Monthly Archives: September 2019

Video

The Monster Island Film Vault – My New Podcast Premieres!

After a year of prep and a summer of hype, my new podcast, The Monster Island Film Vault, premiered today. You can listen to it on several podcatchers, but it’s also on YouTube. The video version is below. Click here for the audio version.

Enjoy!

Hello, kaiju lovers!

Listen as Nathan Marchand, co-creator and season one co-host of the Kaijuvision Radio, regales you with the origin story of his new podcast. It includes a vacation to a resort on the fabled Monster Island (formerly Monsterland), where he met his intrepid producer, Jimmy From NASA (who miraculously survived the infamous War in Space), and got a new job as the curator of the Island’s film vault. Between bantering sessions with his detail-obsessed, fact-checking interrupter of a producer, Nathan explains the podcast’s philosophy of film appreciation and lays the groundwork for the upcoming episodes.

And what will Nathan, Jimmy, and their many guests be discussing first? The filmography of Monster Island’s other most famous resident: KING KONG!

Hold onto your butts!

The Monster Island Film Vault: A podcast seeking entertainment and enlightenment through tokusatsu.

Check out the epic three-hour KVR episode on Shin Godzilla: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQsL…#JimmyFromNASALives

www.MonsterIslandFilmVault.com

© 2019 Nathan Marchand/Moonlighting Ninjas Media

Blog

Grad School Update: My Ishiro Honda Independent Study

Honda on the set of 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla.

One unique and unusual aspect of my current semester of grad school is I’m doing my first ever independent study. Specifically, a study on several films directed by Ishiro Honda, the lauded director of many Godzilla films. It took a little work to convince my university’s resident film professor (and most reclusive man in the English department) to do this with me, but he agreed. Not only that, but he actually liked the first film I wrote about in this study, 1955’s Half Human, and said the cinematography reminded him of Akira Kurosawa! I’m excited to be introducing him to films he isn’t familiar with.

One fun thing about this is I got to write my own syllabus for it. Here’s an excerpt:

Objective: The goal of this study is examine six films directed by Ishiro Honda and connect their stories to contemporaneous cultural and historical events in Japan. Films are never made in a vacuum, and knowing and understanding their original contexts is vital to appreciating them.

There will be a special focus on discriminated people groups in this study since half of the films being covered will involve such groups.

While Honda is best known for his Godzilla films, I will be focusing on several of his non-Godzilla genre pictures spanning a ten-year period that included what’s considered the “golden age” of Toho tokusatsu (special effects) filmmaking. Honda also directed dramas, war epics, and light comedies, but these films are sadly unavailable in the U.S. currently.

The films and related topics I’ll be examining are Half Human/The Ainu; The Mysterians/Japan and the U.N.; Varan the Unbelievable/The Burakumin; Atragon/Japanese WWII holdovers and the resurgence of Japanese nationalism; Matango/Japan’s newfound opulence;and Frankenstein Conquers the World/The Hibakusha.

This came about because I wanted to fill a few credit hours and make the research I’m doing for my new podcast, The Monster Island Film Vault, count as school credit. Because why not?

There are reasons why grad school might be the best thing in my life right now. J

Blog, News, Appearances, Announcements

My Upcoming Book Signings (as of 9-15-19)

I will be tabling at a small convention, and I have applied to table at another local author event. Both will be in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The first will be Fantasticon Fort Wayne, which is being held September 21-22, 2019. Eric Anderson, founder of Nerd Chapel and my co-author on the 42 books, will also be there, but we’re not tabling together. The con announced that they would be selling five heavily-discounted tables last week, so I jumped at the opportunity. I wasn’t sure I’d snag a table, but I got lucky (or was “blessed,” if you’re the religious type). I’ll be selling and signing my books (although Eric will be selling the 42, so get them from him) and promoting my upcoming podcast The Monster Island Film Vault, which is launching September 25.

According to the convention’s website,

Fantasticon is a mid-size show created for true comic book and pop culture collectors and fans. The fans that come to our shows are true collectors that are looking for those rare items for their personal collections. Most leave very satisfied as we pride ourselves on having great dealers and artists at our shows. If you collect it, you will find it at a Fantasticon Show.

Fantasticon is proud to have a presence in multiple cities throughout the mid-west. Currently we are in five different cities, in three different states including Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana.

We also, are very proud of the fact that our admission price is the lowest of any other comparable shows. And the cost for being an exhibitor or artist at the Fantasticon is far less than any comparable comic cons out there.

While I haven’t received a confirmation yet, I have applied to table to table at the annual Local Author Book Fair, which will be held November 30, 2019, from 10am-4pm at the main branch of the Allen County Public Library. Find out more info here on ACPL’s blog.

Be there or be square!

Blog

Year 2, Week 1 at Grad School

Image taken from www.centsai.com.

Last week saw the start of my second year of grad school. It was also the start of my third semester as a graduate teaching assistant (a very different GTA). I’m taking two classes and an independent study (well, one of the classes was turned into an independent study). These are Writing for Multimedia, Survey of Children’s Literature, and an independent study on director Ishiro Honda (hey, it lets me get school credit for the research I’m doing for my new podcast). This makes my schedule a bit odd, but I’m getting used to it.

This was the best first week of teaching I’ve had. Admittedly, I’ve only been doing this a year, but it was still the best. I’m more confident as a GTA and trying some new methods that should encourage my students to be more engaged with the material. That’s hard to do when it’s a gen ed freshman composition class. My students are the liveliest I’ve had yet, which is exciting, but it does present its own set of challenges. Now instead of trying to make them talk, I have to keep them quiet. It’s almost like me a substitute teacher again.

I might be having too much fun. But you can never have too much fun, right?

Right?!

Have you gone to grad school or worked as a teacher? What are some fun experiences you had?