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* It’s out! They’re loose! Cat Garza Jr. (who colored and completed production on my cover art, above; artwork ©2009 S.R. Bissette and Cayetano ‘Cat’ Garza) and I just received our copies from Black Coat Press of the just-published novel Panic in Paris by Jules Lermina, translated and adapted by Brian Stableford — and if I may say so, it’s a beaut!

“…at the corner of the Rue de Plateau a terrifying silhouette appeared: the megatherium, a giant armadillo four meters in height, with bizarre jaws and a drooping lip. Strongly supported by its hind legs, the latter advanced in bounds, its exceedingly short forelimbs high above the ground, armed with might claws. Its face was horrible, diabolical, the pre-eminent eyes rolling, alternating black and white in a frightful fashion…

Suddenly, from all the streets in the vicinity… other monsters, other giants and other colossi surged forth: hipparions, ancestors of our horses, twice the size; a mastodon, a shapeless mass, a veritable block of flesh four meters in length, from which four menacing tusks sprouted like blades; brontosaurs; triceratops; and others that science had not catalogued… reptiles marching on their hind legs in the manner of kangaroos…”

Panic in Paris (original title: L’Effrayante Aventure, 1910) is another slice of rare French sf lovingly excavated, translated and presented for the first time ever in English by the team of Brian Stableford and Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, who have rescued a plethora of genre (horror, sf and fantasy) Franco-Belgian marvels from obscurity over the past decade via Black Coat Press.

Brian and Jean-Marc generously added another remarkable and historic Lermina genre gem to the package, the vampire short story L’Elixir de Vie/The Elixir of Life (1890), which is must reading, too.

My personal interest in this project was as a paleo-sf fanatic, as Panic in Paris predates elements of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1912) and indeed may be the first (if not, it’s certainly among the first) giant-monster-on-the-loose-in-the-metropolis works in any medium, pre-dating both the climax of Doyle’s The Lost World (in which Professor Challenger accidentally looses pterodactyls in London) and Winsor McCay’s animated classic Dream of the Rarebit Fiend: The Pet (1921, the first of the genre in cinema).

I love this stuff, in part for its archaic language and devices (which Brian preserves in his translations, while keeping the whole entertaining and readable) as well as the audacity of Lermina’s imagery and prose.

Old-fashioned? You bet — as Brian notes in his excellent, informative introduction, Lermina owes a vast debt to Verne, Wells and (the now rarely-read) Edward Bulwer-Lytton (particularly his 1871 novel The Coming Race) — but the slow buildup and read is worthwhile to aficianados of this peculiar niche of science-fiction, and anticipates the monsters-on-the-loose to come. Lermina even anticipates the particulars of Doyle’s Lost World climax, and true to the later incarnations of the genre amplifies the size of his primordial invaders for melodramatic effect:

“…after having tried to take off 20 times over, awkwardly hindered in the employment of its wings devoid of feathers or scales, a monstrous pterodactyl with a wingspan on ten meters finally climbed up to the top of a house and heavily launched itself over Paris like a gigantic airplane.

It was an invasion of prodigious ancestors, escaped from their tombs!”

I could go on — Lermina even introduces the generic King Kong staple of a prehistoric monster derailing a train, not to mention such critters only being enraged or energized by lethal doses of electricity (“…the trolley broke and fell upon the ancestor, discharging a thousand volts into it; that made it angry, and, quickening its pace, it set off…”), among others — but suffice to say this is essential reading for paleo sf buffs, a lot of fun and a real revelation. 

Besides, it’s got a real sweet cover, don’tcha think? (Cat and I will be making signed prints of the cover art available later this spring, which we hope will be of interest to some of you.)

Equally revelatory (and an even better read) is Brian Stableford’s translation/adaptation of Charles Derennes’s Le Peuple du Pole/The People of the Pole (1907; cover at left, artwork ©2008 Gil Formosa), which is another first of the paleo-fiction genre: Derenne proposes a hidden race of reptilian humanoids evolved from dinosaurs, isolated beneath the ice of the North Pole!

