RED LIGHT BYTES: Updates Dossier (11-11-2024)
All The Latest From The Frontlines of Our Metallic Future...
Welcome back! Let’s cut right to the chase with ground broken on the writing side, including some of (stop me if you’ve heard this before) the most fun I’ve had writing for Alan Firedale. The things I get to do with this peculiar little radio show astound me to this day, and I hope to do plenty more with it than just the usual four-a-year. Kevin’s still cooking up fleshed out drafts of the art (no full WIPs yet), but in the meantime, the Dossier is getting the full Red Light Roundup treatment with some of the fun stuff I’ve been exploring over the past few weeks away. No in-depth dissertations, just a quick revue of cool shit you should check out. Let’s dive in!
MUSIC: “Psalm 9” by Trouble (1984)
I discovered patron saints of American doom metal Trouble last year with their 1990 self-titled (you may recall “Psychotic Reaction” popping up on a playlist or two), but I had no idea the metallic salvation I was in for with their debut 1984 album, originally a self-titled LP before donning the name of this mammoth song. Couldn’t have picked a better title track too, for “Psalm 9” is a simultaneous lament, rallying cry, and outright exaltation, an example of a band whose lyrics were so openly Christian without an outright eye on the CCM market, and can still rock the secular neighborhood’s sound systems off the walls. Get it wherever the hell you get your tunes.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Ernst Haas
My big thing with photography has always been to run away from convention. When the medium was invented, many saw it as a liberation of painters from hyper-real human forms and landscapes. I, for one, look at it the opposite way, for photography (and by extension cinematography) has such a rich potential for manipulation and layering, that the best photographs are often the ones that go out of their way to eschew a straight-forward shot. And while much of Austrian-American photographer Ernst Haas’s imagery is documentarian in nature, I find that his best works are when he plays with exposure, light, and reflection, capturing the energy and sensations of his subjects. Some of the shots in the collection New York in Color, 1952-1962 make a terrific case for that, with an endless city made of mirror-glass reflections, frenzied night lights from skyscrapers, and the mad, blurred rush of traffic on both road and foot. It makes for great coffee-table viewing, and as such, is available on Amazon.
TELEVISION: Doctor Who: Silver Nemesis
There’s a special place in Whoniverse hell for me loving this one, isn’t there?
I flanked this notorious serial with a Jon Pertwee classic, “The Claws of Axos” and the hour-long Baker serial “The Sontaran Experiment,” and found myself enjoying all a great deal. That said, the one I had the most fun with was McCoy’s twisty affair concerning living metals and robot men. “Axos” takes the best of Pertwee’s conspiracy-laden thrillers and compacts it into a slow-growing four-parter. The truncated nature of “Sontaran Experiment” still gives Baker’s Fourth a chance to have some fun. But in all sincerity, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a madcap smirk on my face while watching the madness of “Silver Nemesis.”
From signal-jamming jazz to Anton Diffring leading the “Fourth Reich” to an out-of-time noblewoman, mad with power, the pulp tone of “Silver Nemesis” is a delight. McCoy’s sublimely crafty Seventh and Aldred’s go-get-em Ace are truly a magical pair with incredible rapport. The series continues to improve visually with dynamic location camerawork and some handsome model effects.
It does admittedly fail as a 25th anniversary special, a title most fans have rightly bestowed upon the brilliant Remembrance of the Daleks. However, I lay a lot of the serial’s troubles at the feet of the BBC, as its another one of the three-parters forced onto the series by the 14-episode season. This ailment also afflicts the similarly promising yet troubled serial “The Happiness Patrol.” Had they given this one a fourth show to flesh out the various (and often incongruous) elements, “Silver Nemesis” may have stood a chance at redeeming itself, and I hope that new extended edition bears some of that out when I see it. Otherwise, catch this odd confection on Tubi and see for yourself.
Speaking of pulp…
NOVEL: THE VOODOO MASTER (THE SHADOW #97)
So while I’ve been away, I’ve been devouring all manner of books and comics from my shelves and digital libraries. I’ve taken a particular fancy to audiobooks, and as such, have been helping myself to the stories of James Bond, John Carter, Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, and of course, The Shadow. And I have been bowled the hell over by this issue of the prolific caped crime-fighter’s escapades, for there is no better testament to Walter B. Gibson’s speed and efficiency than the white-knuckled, red-curtained case of The Voodoo Master.
Here, The Shadow faces the diabolical Dr. Rodil Mocquino, a man with a hypnotic power over men’s mind, who flexes these powers by cursing men at his voodoo rituals, and sending out his “zombified” followers to ensure that the curse is made real. Gibson, per his Street & Smith peer Lester Dent, keeps swatting his black-clad vigilante with fistfuls of trouble in a race to the finish to spare his own agent Harry Vincent and the man in their care from suffering at Mocquino’s despicable hands.
Unfortunately, I was going to direct you to the Audible release of Richard Ferrone’s narration (a bang-up job I might add), but the black magic keeping Condé Nast from pulling their Street & Smith titles finally ran out. While I was fortunate enough to have bought this and the Doc Savage novel The Land of Always Night, you’re all in luck! While also out-of-print, the old Nostalgia Ventures & Sanctum reprints do still float around at reasonable prices. These often feature original magazine illustrations, commentary from historians, and are double-banked with two stories instead of one (in Voodoo Master’s case, Issue 31’s The Red Blot), so thrift around at your leisure. However to drink this story in, though, you are in for a five-alarm treat. There’s a reason we hold Mr. Gibson and his cackling dark avenger in such high esteem, and stories like The Voodoo Master make our case with aplomb.
Remember, kids:
“The weed of crime bears bitter fruit…crime does NOT pay! The Shadow Knows!”
Be seeing you!
