KID POWER!
Edited by Kier-La Janisse and Paul Corupe
Layout by Kier-La Janisse
Spectacular Optical, 2014
260 pgs. | Heavily illustrated in Full Colour
Growing up, did you ever sit in front of a TV, a 16mm school projector or a VCR and come under the hypnotic spell of the tuff, sassy, cool and inspiring kids that you saw on the screen? Perhaps you grinned as Jacob Two-Two stood up to The Hooded Fang, thrilled as Hawk Jones grabbed a small arsenal to take down some gangsters or cringed as a bespectacled Scott Baio got Stoned?
We certainly looked up to many of these pint-sized tots, tweens and teens, and chances are you did too. That’s why we’re devoting the first anthology in the new Spectacular Optical book series, KID POWER!, to this inspiring world of kid cult classics from North America, the UK, Australia and beyond. From the 1940s antics of Curley and his Gang to the overwrought denim-clad melodrama of The ABC Afterschool Special, from the surreal fantasies of The Peanut Butter Solution to the pre-teen bloodsucking dramedy of The Little Vampire, KID POWER! is a heavily-illustrated collection of film writing by a diverse array of some of genre criticism’s most unique voices.
Contributors include author/film producer Zack Carlson (DESTROY ALL MOVIES!! THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO PUNKS ON FILM and THE AMERICAN SCREAM), FANGORIA Magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Alexander, underground comic legends Rick Trembles (MOTION PICTURE PURGATORY) and Robin Bougie (CINEMA SEWER), Canuxploitation.com’s Paul Corupe, film scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (RAPE REVENGE FILMS: A CRITICAL STUDY) performance artist/pop culture historian Robert Dayton (CANNED HAMM, THE CANADIAN ROMANTIC), film programmers Bret Berg (CineFamily), Jesse Hawthorne Ficks (MiDNiTES FOR MANiACS) and Briony Kidd (Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival) and writers Owen Williams (EMPIRE) and Cheryl Singleton (FANGORIA) as well as Spectacular Optical Editor-in-Chief Kier-La Janisse (HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN). PLUS! cover and key art by Portland-based illustrator/graphic artist Austin Sellers.
I made a mixtape for the book’s release which you can hear below: