MSAM: SHREK FOREVER AFTER

The Internet is abuzz this week with updates on the fourth and final Shrek film. Set to be released in May 2010, the film is called Shrek Forever After. Details can be found at various websites, including USA Today's and Wikipedia.

MSAM/MCP: Update on Marvel's THOR (FF 2011)

Marvel.com includes a number of updates on the forthcoming live-action film, due out on 20 May 2011, based on the comic book Thor. Much of the updates detail the casting process for this film to be directed by Kenneth Branagh. The bulk of these updates are collected on the Thor page at the Marvel Movie Hub, but the most recent news can be found on a separate page (at least for now).

Marvel.com offers the following information on the project:

The son of Odin, most powerful of the Norse Gods, Thor has been an emissary to humanity, a protector of both Asgard and Earth and inspiration for humans and gods alike.

Director Kenneth Branagh leads a cast that includes Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston and Natalie Portman in the the God of Thunder's big-budget, silver screen debut. Get ready for Thor's arrival in movie theaters on May 20, 2011!

MCP: Frank Cammuso's KNIGHTS OF THE LUNCH TABLE

Cartoonist Frank Cammuso has produced (to date) two issues of his graphic novel series Knights of the Lunch Table, which presents modern-day incarnations of King Arthur, Percival, Gawain, and Guinevere as American middle-school students. An incarnation of Merlin is their teacher, and Morgan le Fay shows up as Arthur's older sister. As with the recent BBC Merlin, Cammuso's cast is multi-ethnic, with Merlin and Percival being African Americans and Guinevere Asian American.

Details from the website of the publisher (Scholastic) on the individual numbers follows:

The Dodgeball Chronicles

Artie King just wants to ease into life at Camelot Middle School. He's got new lunch buddies, Percy and Wayne, and his science teacher, Mr. Merlyn, is pretty cool. But then there's scary Principal Dager and big bad Joe and The Horde, a bunch of brawny bullies who rule the school.

The real trouble starts when Artie opens a funky old locker that no one, not even Joe, has ever been able to open — and finds it full of mysterious, but useful stuff. Percy and Wayne are high-fiving, Joe is fuming, and the next think you know a challenge is laid down: a do-or-die dodgeball game — The Horde Vs. The Knights of the Lunch Table. Losers get creamed!


The Dragon Players

Artie King, the uncrowned good guy of Camelot Middle School, is back with his pals Percy and Wayne in tow as he tries to evade evil Principal Dagger, avoid the school bully Joe and his Horde, and unravel the secret of a pack of mysterious magic cards he finds in his locker. Frank Cammuso's action-packed art and comic dialogue is sure to appeal to graphic novel fans and bring new readers to the format. It's knights, knaves, and nonstop fun!

MCP: Spiderman Battles the Myth Monster!

Comics publishers often produce promotional comics, but it is a rare one that deals with medieval subjects. Spider-Man Battles the Myth Monster! (1991) introduces the villainous Myth Monster who battles both King Arthur and Merlin and, later, Spider-Man. Copies (3rd printing) can be ordered online from the Epilepsy Foundation: 1 copy for $2.95 (inclusding shipping) or 50 copies for $8.50 (including shipping).

Here are the details:

Spider-Man Battles the Myth Monster! (1991) is a Marvel promotional comic produced in cooperation with the National Association of School Nurses. This comic is part of the Epilepsy Foundation of America Project "Count Me In!" Written by Danny Fingeroth with art by Jose Delbo and inks by Harry Candelario. Full color, standard comic dimensions, 20 pages including cover, slick cover with newsprint interior, no cover price. (MyComicShop.com)

Spider-Man helps bring truth and justice to the lives of three children with hidden health conditions: epilepsy, asthma and diabetes. This comic book is an excellent resource for anyone working with children. It encourages acceptance and understanding among all children. This book is for children ages 8-11. Shipping and handling included in price. (Epilepsy Foundation)

