SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE BLEEDING MAN

 "The Bleeding Man" by Craig Strete  (originally published in Red Planet Earth #*, April 1974, as by "Mark Horse and Craig Strete"; reprinted (as by Strete alone) in Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1974; reprinted in The 1975 Annual World's Best SF (also published as Wollheim's World's Best SF:  Series Four), edited by Donald A Wollheim & Arthur Saha; included in the author's collections The Bleeding Man and Other Science Fiction Stories, 1977, and If All Else Fails..., 1980)

John Clute, in SFE: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, writes, "the suggestion has been bruited that Strete is the pseudonym of a Native American author of Cherokee birth who does not wish to reveal his real name, but this has not been confirmed.  He has written as Strete and as by Sovereign Faulkner, and possibly under other names, by himself and in collaboration, at least forty of the eighty stories claimed by him must almost certainly be under unrevealed names."  Strete's Wikipedia entry makes no note of the name being a possible pseudonym.

Strete began writing Native american-themed science fiction stories in the early 80s.  In 1984, he edited six issues of the monthly amateur magazine Red Planet Earth, a "magazine of American Indian science fiction" published by the Northstar Intertribal Council, where several of his early stories (including this one) first appeared.  Strete's first professionally by-lined story was "Time Deer" in the November/December issue of If; the story had previously appeared in issue #4 of Red Planet Earth.   Strete has published six collections and at least eleven novels.  'The Bleeding Man" was nominated for a Nebula Award in 1976.

The man, who has no name and does not speak, has been bleeding since birth froma gaping wound in his chest.  He is now 23.  How so much blood keeps flowing and bow he has managed to survive are unanswered questions.  According to his uncle, his Native American parents had tried to kill themselves with poison while he was in utero.  The foetus allowed the poison to strike the parents but kept them alive until his birth; the poison intended for him, he has turned to water.  After the child was born -- bleeding -- the parents died horribly, and the uncle took him in, using him as a carnival sideshow attraction.  Eventually, news of the bleeding man came to the attention of the authorities and they "bought" the boy from the uncle for the sum of $12 a week.

"His chest was slit with a gaping wound  that led profusely; his legs and stomach were soaked with blood."  For seven years, those studying him have not been able to explain him.  If it were stigmata, it was the most extreme case in the world.  the bleeding man was a biological impossibility.  Various including surgery, chemical therapy, psycho-chemistry, primal reconditioning, and bio-feedback. have all be tied to stop the bleeding, but nothing has worked.  Now a no-nonsense scientific administrator has been put in charge.  She has determined that the bleeding man is not human and proposes dissecting him to see whether his tissues would regenerate.  (This would not be murder, in her mind, even if he were human; his tissues would still be alive.) 

And now, the bleeding man has started drinking his own blood.  His uncle gives a warning, 'Do not walk in his shadow.  Leave him alone, for he is not you.  For twenty-three years he has been gathering power."  The new administrator does not listen and the bleeding man stops bleeding and his power becomes evident...

A story of Native American mythic sensibilities, of science and magic and legend, and of the futility of thinking we know that we know.  Powerful and unforgettable.

OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: JOHNNY JUPITER (SEPTEMBER 5, 1953)

The aliens are among us!!!  At least they were in 1953 with films such as War of the Worlds, Invaders from Mars, and It Came from Outer Space.  Even the nascent boob tube was not immune:  Tales of Tomorrow, The Quatermass Experiment, Flash Gordon, Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers, and my favorite from my very early school days, Johnny Jupiter.

Johnny Jupiter was the show that tore affections from the much earlier (and more juvenile) The Rootie Kazootie Club, although I still hold warm feelings for Rootie's gal, Polka Dottie, in my heart.  But in my seven-year-old mind, Johnny Jupiter stood tall in my personal pantheon of heroes (which included only one other person -- Hopalong Cassidy).

