One Eye Grey - Chris Roberts

'One Eye Grey is a penny dreadful for 21st century that draws on the tradition of those as well as the pulp fiction that followed. It features modern stories based on traditional London tales of the uncanny, paranormal and supernatural.'

14th January 2009 - Lecture from Chris Roberts (from One Eye Grey.) Notes from the lecture:

History, mythology, folklore based around London. Messing around with traditional stories. Gothic novel tradition. 1780s-1830s - mass of ghost stories. Ressurrectionists (body snatching) - laws changed so there were less bodies to dig up etc. Stories created to induce fear. William Blake - London (poem.) Rural - urban. Running patterers or flying stationers - make money through their mouth. Person hung, shout about it/sell broadsheets, penny dreadfuls began and evolved. Introduction of lots of characters (Sweeney Todd, Spring Heeled Jack etc.) 1860s - London wild boys. Jack Haraways 'School Boys'. Dick Turpin - real criminal, penny dreadfuls romanticised him, Black Bess (pictured in previous post) ran for 250 weeks (about Turpin.) Sailor/British Empire stories. Spring Heeled Jack - circus performer, masked, jump over walls, super natural being. Ended up being a protector of the working class. Very few female protagonists. Mainly male characters - primary market was male. Female characters were just associates of male protagonist. Legend of Queen Rat (exception) toshers in sewers, Queen Rat looked out for them, transform into a woman and sleep with them. If she liked him, she'd give him good luck and their first born would have ONE EYE GREY and one eye blue. South East London Folklore Society. Well in the middle of Greenwich park - stories. Londons ley lines. Haunted houses. Crystal Palace - roof fell on workers. Death Line (film) also known as Raw Meat. Modern - 'Mind the gap.' Haunted underground lines - Monument station - Stockwell. Vauxhall - Oval - giant in the tunnel. Source material - PARANORMAL DATABASE - search London. 'Elvis impersonating demon.' Cross bones graveyard in Southwark (Union Street) - prostitutes. 23rd of each month - John Constable - ceremony in graveyard. Walworth Road - old zoo - dissapeared in 1880. Tower of London used to be royal zoo, small events can change alot - Primrose Hill zoo was kept open. Peckham ghost. One tree hill - ballet dancer. Tower cinema - floating ghost. St Giles Crypt - 1979 - people looking for vampires. Penny dreadfuls evolved into todays comics. Varney the Vampire. Jarndyce - shop near British Museum where you can buy penny dreadfuls. Nuclear waste company invented story to keep people away - word of mouth lasts longer than signs and fences etc. Urban legends - local. 1950s - pulp magazines. Illustrations are there for people with poor reading skills, supports the text.

From the website: 'Paul Rivas who will be in the next One Eye Grey has started up a rather interesting online story called the secret tramp which can will be an on going saga set on the streets of London.'
http://secret-tramp.blogspot.com/
Make sure I read this!