#sophie's obsessed with Victorian history...

[logansdome]

Alan Moore is widely regarded as one of the greatest comic book writers of all time, and his contributions to the medium have been immense. From his groundbreaking work on characters like Swamp Thing, Batman, and Superman, to his groundbreaking graphic novels like Watchmen and V for Vendetta, Moore has had a huge impact on the world of comics. Here are ten of his most acclaimed graphic novels that every comic book fan should check out:

1. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons: This is arguably Moore's most famous work and is considered a classic in the comic book industry. The story takes place in an alternate history where superheroes exist, and it explores the consequences of their actions and the psychological toll it takes on them.

2. V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd: This graphic novel is set in a dystopian future where a masked vigilante known as V fights against a fascist government. The story is a powerful commentary on fascism, totalitarianism, and the importance of individuality and freedom.

3. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill: This graphic novel is an epic adventure that brings together some of the greatest characters from Victorian-era literature, including Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, and the Invisible Man. The story is a thrilling blend of action, mystery, and history.

4. From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell: This is a meticulous and haunting investigation of the Jack the Ripper murders, weaving a web of conspiracy and intrigue that stretches from the slums of Whitechapel to the highest levels of power in Victorian England.

5. Swamp Thing by Alan Moore and Steve Bissette: Moore's run on Swamp Thing is considered one of the greatest in the character's history. He transformed the character from a traditional monster comic into a sophisticated meditation on the nature of life, death, and the environment.

6. Promethea by Alan Moore and J.H. Williams III: This is a magical and mystical journey through the Imaginal realms of the mind and the soul, following the adventures of a young woman named Sophie Bangs who becomes the latest incarnation of the mythic warrior Promethea.

7. Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland: This graphic novel is a dark and psychological examination of the relationship between Batman and the Joker, exploring the nature of their conflict and the madness that drives the Joker's actions.

8. The Miracles of God by Alan Moore and Mitch Jenkins: This is a series of short stories that explores the supernatural, the miraculous, and the mysterious, touching on themes of faith, wonder, and the unknown.

9. Neonomicon by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows: This is a horror story that explores the limits of the human mind and the dangers of knowledge and obsession. The story is a continuation of the themes and characters first introduced in Moore's acclaimed series, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

10. The Courtyard by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows: This is a noir-style horror story that explores the horrors of addiction and the dark places to which it can lead. The story is a vivid and unsettling look at the dark side of human nature.

[vampire-himbos-of-santa-perdita]

Writing Influences Tag Game

Ok, so I’ve been tagged in a ton of writing tag games lately, it’s hard to keep up, but this one’s a good one! I was tagged by @infinitelyblankpage (at my main blog) for this goodie!

Rules: Give a short summary of your WIP, name 7 books, TV Shows, games, movies, comics, etc. that have influenced your story, and tag 7 people.

I’ll do Haunt Your Murderers for now, and maybe do the others later if I’m feeling inspired.

Haunt Your Murderers

Victorian London is in a state of industrial revolution. Yet within its seedy underbelly, resides nefarious criminals who will do just about anything to earn good coin. A drag queen madam of a high class brothel doubles as a notorious kingpin for a thieving ring. A corrupt surgeon lures fallen women to his home under the pretence of a want-ad marriage. Two working class boys take up grave robbery for decent pay and the thrill of it all. Pulling each and every one of their strings is an elusive high priestess of the underworld.

Octavian Cutlass is far from pleased with their thieves’ lazy performance. Tired of their complacency, they’re desperate to do away with the lot of them and start from scratch. Consulting surgeon Vermilion Carnadine and grave robbers, Basil and Hamish, they drum up a murderous ploy to get rid of the thieves one by one. But the high priestess has a stake in this too, and what she brings to the table is good old fashioned resurrection. As the bodies pile up, she must choose who is worth bringing back from the dead, and who is worth burying. 

A single soul stands in their way: a trapeze artist turned lady pirate come home to London, and the stench of decayed morals she’s returned to is foul. 

Influences!

I already talk ad-nauseam about my Victorian literary influences for Haunt Your Murderers, so I’m gonna go for the less obvious ones and go into the historical context:

Wuthering Heights. Although there isn’t much of a hint of WH’s influence on the plot and characters itself (a shocking feat, since everything else I’ve ever written has a hint of WH in it somewhere), the title is borrowed directly from Emily Bronte, who brought us this gem: May you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! 