There were two versions of Johnny Jupiter, both featuring a combination of live action and hand puppets.  The first aired on the Dumont Network from March to June 1953; it was followed by 39 episodes on ABC, from September 5, 1953 to May 29, 1954.  In the Dumont version, created by Martin Stone, elderly janitor Ernest P. Duckweather worked the midnight shift at a television station.  One day, he was fooling around with a television and made contact with the planet Jupiter, more specifically, with Johnny Jupiter and Johnny's pal, B-12.  "The often sharp humor of the series was based on Duckweather trying to explain and justify earth customs to the inhabitants of Jupiter, who could view them on their own TV sets."  Duckweather was played by Vaughan Taylor; Johnny and B-12 were voiced by Jerome Coopersmith (one of the show's writers) and Carl Harris.  Coopersmith's co-writer was Hotton Foote (To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies, The Trip to Bountiful).   

In the ABC version, Duckweather (played by Wright King) was now the young employee of a television repair shop.  Contact with Jupiter was made through a magic TV set only when Duckweather needed help or advice.  This time his contacts are with Johnny Jupiter, Major Domo (a cube-headed robot), and Reject the Robot (who could appear and disappear at will); all three puppets were voiced by Gil Mack.  Often the bumbling Reject the robot had to beamed to Earth to help solve Duckweather's problems; when the happened, he was played by Gene (or Philip)as Hampshire London wearing a large robot suit.  For the ABC season, which geared more to science fiction than to children's programming, Coopersmith was producer and script editor only.

Join us for the first episode of the ABC series, in which aliens have made contact with Earth to help Duckweather repair a television set.  Cliff Hall plays Duckweather's boss, Horatio Frisby; Patricia Peardon is the boss's daughter, Katherine; also featuring Jerome Collamore as Hampshire.

Enjoy -- as I did back in the long-ago days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnuxUcJ1Rc8

THE ARCTIC GIANT (1942)

Those of us of generous proportions can take heart:  today is National Plus Size Appreciation Day.

To celebrate, here is a "little" plus-size tribute from the annals of Superman  - a Fleischer Brothers cartoon, The Arctic Giant.

What happens when an oversized monster is found in the Arctic tundra and is transported to Metropolis for display?  Of course it gets loos, and of course Sups is there to handle the crisis.

The Arctic Giant was the fourth of nine Superman cartoons released by Fleischer between September 26, 1941 and August 30, 1942.  All were in Technicolor and all featured Bud Collyer and Joan Alexander reprising their radio roles as Clark and Lois.  In May 1942 Famous Studios, the successor to Fleischer, began work on a further eight cartoons, released from September 18, 1942 to July 30, 1943.

The Arctic Giant was directed by Dave Fleischer and scripted by Bill Turner and Tedd Pierce.  In addition to Clark Kent/Superman, Collyer also voiced Reactor Worker #1, Police Officer #1, and the Police Dispatcher.  Joan Alexander also voiced the Female Pedestrian.  Daily Planet editor Perry White was played by Julian Noa, who also voiced the Male Pedestrian and Police Officer #2.  Jackson Beck narrated the cartoon and also voiced Tractor Worker #2.  The person who posted this to YouTube added stock dinosaur roars because the original cartoon had the dinosaur making no noise at all, even through it opened its mouth a lot and you would expect a roar or two.

Also note than Superman does more leaping than flying here.  The original Superman was able to leap, not fly.

I know this is a day to appreciated the plus-sized, but there are few sympathetic oversized monsters out there.  We have to take what we can get.

Enjoy this classic Superman cartoon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUzA_xyfeAw&list=PLVyxJvG53fqCgU8BiUHPaxAHWd5vGTfDm&index=2

HYMN TIME

I hope to post Halloween-themed items each day this October -- something that's a tad difficult for my Sunday "Hymn Time" posts.  But I came across this, which, if you squint in a very dark room and you have poor eyesight anyway, may resemble what I could call a "zombie hymn;" I hope the artist, Joshua Leonard, will forgive me for naming it thus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQd7P__yJtM

CREEPY #1 (1964)

 A new era in comic books was launched in late 1963 with the first issue of Warren Publishing's Creepy, a magazine-sized publication designed to be sold on magazine racks, not comic book racks.  Designed for mature readers, it was published in an 8 1/2" x 11" format and did not fall under the Comic Authority.  It sold for 35 cents, not the standard 12 cents.   (For comic readers of a certain age, the 12-cwnr price tag was an abomination because comic books should have remained at 10 cents, forever and ever; yet Creepy was definitely worth the higher cost.).  And then there was the artwork...

