Category Archives: fantasy

Fan Culture Documentaries: Back to Space-Con, and Four Days at Dragon*Con

April 25th, 2011 | Posted in conventions, documentary, Dragon*Con, fan cultures, fantasy, geek cultures, liminality, science fiction, science fiction convention, Space-Con, Star Trek

This weekend I had the opportunity to watch two documentaries, Back to Space-Con, produced and directed by Tom Wyrsch of Garfield Lane Productions, and Four Days at Dragon*Con, produced and directed by Jack Walsh of Public Broadcasting in Atlanta. Taken together, these films tell the story of the development of science fiction and fantasy conventions, […]

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Invisible Universe: A History of Blackness in Speculative Fiction

April 21st, 2011 | Posted in cultural studies, documentary, fantasy, horror, race, science fiction

How have African Americans been represented in, played a part in, and contributed to speculative fiction? How have we come from depictions of African Americans in speculative fiction (defined broadly to include horror) in black exploitation horror like Blacula to more positive representations in the action-horror film Blade? These interesting questions and others are explored […]

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Elf Ears: New Trend in Body Modification

April 19th, 2011 | Posted in Body, Body modification, fantasy, science fiction

Today I became aware of a new trend in body modification, the creation of pointed ears reminiscent of those on Elves from Lord of the Rings, Avatar‘s Na’vi, and Star Trek‘s Vulcans. There is a lot of discussion and examples of it on the Internet, but an ABC News/Health online video provides an interesting, and […]

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Church of the Latter-Day Geek Stirs Controversy Down Under

April 5th, 2011 | Posted in Christianity, fantasy, science fiction

I recently came across an interesting couple of news items related to a church in Australia that has scheduled a fantasy and science fiction service. The idea is the brainchild of the Uniting Church’s pastor, Avril Hannah-Jones, who is a fan of the fantastic in popular culture. From the Unsettled Christianity website: What started as […]

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Leslie Dale Feldman: Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone and Politics

March 30th, 2011 | Posted in fantasy, Rod Serling, science fiction, Twilight Zone

I am always on the lookout for good books that probe various aspects of the fantastic in popular culture in depth. Not long ago I came across such a book that looked at the political views of Rod Serling as expressed in his television show The Twilight Zone. The book is Spaceships and Politics: The […]

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PBS Documentary: Four Days at Dragon*Con

March 26th, 2011 | Posted in conventions, Dragon*Con, fan cultures, fantasy, geek cultures, science fiction

Thanks to the email list for the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts I learned about a documentary that will be broadcast courtesy of American Public Television. The documentary is titled Four Days at Dragon*Con. From The APT website: Every Labor Day weekend, tens of thousands descend upon Atlanta for the largest convention […]

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LOTTD Favorite Villainess – My Choice: Clash’s Medusa

March 24th, 2011 | Posted in fantasy, LOTTD, Ray Harryhausen, stop-motion animation

That group of horror bloggers, the League of Tana Tea Drinkers (LOTTD), of which I am a part, has come up with the theme for their latest roundtable group of posts. By early April those participants will have posted on their favorite villainess. It’s been a while since I’ve done something on the lighter side, […]

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Fantastic Super Bowl Commercials

February 7th, 2011 | Posted in fantasy, television

The Super Bowl for 2011 included a few good commercials. Two of them were fantastic, and by that I refer to the fact that they drew upon the genres of the fantastic, in these instances from fantasy. Here are the two standouts for TheoFantastique. First was a commercial for the Volkswagen Passat that featured a […]

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Matthew R. Bradley: Richard Matheson on Screen

January 16th, 2011 | Posted in fantasy, horror, science fiction

Richard Matheson is one of the most influential writers of horror, science fiction, and fantasy in our time. Many of his works have been translated to the silver and small screens, and Matthew R. Bradley describes this process in his great book Richard Matheson on Screen: A History of the Filmed Works (McFarland, 2010). Bradley […]

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Robert J. Sawyer, “A long time ago,” and science fiction’s social commentary

November 28th, 2010 | Posted in fantasy, race, science fiction, Star Wars

I recently came across a portion of a lecture given by science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer divided into three installments on YouTube. The lecture is titled “‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….’ my ass!”. Each of the installments can be viewed at the bottom of this post. In the lecture […]

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