a way to introduce them to the convention audience. The schedule is below:

I was unable to interview Dempow Torishima, but he will have an exclusive interview in the NecronomiCon souvenir book!

Karl Edward Wagner was a large presence at conventions for many people. I hope you the listeners will appreciate this glimpse into what the current convention scene has to offer. And when the stars are right I hope to see you in Providence!

I’d like to thank Niels Hobbs for creating a weird space for everyone, Justin Steele and Victoria Dalpe for giving me the chance to conduct these interviews, and all the guests of honor for being so generous with their time. Every single guest was a pleasure to speak with and I gained a different insight from each one.

Check out the convention and ticketing here!