Warren had previously had success publishing Forrest J. Ackerman's Famous Monsters of Filmdom and Harvey Kurtzman's Help! magazine (Gloria Steinman was one of Kurtzman's assistants, as was Terry Gilliam).  (To be honest, Help! was not much of a success, being constantly underfunded and lasting only a few years, but as a cultural icon, it's influence cannot be overestimated .)  The success of Creepy led to other Warren magazines, notably Eerie and Vampirella.

Artist in the first issue included Reed Crandall, Jack Davis, Frank Frazetta, Gray Morrow, Joe Orlando, Angelo Torres, Roy Krenkel, and Al Williamson.  Writers included Russ Jones, Larry Ivie, and Archie Goodwin.  Future artists would include Alex Nino, Jose Ortiz, Alex Toth, John Severin, Bernie Wrightson, and Richard Corbin; among the future writers were Steve Skeates, Doug Moench, Bruce Jones,  Michael Woods, and Bill Dubay.

Wow!

The premiere issue leads off with "Voodoo!."  Frank and Sylvia have been living on the tropical island for two years.  Frank, engulfed by failure and alcohol, is completely unaware of his environment, but Sylvia realizes that the isaland is one of the last strongholds of voodoo.

In "H2O World,"  divers discover an underwater city.  And it is occupied -- by mutated survivors of World War III!

Since Count Orsini and his new bride moved into the villa, five villagers have been found drained of blood.  Elena soon suspects her husband is the vampire, but why does he give her a special glass of "juice" each morning, after "Vampires Fly at Dusk"?

In a remote section of Africa lies the hidden valley of Gonteekwa, known to be the home of the "Werewolf!".  Skilled hunter Demmon is sent to track and kill the animal that natives feel is a werewolf.  But is Demmon skilled enough?  And sometimes it is not smart to poo-poo native legends.

"Bewitched!" tells not the story of Darrin and Samantha, but the story of Madge and her husband , who have moved into her grandmother's old house; before grandmother owned it, it was rumored to be a haven for witchcraft.  Hubby doesn't believe in witches, but strange things begin to happen.  Then an old crone gives their daughter a doll that looks him...and a bunch of pins...

No-longer human shapes rise from the river and head to shore.  They are here to visit successful comic strip creator Baldo, who has literally left some bodies in his wake in his climb to the top.  His is "The Success Story" no one wants.

The time:  the late nineteenth century.  The place:  Austria.  Villagers has gathered at the local cemetery after burying two young girls who were found drained of blood.  the villager are determined to destroy the vampire, be he a local, or, as a stranger to the village soon finds out, non-local.  There is danger when the villagers are "In Pursuit of the Vampire!".

The magazine and each story is introduced by "Creepy," this magazine's version of the Crypt Keeper. The artwork is magnificent.  The stories, although sometimes cliched and trite, remain interesting.  A great start for a classic magazine.