Edinburgh’s underground caverns. Oooh! So this is fun! On one of my first weeks in Edinburgh, I went on a ghost walk of the caverns beneath the city’s streets. The story goes, the poorest of the poor, and merchant class would live down beneath the streets because they had nowhere else to go. And they managed for a time being until the Great Fire of Edinburgh (which I’m only just realized was in fact, a 19th century phenomenon), blazed through and choked everyone out. The desperation in the dark led to murderers and thieves slitting women and children’s throats in the pitch black, and what remains now is the demonic presence of all that dark energy. Apparently, at some point, a coven showed up to drive away the demonic force, and within a few days of living down there, they decreed it the most evil spaces they’ve ever encountered, and they all fled. I knew the minute I heard that story, that Millie had to get involved as the high priestess who cleansed the underworld of its demonic presence. (...or DID she???)

Burke and Hare! Holy shit, I love Burke and Hare. So they’re the most notorious grave robbers in Victorian history. At the time, corpses were a particularly hot commodity among surgeons for use in their anatomy lectures. Often times, they would take custody of anyone hanged whose body was never claimed by family, but when that was made illegal, they started accepting bodies from just about anyone willing to hand them over. Burke and Hare started off just digging up fresh bodies where they could find them, but eventually they got so desperate for money, they just started killing off prostitutes and handing their bodies over. They were eventually caught, executed, and their skins made into book jackets (or at least one of them did...). We’ve got a similar situation with Basil & Hamish (who together, quite unintentionally, share Burke & Hare’s initials!)

Sarah Waters. So Sarah Waters wrote Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet, two (modern) queer 19th century novels about the criminal and sexual underworld. She gave me a taste of what it could’ve been like if London had an underground sexual revolution, where the Victorian equivalent of the LGBT community hung out in clubs and deviated as much as they wanted from the social norms. That’s where my duplicitous drag queen comes from.

Fanny and Stella. So, historical research on Victorian drag culture isn’t non-existent, but it is pretty darn hard to find. Fanny and Stella are two queens(?) that are pretty well documented though. I maintain it’s tough to breech the topic of trans identity in the Victorian context, because even with this prominent case, historians are pretty wishy washy about exactly how they identified (with so many cis white male historians, what’re you gonna do?) They’re recorded as theatrical performers, who spent time dressed as women both on and off stage, and had relationships with men, with a preference for their feminine names. It seems to me they were trans women, but just didn’t have the modern notions to describe it as such yet. Similar to Oscar Wilde, they’re well documented because they had a court case haunting them over their “deviant behaviour”. There was practically a witch hunt after them for essentially just being true to themselves, so you can imagine how hard it would’ve been to be trans in that era. Octavian/Melusine definitely falls somewhere within this realm of gender identity. (Melusine being their preferred identity, but Octavian being the one they use to traverse within society’s confines).

The fortunetelling scheme. When I was doing my undergrad, with my minor in history, I took a small research assistant job, where I combed through 19th century newspaper archives for any mention of criminal activity. One of my favourites was an incident that happened on the highway of my home town in the UK, where travellers would pretend to be fortune tellers, tell some unsuspecting victims’ fortunes, then swindle all their money and vanish into the night. Looking back on it, this could just be a xenophobic dig against gypsies, which is no bueno, but unfortunately rampant at the time... I have a scene I’m writing right now where Melusine encounters Andrina (an actual fortuneteller) on the road, and promptly attempts to rob her, only for Andrina to swindle them back. 

The young bride want-ad scheme. Every so often, I’ll do a deep dive into non-fiction books about Victorian crime, and a favourite nugget I’ve found has been that at some point, a serial murderer would put out an ad in the newspaper requesting essentially mail-order brides. He would then lure them into his home, and kill them. Vermilion does much the same with his victims.

This has been a spontaneous Victorian history lesson... I hope you learned some stuff! 😉

I’ll tag some new writeblr followers! ...and @msmeaghanrey @howsweetthewords @authorlaragrey @vanwolffen @scribble-dee-vee @amyanda @katekarl @atellier

[annecoulmanross]

A Review of Lady Franklin’s Revenge (2006) by Ken McGoogan

Well, I definitely jinxed myself when I wrote in my review of Cookman’s Ice Blink (2000) that “being stuck inside has somehow given me the miraculous ability to read books quickly once again.” But I have, at last, finished another volume in my collection of “paper books on the Franklin expedition that I snatched from my library before it closed.”  So, here are some thoughts on Ken McGoogan’s book Lady Franklin’s Revenge: A True Story of Ambition, Obsession, and the Remaking of Arctic History, a sweeping 420-page trek through the life of Lady Jane Franklin.

