“Tales of the Shadowmen: The Modern Babylon” (2005) is the first volume of an eclectic annual anthology series from Black Coat Press.
It makes use of a concept of Philip José Farmer that sets various fictional characters in the same “universe,” thus enabling them to meet and interact. Don’t make the assumption that all the stories are linked. They often are not. Most are standalone, can usually be read in any order.
What can be daunting is that this series uses characters of popular literary culture (mainly written, but sometimes film and TV), and not “high brow” characters. And the characters are taken from American, British, French, and other countries’ pop culture, so often if you’re not familiar with those characters, it can be confusing. Or, it could lead you to start reading the original stories of these characters, which Black Coat Press does (such as Fantomas, Nyctalope, the Black Coats, Belphegor, Judex, and many more). I have done postings on some of this and plan future ones.
The stories in this collection are:
Matthew Baugh: “Mask of the Monster” has Judex (an early French movie serial character who is much like the later Shadow, see my posting for more on him) dealing with The Frankenstein Monster. Maigret, the classic French detective, also appears.
Bill Cunningham: “Cadavres Exquis” re-introduces the interesting early French hero, Fascinax. An Englishmen granted psychic powers, he stared in a series of novels. I wish Black Coat Press would reprint some. Fascinax’s main foe was the sinister Numa Pergyll, who was killed, but has come back to life at the cost of someone close to Fascinax. I keep hoping that this storyline would be continued.
Terrance Dicks: “When Lemmy Met Jules”is a short story teaming up American G-Man Lemmy Caution (from a series of English books that became popular in France) and French detective Maigret.
Win Scott Eckert: “The Vanishing Devil” makes use of the character of Doc Ardan, intended to be an alias used by Doc Savage. This story is set after Doc Savage’s published adventures, where he again comes up against Dr. Natas (a supposed alias of Fu Manchu).
Viviane Etrivert: “The Three Jewish Horsemen” stars the popular French “gentleman-thief” Arsène Lupin, with a brief appearance by The Phantom of the Opera.
G.L. Gick: “The Werewolf of Rutherford Grange” is the first of a two-part story (concluded in the second volume) which has the “American Sherlock Holmes” Harry Dickson dealing with a werewolf. Also involved is Sexton Blake, another character that started out as a Sherlock Holmes pastiche and the occult detective Sâr Dubnotal.
Rick Lai: “The Last Vendetta” is a complex story mixing in characters from French pulp, Italian spaghetti westerns and more, all centered around Josephine Balsamo, the Countess Cagliostro and foe of Arsene Lupin.
Alain le Bussy: “The Sainte-Geneviève Caper,” a short story including Arsène Lupin and Sherlock Holmes.
Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier: “Journey to the Center of Chaos” is an interesting story mixing in places and ideas from H.P. Lovecraft with a more dynamic Robur (from Jules Verne) with Talbot Mundy‘s JimGrim, with Sâr Dubnotal tossed in as well.
Samuel T. Payne: “Lacunal Visions” has Edgar Allan Poe‘s Auguste Dupin and Dr. Omega, the early French character who seems to be the First Doctor (from “Doctor Who”).
John Peel: “The Kind-Hearted Torturer” has Auguste Dupin teaming up with the Count of Monte-Cristo to rescue a damsel from the sinister Black Coats, a classic group of criminals.
Chris Roberson: “Penumbra” has Judex working to return a stolen item from Dr. and Mrs. Wayne (parents of Bruce), taken by the Vampires, a group of French thieves (from an early French serial). In so doing, he helps a young Kent Allard.
Robert Sheckley: “The Paris-Ganymede Clock” set in the far future, this one stars Fantômas, the classic French supervillain/terrorist.
Brian Stableford: “The Titan Unwrecked; or, Futility Revisited” is an interesting story, where the spirits of several sinister individuals come back from the dead by taking over the passengers of an ocean liner, led by the Tenebre Brothers.
At the end of the volume is information on the characters used and who created them, though this may not help point you to where they are from. (Wikipedia is most useful here, along with Black Coat Press’s French Wold Newton site and Cool French Comics site). “Starring” lists the characters who appear in the story; “Co-starring” lists characters mentioned in the story; and “Also Starring” lists placing and things that appear or are mentioned in the story.
I have all the volumes in this series, and look forward to the next one. Check out this series.
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