Enjoy.

https://archive.org/details/CREEPY1/mode/1up

FORGOTTEN BOOK: SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH: ALL THAT GLITTERS

 Sabrina the Teenage Witch:  All That Glitters by Ray Garton  (1998)

Middle school novel based on the television show (1996-2003) featuring Melissa Joan Hart as the title character, which in turn was based on the 1971 comic book, which in turn was based on a character who first appeared in Archie's Madhouse #22 -- sometimes given as Archie's Mad House -- (October 1962).  Her appearance in Madhouse was intended to be a one-shot, but the character proved to be popular and it was kept on until 1969, when an animated series about the character was put into development.  The Sabrina the Teenage Witch Show ran for four seasons (1970-1974) and spawned the Sabrina the Teenage Witch (sometimes given as Sabrina:  The Teen-Age Witch comic book which went through three volumes (April 1971-January 1983, 77 issues; May 1997-December 1999, 32 issues; and January 2000-September 2009, 104 issues).  The character also appeared regularly in Archie's TV Laugh-Out (1969-1985, 106 issues).  An elementary school-age version of the character, known as "Sabrina -- that Cute Little Witch," appeared in almost every issue of the Little Archie comics.  Sabrina also showed up in a number of  Archie comic books, interacting with the Riverdale gang.  She once appeared in a cross-over issue with Sonic the Hedgehog.  Over the years, Sabrina has been retooled to appeal to an older, teen-aged audience.  A 1996 live action series, Sabrina the Teenage Witch ran for seven seasons and spawned two television movies and a soundtrack release.  In 1999, the animated series Sabrina: The Animated Series (catchy title) ran for one season (65 episodes), followed by a television/direct-to-video film Sabrina:  Friends Forever, and yet another animated series, Sabrina's Secret Life.  A CGI animated show, Sabrina:  Secrets of a Teenage Witch debuted in 2013.   A more mature comic book series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina debuted in 2014 and is still on-going; this comic book led to the Netflix series of the same name (2018-2020, 36 episodes).

But what (I hear you ask plaintively) about the novels?  There have been 52 books in the regular series written by various authors from 1997 to 2003, including two anthologies,  Ray Garton wrote two of the books, this one (#12) and the earlier Ben There, Done That (#6, under the pseudonym 'Joseph Locke'), as well as a short story in one of the anthologies.  There were six books adapting various television episodes, including The Troll Bride by Garton as "Locke."  There were also four miscellaneous novels, including two movie tie-ins; one of which was Sabrina Goes to Rome.  A related series, Salem's Tales, about Sabrina's cat, Salem, ran for 14 volumes; a fifteenth in that series, was a separate film tie-in of  Sabrina Goes to Rome, and was penned by different authors; presumably that tie-in told that story from Salem's viewpoint.  There have also also been three novels in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina series.

For a teenage witch, Sabrina has been a very busy little money maker.

About the character.  In the original storyline, Sabrina Spellman learns that she is a witch on her 16th birthday.  She lives with her 600-year-old aunts, Hilda and Zelda, in a town not far from Archie Andrews' Riverdale.  Hilda and Zelda are tasked with teaching Sabrina the ins and outs of witchcraft.  Sabrina's familiar is Salem Saberhagen, a 500year-okd witch who has been changed into cat as a punishment for plotting to take over the world.  Sabrina's on-again, off-again boyfriend is Harvey Kinkle; in All that Glitters the relationship is off-again.

Hilda and Zelda decide to take Sabrina to the Rummage Realm, a fabulous never-ending bazaar operating in a different dimension; bargains of all sorts of magical kinds are for sale here.  While her aunts are checking out some of the stalls, they suggest that Sabrina get something to eat and  look at some to the other stalls.   Sabrina comes across a brightly-colored tent with a sign WISHES GRANTED INQUIRE WITHIN.  Against Salem's warning, she enters.  From the old crone in the tent, Sabrina buys a pouch of wishdust, a glittery powder which grants wishes, whether consciously or unconsciously stated.

What Sabrina did not realize is that wishdust is very dangerous.  Wishes cannot be reversed and wishdust had been basically banned buy the Witch Council for over 300 years.  Finding this out, Sabrina did not want have the wishdust fall into the wrongs hands so she kept it with her, which meant, bringing it to school with her.  That's when things started to go wrong.