Below the cut, you’ll find:

– What McGoogan cared about re: writing Lady Jane Franklin

– Things You Didn’t Know You Could Thank (or Blame) Lady Jane For™

– Select quotes (feat. Sir John doesn’t write good; Sophy Cracroft’s horseback-riding misadventures; homemade jam for polar explorers; Eliza Hamilton; and so much more!)

(Thank you @rhavewellyarnbag for some good discourse about this book during my early reading stages! As ever, your thoughts are so helpful and interesting!) 

What McGoogan Cared About:

In short, everything (re: Jane herself, at least). If there was something interesting happening in Lady Jane’s life, McGoogan at least touches on it, which is helpful. You’re not going to find much information that falls outside of Lady Jane’s direct sphere. (There’s very little on the final Franklin Expedition itself, for instance, except where it was relevant to Lady Jane’s titular quest to establish her husband as the “discoverer of the Northwest Passage,” but that’s not truly a fault, and it’s appropriate for the scope of the narrative.)

The “Revenge” in the title is the grand denouement of the text, i.e. Lady Jane’s efforts to memorialize Sir John after the disappearance of his final Arctic expedition. It makes this pop history sound more sensationalist than it actually is, and does some discredit to McGoogan’s careful work of examining Lady Jane’s numerous diaries held at the Scott Polar Research Institute and crafting an intricate timeline of her entire life, from “A Jane Austen Heroine” in her early years to “A Victorian Penelope” opposite her missing husband and eventually “Lady Victorious,” an accomplished traveller and international celebrity.  

McGoogan doesn’t pull punches when necessary (Lady Jane’s conservativism, imperialism, racism, and brutal social aggression against figures like John Rae are, rightfully, on full display here.) For the most part, however, he’s quiet fair to her character, though I tend to see Jane’s complex relationship with her stepdaughter with more sympathy for Jane than McGoogan offers. Regardless, he’s not wrong to write “Jane had proven far more successful as an aunt [to Sophy Cracroft] than as a stepmother [to Eleanor Franklin.]” (pg. 319)

What I enjoyed most were the detailed descriptions of Lady Jane’s numerous travels – some of them to places I’ve been, and felt as strongly about as Jane, in many ways. The Appendices are quite helpful short references – App. A catalogues Jane’s own personal voyages, and App. B lists the search expeditions Lady Jane coordinated and organized, in aid of McGoogan’s assertion that, “of all individual contributions to Arctic discovery, [Jane Franklin’s] was the greatest.” (pg. 414)   

Things You Didn’t Know You Could Thank (or Blame) Lady Jane For:

(You’ll notice this section replaces my “errata” section on Cookman – in part because I simply don’t know enough to correct McGoogan as often as I could Cookman, but also because I do think McGoogan’s done a more careful and accurate job with his research, even if his lack of specific citations is occasionally troubling – *repeats to self* it’s a popular history not a philological treatise, it’s a popular history not a philological treatise...) 

Anyway, Lady Jane was wildly influential, historically speaking. Here’s some bizarre things she did that shaped world history (or were just hilariously fun to read about):

– Had herself “smuggled” in to see Mohammed Ali Pasha in Alexandria, à la Cleopatra smuggling herself in to see Caesar (pg. 92)

– Made Athens the capital city of modern Greece, by convincing the Greek king of the historical and symbolic importance of Athens via “behind-the-scenes machinations” and using Sir John as her mouthpiece (pg. 108)

– Learned how to use a harpoon and dissected a giant squid (pg. 149)

– Read 295 books in three years (1837-1840) (pg. 172)

– Attempted to eradicate all snakes in Van Diemen’s Land, i.e. Tasmania (pg. 173)

– Managed to get Van Diemen’s Land renamed “Tasmania” with some assistance from Sir James Clark Ross (pg. 203 and pg. 209)

– Doomed her husband via sewing: having finished crafting a Union Jack flag for Sir John for the third Arctic Expedition, laid it over Sir John while he was asleep, leading to Sir John waking up and freaking out, because this was a terrible omen: during a Naval burial, a Union Jack is placed over the corpse. (pg. 274)

– Wrote of having “a deep sense of gratitude to Sir John Ross for murdering [her] husband” in her anger at him for communicating a story about a group of men who had allegedly been killed in Baffin Bay. (pg. 304)

– “Accidentally" circumnavigated the globe because of the American Civil War (pg. 403)

Select Quotes:

“As a precise writer herself, however, Jane could not contain her frustration with her husband’s inability to sketch incisive word portraits.” (pg. 84)

[Lady Jane Franklin] “marvel[ed] at the ruins of the Temple of Isis and also, inevitably, at the story of how that entrancing goddess had used magical powers to restore her dead husband to eternal life. Certainly Jane did not imagine… that this archetypal myth might somehow prefigure the deepest meanings of her own future.” (pg. 123-124)