Derennes makes the link to the dinosaurs quite explicit: “Relics of the Cretaceous period are still alive here; ancient species have been perpetuated here for millions of years!”

Pre-dating all other comers I’ve ever read or read of, including Edgar Rice Burroughs, Charles Derennes not only posits a then-novel concept but fleshes it out with intoxicating detail and vivid clarity; there are some really marvelous, memorable setpieces.

This now-popular sf and New Age trope arguably had its beginnings here, and the titular ‘People of the Pole’ also sport a highly-evolved technology, making this a pretty astonishing read given its vintage. Derenne peppers the novel with truly imaginative imagery and touches, including a visit to the reptilian nursery/incubation chambers (“…we even witnessed the mass hatching of these eggs…”) and the race’s methodology of dealing with their elderly. In this, Derenne was taking a cue from H.G. Wells’s 1901 novel First Men in the Moon and its subterranean selenite hive/culture, but Derenne’s extrapolation of surviving saurian evolution moving in a parallel track with Darwinian human ancestry was completely innovative in its day.

As with Panic in Paris, Brian also includes a bonus story, Derennes’ Les Conquerants d’Idoles/The Conquerors of Idols, which I’ve not yet read. I’m looking forward to it!

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* The Friday guest-teaching session with CCS alumni Denis St. John and Bryan Stone at Peoples Academy in Morrisville, VT was an amazing day.

Among the unexpected perks were two between-classes trips with Denis and Bryan to my old haunts — a visit to Johnson, VT and the Johnson State College campus, and a trip to “Emily’s Bridge” aka the Stowe Hollow Bridge (pictured at right, on the cover of The Vermont Ghost Guide painted by yours truly).

We also had some of the tastiest sandwiches ever at Morrisville, VT’s downtown deli Thompson’s Flour Shop, right on Main Street. If you’re ever in Morrisville/Morristown (I still can’t figure out that interchangeable naming of the town, and I grew up just a short distance from there), be sure to have a bite there — it’s really top-notch food at bargain prices.

The Middle School and High School students at Peoples Academy were terrific to work with, and it was fun to see how most of the kids jumped right into drawing their own three-panel comic (in 22 minutes!) and cover (again, 22 minutes — these were one-hour classes), yielding a bounty of panels and cover art.

Denis will be posting info and photos on his own blog/site on Monday, I’ll share the link here.

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* Thanks to all who jumped on some of my sketch art for sale in the May Day 24-Hour sale, which is now over. Among the adopted were sketches of Swamp Thing, the immortal daikaiju-eiga team of Godzilla and Mothra, a Vermonster gem and (pending final contact) the choice Constantine sketches. Thanks for giving ‘em all good homes, and my deepest thanks for supporting Myrant and my work with your purchases.

Time to replenish the sketch coffers, with new work going up later today!

Again, though, I just want to thank you, one and all — your interest and support is greatly appreciated, and all orders paid for over the weekend will ship first thing on Monday morning, each with a special personalized ‘thank you’ bonus item to sweeten the package.

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* I’m desperately seeking an affordable (or barter; happy to swap a sketch for a copy!) copy of Mark Evanier’s Wertham Was Right! (TwoMorrows), in any condition as long as it’s complete.

This is for my ongoing CCS teaching work and research for class, and I’d welcome any help anyone can give me in this department.

I have, enjoy and often refer to Mark’s other two essay collections, Comic Books and Other Necessities of Life and Superheroes in My Pants!, both from TwoMorrows, but I somehow missed Wertham Was Right! and it’s now apparently out of print and out of reach.

If you’re a retailer and have a copy gathering dust on your shelves, let me know, please.

Email me at msbissette@yahoo.com if you can help me locate a copy or have one you’re willing to sell or trade — and thanks!