There was a rumor that Brad Pitt and Winona Ryder (or was it Leonardo DiCaprio and Neve Campbell?  Doesn't matter.)  were in town to film a movie.  Then somebody said they thought they saw them outside the school and a stampede began.  In the rush, Sabrina's purse was knocked onto the ground.  The many trampling feet caused small pinprick holes to appear on her purse and some of the wishdust sprinkled out without Sabrina being aware.  Now strange things began to happen.  The cafeteria was serving decent food on a meatloaf day!  The following day, the cafeteria served nothing but the world's best hot fudge sundaes.  An elephant suddenly appeared in the school's corridors.  Someone wished that school would be over for the day and all the sprinklers went off, soaking everyone and cancelling school for that day -- and in that peculiar chaos, Sabrina once again lost her bag -- but this time she would not find it.  Four very confused movies actors (Pitt, Ryder, DiCaprio, and Campbell) suddenly appeared at the school, and just an instant before, Brad Pitt had been in Germany shooting a film.  The overworked school secretary suddenly had four clones to do her work for her.  

A janitor eventually found the purse and turned in to the vice principal, who saw the glitter and gave it to his secretary to give to the school dance committee, who had been looking for more glitter to decorate for their dance, which had the theme Warm Weather Snow Ball.  The vice principal then learned that Sabrina was a witch, as well as the secret of the wishdust.  While attempting to retrieve the wishdust, he was attacked by a dog, lost his pants, and was arrested and thrown in jail.  Come the time of the dance, someone wished for actual snow and a blizzard struck the auditorium...

And the wishes cannot be undone...

Sabrina is a clean-cut show and this is a clean-cut book.  Where normal high school wishes would involve thing of a sexual nature, there is not a hint of it here.  Where typical teenagers, who invariably feel put upon no matter who they are, there are no revenge fantasies.  Even the high school mean girls are milquetoasts in this novel.  Just as well.  Garton tells an interesting and well-plotted tale directly aimed for his audience, their parents, and middle school librarians.  The book is  much better than one might think.

Ray Garton (1962-2024) wrote horror novels and fantasies for adults and young adults.  For a long time, his work for young adults was signed as "Joseph Locke" because he did not want fans of his young adult books seeking the more visceral adult novels he was writing.  All That Glitters was his only young adult novel published under his own name   He also published at least 22 adult novels, two collections, and four film adaptations.  In 2006, he received the Grand Master Award from the World Horror Convention.  His novel In a Dark Place:  The Story of a True Haunting, written for (ahem) notorious "ghost-hunters" Ed and Lorraine Warren and published as non-fiction, was the basis of both a Discovery Channel and a Lionsgate film (at one time, the book was one of the most sought-after titles on eBay).

ESCAPE!: ANCIENT SORCERIES (FEBRUARY 21, 1947)

Based on the classic horror story by Algernon Blackwood featuring occult investigator John Silence, this epoisode 2was sirected by Norman Macdonne;; and adapted by Lee Crutchfiled.   It featured the talents of William Conrad as "The Doctor," Paul Frees. Kay Brinker, and Anne Morrison.

Arthur Llewellen, a somewhat timid traveller, becomes more and more enchanted with a sleepy and ancient British town and soon realized that the citzens are being to act more and more like cats.

Algenon Blackwood (1869-1951) was a leading author of weird and occult stories, the most famous of which were arguably "The Willows" and "The Wendigo."   During his lifetime he published thirteen highly respected collections of short stories, as well as thirteen novels, two children's books, seven plays (including The Starlight Express), and a biography.  Blackwood was an avid nature lover and mystic.  He did not believe in the supernatural, but felt that there were "possibilities out beyond our natural reach of consciousness," and that, nonetheless, our "so limited norml consciousness can reaveal new, extraordinary powers."  He was a student of Buddhism and other Eastern philosophies, was one of the founding members of the Toronto Theosophical Society,and a memeber of the The Ghost Club and the Hermetic Oder of the Golden Dawn.  His interests in the occult and in nature were often combined in his work.  Blackwood was also a noted British Broadcast narrator.

Check out "Ancient Sorceries" here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJvRjJ1J4Yc

And check out the original story in this collection of three John Silence tales:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10624