A detailed plot synopsis can be found at The Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

MMSM: REissue of Stephen Knight's ROBIN HOOD: A MYTHIC BIOGRAPHY

Cornell University Press has reissued Stephen Knight's Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography (2003) in paperback. Details from their website follow:

ROBIN HOOD A Mythic Biography Stephen Knight

$19.95 paper
2009, 272 pages, 6 x 9, 16 halftones
ISBN: 978-0-8014-8992-1

$27.95 cloth
2003, 272 pages, 6 x 9, 16 halftones
ISBN: 978-0-8014-3885-1


Winner of the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies

The only figure in the Dictionary of National Biography who is said never to have existed, Robin Hood has taken on an air of reality few historical figures achieve. His image in various guises has been put to use as a subject of ballads, nationalist rallying point, Disney cartoon fox, greenclad figure of farce, tabloid fodder, and template for petty criminals and progressive political candidates alike.

In this engaging and deeply informed book Stephen Knight looks at the different manifestations of Robin Hood at different times and places in a mythic biography with a thematic structure. The best way to get at the essence of the Robin Hood myth, Knight believes, is in terms not of chronological and generic progression but of the purposes served by heroes. Each of the book’s four central chapters identifies a particular model of the hero, mythic or biographic, which dominated in certain periods and in certain genres, and explores their interrelations, their implications, and their historical and sociopolitical contexts.

Reviews

"The mythical character of Robin Hood has become an icon through his presence in popular culture for the last 600 years. . . . Knight is extremely knowledgeable about his subject..." (Library Journal, June 1, 2003)

"Knight valiantly conveys everything said and done about our hero [Robin Hood] since the last quarter of the 14th century: every ballad, poem, novel, opera, movie and TV series -- his Disneyfication and feminization, spoofs, lampoons, muppet and politically correct versions included. . . . Such is the power of myth that this catalogue yokes Robin Hood with Jesus Christ, Buddha, Santa Claus, King Arthur, the Knights Templar, Jesse James, the rural Australian outlaw Ned Kelly, Martin Luther King Jr. and the protean tricksters of North American aboriginal lore. . . . If a 'Hoodie' ye be, thou shalt sally forth to liberate all the copies thou canst." -- Chris Scott, The Globe and Mail, June 21, 2003

"Robin Hood, the outlaw and eternal 'trickster,' is still evolving, having long ago transcended his national and historical origins." -- Salon.com, July 2003

"Stephen Knight's book documents the enormous scope of the myth—revolutionary, reactionary, chivalric, homosexual, patriotic, or whatever the audience will allow, even slapstick. A final mythic trait of Robinalia is its ability to parody itself. Errol Flynn defined the character for film: the animated Robin Fox in the Disney cartoon imitates Flynn, and his was the voice, uncredited, of Rabbit Hood in the 1949 Warner Brothers' cartoon. Prince of Thieves was mocked by Princess of Thieves and Prince of Frogs, and so on. Like any great myth, this is a tale that no one ever hears for the first time."—Wendy Doniger, London Review of Books, 26:14, July 22, 2004

" For those of us who joined the merry-men (and women) of Sherwood Forest when young, Mr. Knight's 'mythic biography' lets us revisit our earlier selves with an enlarged vision of the romance of liberty and equality that attracted us." --Alexandra Mullen, New York Sun, August 21, 2003

"Knight, in a remarkable and witty study of the formation and recreation of a legend, shows that in times of oppression, Robin Hood has always been there for us as resistance to authority. May he ever fight on." --Rob Hardy Columbus, MS Commercial Dispatch September 3, '03

"Knight . . . tells us that by 1600, there were at least 200 known references to Robin Hood, almost all stressing Robin's boldness and resistance to authority, but as yet lacking a Maid Marian or Friar Tuck. Once the basics of the story were established, Robin began to acquire new companions, got himself involved in contemporary controversies, and became a wonderfully serviceable symbol for whatever social or intellectual currents happened to be sweeping through England in a given century."—Allen Barra, Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 24, 2003

