If I rack my brain, I can come up with an English language corollary by which to describe Fantomas. But that doesn’t change my perception that there is something irreducibly French about the character. Certainly, Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu is similar, in that he is one of those rare examples of a villain serving as the central figure and driving force behind a popular series. But, while Fu Manchu’s representation was that of a monstrous “other”, playing on the racial anxieties of the age in which he was created, Fantomas seems more like a personification of the id unleashed. As such, he engages his audience in fantasies of a life lived without borders or moral constraints, with the traditional heroes and cops-and-robbers aspects of the stories serving to house those fantasies within a socially acceptable context. It’s as if Bataille or De Sade had chosen to couch their transgressive works within the format of a dime detective novel.
FROM THE VAULT
- Down There, They Call 'Em Bikies — posted by KeithA on July 31, 2009
- 3…2…1…Morte! — posted by KeithA on November 7, 2010
- Cat Scratch Fever — posted by KeithA on July 23, 2008
- Who was it that was asking about STONE before? — posted by El Santo on May 31, 2009
- Back to square one — posted by lyzard on July 21, 2013
Pages
- About the Cabal
- Full Index of Reviews
- Roundtables
- 01: Brainathon ’99
- 02: Bangs'n'Whimpers
- 03: Post-Apocalypso
- 04: Review All Monsters
- 05: Pretty Mad Scientists
- 06: Tainted Love
- 07: Days of Future Past
- 08: Secret Santa
- 09: Catch a Throwing Star
- 10: Four-Color Features
- 11: Big Bugs
- 12: Fish With Bicycles
- 13: Go Go Go-Go Boys!
- 14: paLe IMITATIONS
- 15: We're Gonna Need a Bigger Roundtable
- 16: Whoa… Deja Vu.
- 17: Month of the Living Dead
- 18: B-Masters Beach Party
- 19: Kinji Fukasaku – The Man No Genre Could Tame.
- 20: Home Video Holocaust – The Video Nasties
- 21: Father Dearest: Who's Your Daddy?
- 22: So Sorry…
- 23: Back to the Well
- 24: Another Month of the Living Dead
- 25: The Ottoman Empire Strikes Back
- 26: Rubber Soul
- 27: Shhhhhh
- 28: Month of the Alternative Living Dead
- 29: On Time & Under Budget
- 30: These Kids Today…
- 31: Mea maxima culpa
- 32: Stingathon ’09
- 33: 10,000 B.S.
- 34: Foot Notes
- 35: Don’t Touch That Dial!
- 36: He Conquered the World
- 37: Secret Santa’s Revenge
- 38: At the Movies of Madness
- 39: They Might Be Giants
- 40: The Other Elizabeth Taylor
- 41: The Dark Guys of London
- 42: Falling Stars
- 43: To Be or Not To Be! (Pilot Error)
- 44: Teeth and Tentacles
- 45: Brunoween
- 46: Howl of the B-Masters
- 47: It’s Alive!
- 48: Bad, Black and Beautiful
- 49: Don’t Quit Your Day Job
- 50: B-Mentia 15
- 51: Quelle Horreur!
- 52: Carradine, Thou Wayward Son!
- 53: Tall, Dark and Gruesome
- 54: Pets Gone Wild
- 55: The Bad Place
- 56: From The Bible To Barbarella
- 57: A Fistful Of Pennies
- 58: Hello, Dolly
- 59: No, Not That One!
- 60: Dr Terror’s House Of Honours
- 61: WTF!?
- 62: In The Key Of B
- 63: The Forgotten Dawn Of Horror
- 64: The Most Dangerous Roundtable
- 65: Room For One More
- 66: Were-WHAT?
- 67: The China Anniversary Syndrome
- 68: The China Anniversary Syndrome: Part 2
- 69: The China Anniversary Syndrome: Part 3
- 70: The China Anniversary Syndrome: Part 4
- The Links We Love
#1 by Naomi on April 25, 2011 - 9:42 am
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Not to be overly critical of your methods, but it would be nice if this post contained a link to the review.
#2 by KeithA on April 25, 2011 - 9:50 am
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You think Fantomas makes it that easy to find Fantomas? When the review is ready to be read, the link will find you!
#3 by Ken on April 25, 2011 - 4:53 pm
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My introduction to Fantomas was by Gahan Wilson’s novel Everybody’s Favorite Duck. I immediately recognized the master criminals parodied by the Professor and the Mandarin, but the mysterious masked psychopath Spectrobert was a puzzle. A little digging turned up the name of the original, but in those pre-Web days the books were impossible to find; fortunately Project Gutenberg now has several. Personally, I feel they’ve held up better than Rohmer (the racial attitudes are just too jarring nowadays) but not as well as Conan Doyle.