During an overland exploration of Australia, “Sophy Cracroft [then 22 years old] was thrown from her horse. Jane reported that ‘her nose received the blow – it was much bruised but it saved her head, and she had no other injury except a headache which existed before.’ Dr. Hobson treated her nosebleed with cold water and had her removed into the cart and then carried by stretcher into that night’s encampment. Showing more alarm than Jane, he described the concussion as severe and wrote that Sophy ‘bore the misfortune with more courage and resignation than most men and contrary to my expectation did not appear to be anxious about its effect on her beauty.’” (pg. 193)

“Jane herself established the closest of platonic bonds with [James Clark] Ross, cementing a friendship that would have ironic consequences. She presented him with jars of homemade jam (whose praises he endlessly sang).” (pg. 209)

“Despite several flirtations [with others], and although she could not acknowledge it, the twenty-nine-year-old [Sophy Cracroft] had secretly committed herself to Jane Franklin.” (pg. 273) McGoogan doesn’t ship Sophy/Jane but he comes DAMN close. (He addresses this as a scholarly debate in very vague terms on page pg. 364.)

During the winter of 1845, “Jane travelled through the West Indies to the southern United States. Proceeding north, she inspected schools, hospitals, factories, and other institutions, more than once being mistaken for the widow of the American Alexander Hamilton – an excellent woman, although much older than she.” (pg. 275-276)

“Almost alone among her contemporaries, Jane grasped that monuments create history.” (pg. 414)

[debbiewright-blog1]

The Obsession With Exposed Bricks In Their Home? Basically Trade

Rough, bare brick walls, mottled grey concrete and bulbs hanging lampshade-less from an exposed ceiling. Once, these were the markers of a building under construction. Now, these industrial-style interiors inspired by warehouse buildings are proof that the owner has their finger on the design pulse.

But while some of us feel on-trend for buying an Edison bulb lamp or judging the trendiness of a bar on whether or not it has wallpaper and factory lighting, this style is far from new.

“The pioneering designers of the reuse of industrial buildings and spaces were initially the creatives who occupied these spaces in the various derelict inner cities of the early 70s,” Graeme Brooker, Professor of bespoke Interior Design at the Royal College of Art (RCA), explains to The Independent.

“In London, it was people like Ron Arad, Tom Dixon, Andre Dubriel, Danny Lane, Derek Jarman and Joe Rush who were creative in salvaging the relics of the derelict buildings that were once the manufacturing base of London, rendered obsolete by Thatcherism, and reusing them for living spaces but also spaces for events.”

It turned out that as well as offering a cheap space to work and socialise, warehouses were quite pleasant to live in once they were done up. Warehouses offer the elements of buildings that people have always sought out - character, large open spaces outside of Victorian scaled housing, high ceilings and floods of light - that are hard to find in major cities if you don't have a hefty bank balance, adds Professor Brooker. Now, warehouses have gone from shelters for squatters and hard-up artists to being sought out by affluent urban professionals, from San Francisco to London. Research from Australia shows that buyers interested in purchasing a home with a warehouse feel can pay a premium of up to 20 per cent.

The warehouse-inspired interiors that have emerged from these homes have converged with the rise of technology in every aspect of our lives - from smartphones to Amazon's Alexa - and enable us to indulge in nostalgia for an analogue era. At the same time, industrial design prods people into re-thinking how they used their living spaces. Meanwhile, the tough furnishings - from reclaimed factory lampshades and worn leather seats - that are used to decorate ex-warehouses and now suburban homes and nightspots didn’t come about because of some grand ideas about design, but because they just made sense.

“Lofts express a need for spaces that are large, open and non-defined in a way so that people can inhabit them in a number of ways and not be forced into a room-based approach to living," says Professor Brooker.

He adds: "The aesthetic of the materiality of the existing space is usually one of hard surfaces, and therefore any new elements imported into the space need to be tough and refined in order to stand up to the existing context into which they are placed."

Sophie Bush is among those enjoying living in an formerly industrial building. In 2012, she bought an apartment in a Grade II listed former mill in East London. She quickly became obsessed with this type of living, and has since launched Warehouse Home magazine and written the book Warehouse Home: Industrial Inspiration for Twenty-First-Century Living which is a love-letter to homes like hers. According to Bush, her home narrowly escaped being destroyed during the Blitz, when the rest of the area comprising of timber docks and warehouses, was razed to the ground.