"This volume is a lively, wide-ranging, and stimulating addition to the ever-growing scholarly corpus on Robin Hood."—Jeffrey Richards, Lancaster University, Arthuriana 13:3, Fall 2003

"One rarely has the opportunity to read the biography of someone who never physically existed, but that is exactly the opportunity Stephen Knight has given us with Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography. . . . [It] will be most useful to those teaching Robin Hood stories for children who wish to have resource material to inform their lectures. Those researching Robin Hood stories for children will also want to read this book, as well as anyone generally interested in the Robin Hood phenomenon."—Elizabeth L. Pandolfo Briggs, Children's Literature Association Quarterly, 28:3, Fall 2003

"If anyone's qualified to write this book, it's Knight. He is, no doubt, the world's most knowledgeable expert on Robin Hood. . . . Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography is a worthwhile addition to the library of anyone interested in Robin Hood."—Jack Merry, greenmanreview.com

"Although the evidence for a historical Robin Hood is slim, the myth has flourished for 700 years, and Knight traces its various elements from trickster figure to noble their to countercultural free spirit, with a strong analysis of its treatment by Hollywood."—College and Research Libraries News, January 2004

"Stephen Knight's Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography is a thorough overview of the Robin Hood tradition in literature, performance, and popular culture, from the earliest medieval references to modern film versions. . . . Knight elegantly elucidates the cultural continuity between the much-studied medieval beginnings of the tradition and its more familiar form in modern popular culture."—Ethnologies 25:2 (2003)

"Stephen Knight's witty and accessible piece of cultural history takes us through the various transformations that the Robin Hood story has undergone since its emergence early in the 15th century." -- The Age, August 23, 2003

"Stephen Knight explores the various mythical guises that his titular figure has assumed over time in Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography. Knight finds both continuity . . . and variety in Robin's various manifestations."—Studies in English Literature 44:1, Winter 2004

"Professor Knight's new book, then, is a contribution to literary history of a sort especially useful for undergraduate study. I used the book this winter as a "recommended" text in a Robin Hood course, and I will be very pleased to see it issued in a paperback edition priced for students. It is also a book that will be of value to any scholar studying Robin Hood, from literary or historical perspectives, and as such merits a place in college and university libraries."—Stephen R. Reimer, University of Alberta, Canadian Journal of History, August 2004, vol. 39
“Stephen Knight's astute, readable, and thoroughly researched analysis of the whole history of the Robin Hood phenomenon follows the hero from Sherwood bandit to Hollywood star, leader of an all-male band to object of feminist parody, Crusader to puppet frog. This is a book to be read by everyone interested in the growth of the Robin Hood story, and from which future scholars should take their bearings.”—Helen Cooper, Oxford University


“Stephen Knight's book about the noble-hearted outlaw has caught the spirit of its subject: fresh, forthright, engaged, witty. It is also richly packed with insights and scholarship. Robin Hood was a hero five hundred years ago; he's still undimmed, a most compelling version of the male hero.”—Marina Warner, historian and novelist


“Stephen Knight is the premier Robin Hood scholar in the world. Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography sets out the remarkable links and patterns that Knight was the first to trace or call attention to. It makes available all the rich and often surprising details, plots, and themes that increasingly attract writers, visual artists, and those interested in entertainment, children's literature, theatrical traditions, sociology, and folklore.”—Thomas Hahn, University of Rochester

About the Author

Stephen Knight is Professor of English Literature at Cardiff University. Arguably the world’s foremost authority on Robin Hood, he is the author of Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw and many other books, including several on the outlaw tradition.


Table of contents available as a pdf file.

RTMA: Robert Sabuda's ARTHUR AND THE SWORD

Writer-artist Robert Sabuda is offering signed copies of his children's book Arthur and the Sword (1995) on his website. The book uses stained glass-style illustrations to retell the episode of the Sword and the Stone. The book is otherwise out of print.

