Christopher Fowler - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 10

McFarland’s expensive reference works included Of Gods and Monsters: A Critical Guide to Universal Studio’s Science Fiction, Horror and Mystery Films 1929–1939 by John T. Soister, Italian Horror Films of the 1960s: A Critical Catalogue of 62 Chillers, an A-Z guide by Lawrence McCallum, and Tom Weaver’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Flashbacks: Conversations with 24 Actors, Writers, Producers and Directors from the Golden Age, which included interviews with John Badham, Edward Dmytryk and Debra Paget.

From the same publisher came John Kenneth Muir’s Wes Craven: The Art of Horror, while Brian J. Robb’s Screams & Nightmares: The Films of Wes Craven appeared from Titan Books.

Batman: Animated by Paul Dini and Chip Kidd was a beautifully produced, full-colour look at the stylised TV cartoon series based on the classic DC Comics character.

Also superbly designed by Chip Kidd, Superman: The Complete History: The Life and Times of the Man of Steel was impeccably researched by Les Daniels.

From Collectors Press, Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines was a marvellously illustrated history of pulp magazines edited by the knowledgeable Frank M. Robinson and Lawrence Davidson and featuring full-colour reproductions of more than 400 mint-condition covers. It was also available as a limited edition hardcover.

William Gibson contributed the introduction to The Art of the X-Files edited by Marvin Heiferman and Carole Kismaric. The Haunted Tea Cozy was Edward Gorey’s very strange reworking of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Published by Morpheus International, Barlowe’s Inferno contained various personal views of Hell by artist Wayne Barlowe, with an introduction by Tanith Lee, and The Fantastic Art of Beksinski collected the paintings of Polish artist Zdzislaw Beksinski. Also from Morpheus, H. R. Giger’s Retrospective: 1964–1984 was a translation of a 1984 German edition, covering two decades of the artist’s work.

For Underwood Books, Arnie Fenner and Cathy Fenner edited Icon: A Retrospective Collection by the Grand Master of Fantastic Art , the single largest collection of Frank Frazetta’s work ever published. It also included text by Rick Berry, James Bama and William Stout, along with an illustrated biography. Besides the trade edition, it was published in a deluxe slipcased edition of 1,200 copies containing an extra sixteen pages of art, and as a $300 leatherbound traycased edition of 100 copies which included an unpublished Frazetta drawing. Also from Underwood and edited by the Fenners, Spectrum 5: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art included more than 300 pieces of art from over 180 artists, selected by a jury system. The only hardcover edition appeared from the Science Fiction Book Club.

From Mythos Books came The Lovecraft Tarot, a handsome-looking set of seventy-eight illustrated cards by David Wynn and illustrator D. L. Hutchinson, accompanied by a ten-page booklet. A $20 °CD-ROM compilation of the complete archives of Heavy Metal magazine was withdrawn from sale when a number of contributors complained that they had not been notified about the project nor offered any compensation for the re-use of their work.

Night of the Living Dead co-author John A. Russo and composer/computer artist Vlad Licina launched Midnight Comics in November. The imprint kicked off with Children of the Dead, a three-issue mini-series by Steven Hughes, Phil Nutman and John Russo, based on a proposed film written by Russo, that examined the lives of a “special” group of youngsters born during the zombie plague. A special CD soundtrack was composed and recorded for the series by Vlad and The Dark Theater.

Winter’s Edge II, a special from DC Comics/Vertigo, featured a new story about Death written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Jeffrey Jones, plus stories by other hands featuring the Golden Age Sandman Wesley Dodds, John Constantine, Tim Hunter and several more characters. Meanwhile, artist Yoshitaka Amano produced a new Sandman poster as part of the tenth anniversary of Gaiman’s character.

Dark Horse comics launched a new series based on the popular TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, written by Andi Watson and illustrated by Joe Bennett. As a special promotion, a five-page colour Buffy strip scripted by Christopher Golden appeared exclusively in the 21–27 November issue of TV Guide. Along with its ongoing regular series, Dark Horse also published a three-issue Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Origin mini-series, based on Joss Whedon’s 1992 movie, from the creative team of Dan Brereton, Golden and Bennett.

Also from Dark Horse came The Curse of Dracula, a three-part series in which veterans Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan (reunited from Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula two decades earlier) teamed up for a contemporary version of Stoker’s story. The same publisher also revived its licence for The Terminator, written by Alan Grant and illustrated by Steve Pugh.

Image’s new Cliffhanger imprint added Crimson to the lineup, which was artist Humberto Ramos’ unique look at vampires, and Britain’s Games Workshop launched a series of black and white Warhammer comics set in the popular fantasy gaming world.

At the 70th Academy Awards presentation in Los Angeles, James Cameron’s overblown Titanic (which features a supernatural coda) tied with the Oscar record set by Ben-Hur (1959), picking up mostly technical awards for Visual Effects, Sound Effects Editing, Sound, Original Score, Film Editing, Costume Design, Cinematography, Art Direction, Director and Best Picture. Rick Baker and David LeRoy collected the Make-up award for their work on Men in Black.

To celebrate a century of American films, in 1998 the American Film Institute created a highly controversial list of the 100 Best American Movies, based on the recommendations of a 1,500 member panel, including President Bill Clinton. Citizen Kane was voted the top film, but the list was so skewed towards contemporary titles that Steven Spielberg was the most chosen director and nothing by Buster Keaton, Greta Garbo or Fred Astaire was even listed. Only nineteen of the final 100 were genre titles: 6: The Wizard of Oz; 11: It’s a Wonderful Life; 12: Sunset Boulevard ; 15: Star Wars; 18: Psycho; 22: 2001: A Space Odyssey; 25: E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial; 26: Dr. Strangelove; 43: King Kong (1933); 46: A Clockwork Orange; 48: Jaws; 49: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; 58: Fantasia; 60: Raiders of the Lost Ark; 61: Vertigo; 64: Close Encounters of the Third Kind , 65: The Silence of the Lambs; 67: The Manchurian Candidate, and 87: Frankenstein (1931).

Starring Vince Vaughn as the nutty Norman Bates and Anne Heche as his shower victim, director Gus Van Sant’s superfluous colour remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was quickly forgotten. However, ten years after the murder by strangulation of actress Myra Davis (the voice of Norman Bates’s mother and Janet Leigh’s body double in the Hitchcock original), Los Angeles detectives used DNA evidence to charge a 31-year-old man with her death and with another, similar killing.

Jamie Lee Curtis returned as Laurie Strode, once again menaced by Michael Myers’ homicidal Shape in Halloween H20, based on a treatment by Kevin Williamson. The title actually celebrated the series’ twentieth anniversary and had nothing to do with water. Meanwhile, police in Riverside, California, reported that a 15-year-old boy claimed that the character of Myers from the latest sequel directed him to stab and strangle a 62-year-old woman who was babysitting other children in his home. The boy, who was found with the knife believed to have been used in the attack, was arrested and placed in a facility for psychiatric observation.