“I was immediately drawn to its original features: the exposed brickwork and the steel columns. Its an impressive building, on the south bank of the Thames. It has an enormous crane, grain chute and old mill stones, which are references to its former life. There's a real sense of history here. The interior courtyards mean it's also a peaceful environment in which to live - a rare thing in London,” she tells The Independent.

“For design-conscious homeowners, industrial conversions represent a fantastic opportunity to really be imaginative," she goes on. "Features like exposed brickwork, raw concrete and beams present a creative challenge and the opportunity to source original decor to complement and contrast with these heritage elements."

Fore more on this article and bespoke bedrooms and kitchens visit Basically trade.

[vampire-himbos-of-santa-perdita]

A reintroduction

Hey, hi, hello! So, I’ve had a bit of a boost in new followers recently, which means there’s a bunch of you who are discovering my writing for the first time!

My name is Sophie, I’m a 20-something dark fantasy writer. Many people on here will know me as the Hell Witch, because my ambition and work ethic tends to intimidate people. But most of all, it’s because I like torturing characters and making readers cry. Not that that should scare you. I look spooky, but I’m really nice...

 I’ve been writing since I was 9 years old, and writing novels since I was 16. I’ve got an undergraduate degree in Victorian literature and criminal history, and a Masters in Publishing. I’ve been working in the publishing industry on and off as an editor and marketer for the past 3 years now, and have worked with big name publishers and authors. I am always here to give writing advice, so do not be afraid to hop into my ask box to send me questions about the writing and/or publishing process.  

I’ve got so many novels on the go right now, it’s a bit insane, but I swear, it makes sense.... Here are my devious, devious Hell Children™:

Time, Regardless:

1980s time travel novel featuring an angry magic girl who’s gone back to save her dad with the help of a celestial agent trying to uncover the reason why her entire family’s been erased from the timeline...

I’ve been at this one since age 16, so it’s been through the ringer and back, and I’m tired of looking at it at this point.

I’ve been querying it to agents on and off for the past 3 years. I sent it over to various beta readers, publishers, editors, and agents, and all have said it needs a rewrite because my narrative structure is a mess. This is draft 6.

Currently on a bit of a hiatus because querying is a soul crushing experience, and I need time to recuperate with other projects that remind me why I love writing so much...

I swear to god, you guys, I love this novel. I DO!

Moonage Daydream:

Hey, you can find this one here!

A Raven Cycle longfic featuring the gangsey’s kids. The first 10 chapters are a big party pleaser, and then it rapidly goes downhill from there (not everyone loves grimdark as much as I do, but if that’s your cup of tea, you should read this fic, and also, we should chat!) I fully support anyone who decides to read the first 10 and peace out. If anything, it’s a really solid representation of the type of stuff I write.

I have plans to update this into an original novel set in the Canadian Rockies about haunted forests and dream states.

I have the softest of soft spots for this novel because it’s the one that launched me as a credible writeblr on here, and it’s the reason I have followers for my original work.

Haunt Your Murderers:

Set in Victorian London, a drag queen kingpin for an underground thieving ring gets caught up in a murder plot with a mad surgeon and two grave robbers. The only ones who can stop them are a crew of lady pirates and the high priestess of the underworld, who may just be pulling everyone’s strings...

A very loving homage to my favourite Victorian novels and gritty history. Here, you may just find a little bit of Frankenstein, a little bit of Dorian Gray, a lot a bit of penny dreadfuls...

I came up with the idea for this novel, sitting in a very cold lecture during a history class, and I thought to myself “what would it be like if Frank Furter from Rocky Horror was a highwayman?”

Honestly, I’m just obsessed with Sweeney Todd and wanted to write that.

I’m currently 100k in and just getting settled into the plot. (in case you wanted to get a taste for the type of writer I am.......)

I know too many things about Victorian gothics/crime. Please ask me about it!

Heaven’s Tiny Daggers:

The rise of a pop-punk girl band in the midst of a gigantic revolution between angels and demons, who are hiding in plain sight in the punk music scene.

You know that conspiracy theory about Avril Lavigne being replaced by a doppelganger? That’s the conflict of this novel.

Although this is a loving tribute to punk history, and an exploration of how the emo subgenre came to be, underneath it all, it’s just an MCR genderbender.

An exploration of how capitalist greed in the music industry is sucking the creativity and inspiration out of musicians, also what it means to create a legacy as an artist.

I just started this one! I’m about 40k in and really hitting the ground running! This’ll be my project for 2019, at least for the next few months, depending on how long it takes to finish the first couple drafts.

I know way too much about punk/emo music. Please ask me about it!!!

You can find all my WIPs under tags of the same name. If you want to be tagged in my future updates, let me know!