MMSM: New Book--The Arthurian Way of Death

Out now from D. S. Brewer:

The Arthurian Way of Death
The English Tradition
Edited by Karen Cherewatuk
Edited by K. S. Whetter

It is arguably the tragic end to Arthur's kingdom which gives the myth its exceptional resonance and power. The essays in this volume explore the presentation of death and dying in Arthurian literature and film produced in England and America from the middle ages to the modern day. Authors, texts and topics covered include Geoffrey of Monmouth, the chronicle tradition, and the alliterative Morte Arthure; Gawain and the Green Knight, Ywain and Gawain, the stanzaic Morte Arthur, and Malory's Morte Darthur; Tennyson's Idylls, Pyle's retelling of the myth for American children, David Jones, T.H. White, Donald Barthelme, Rosalind Miles and Parke Godwin. Featured films include Knight Rider, Excalibur, First Knight, and King Arthur.

CONTRIBUTORS: Sian Echard, Edward Donald Kennedy, Karen Cherewatuk, Michael W. Twomey, K. S. Whetter, Thomas Crofts, Michael Wenthe, Lisa Robeson, Cory James Rushton, Janina P. Traxler, James Noble, Julie Nelson Couch, Samantha Rayner, Kevin J. Harty.

Contents
Introduction
Karen Cherewatuk and Kevin S Whetter
1 'But here Geoffrey falls silent': Death, Arthur, and the Historia regum Britannie
Sian Echard
2 Mordred's Sons
Edward Donald Kennedy
3 Dying in Uncle Arthur's Arms and at His Hands
Karen Cherewatuk
4 'Hadet with an aluisch mon' and 'britned to noght': Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Death, and the Devil
Michael W. Twomey
5 Love and Death in Arthurian Romance
Kevin S Whetter
6 Death in the Margins: Dying and Scribal Performance in the Winchester Manuscript
Thomas Howard Crofts
7 The Legible Corpses of Le Morte Darthur
Michael Wenthe
8 Malory and the Death of Kings: The Politics of Regicide at Salisbury Plain
Lisa Robeson
9 Layde to the Colde Erthe: Death, Arthur's Knights, and Narrative Closure
Cory Rushton
10 Arthurian Exits: Alone, Together, or None of the Above
Janina P Traxler
11 Woman as Agent of Death in Tennyson's Idylls of the King
James Noble
12 Death as 'Neglect of Duty' in Howard Pyle's The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur
Julie Nelson Couch
13 Death and the 'grimly voice' in David Jones's In Parenthesis
Samantha J. Rayner
14 Roll the Final Credits: Some Notes on Cinematic Depictions of the Death of Arthur
Kevin J Harty

MSAM: Upcoming Films--Clash of the Titans and How to Train Your Dragon

The Internet is abuzz with news on two medieval-themed films set to be released in 2010. One is a remake of the 1981 film Clash of the Titans (official site), which Marijane Osborn argues was inspired, in part, by Beowulf, and the other, How to Train Your Dragon (official site), is an animated film based on a 2003 children's book. Trailers for both productions are appended below.

MMSM: Cinematic Illuminations now available

Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman's Cinematic Illuminations: The Middle Ages on Film (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2010) is now available to order online. Details about the book can be found on a previous blog post.

MMSM: New Articles in The Mid-Atlantc Almanack

The latest volume (18 for 2009) of The Mid-Atlantic Almanack, the official journal of the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association, includes the following articles of interest:

Yoeman or Nobleman? The Socio-Political Co-Opting of Robin Hood
Caherine Akel

"Something Rich and Strange": Guy Maddin's Shakespeare
Peter Hyland

The Devil on His Shoulder, Sniveling Weasels, Lady MacBeth and the Pit Viper: Evil West Wingers in American Film
Ralph R. Donald