Known best by the name of a character he portrayed on record, film and in nightclubs—Dolemite—Moore’s death represents the end of an era, the Chitlin Circuit days of roadhouses and inner city nightclubs, places where respectable citizens just didn’t go.

It’s been a long wait, but finally the gritty 1972 drama Payday, starring Rip Torn at his most bravado, has been officially released on DVD in the U.S.

The symbiosis between film and comics is well-known and simple to appreciate. Early episodic serials were often taken directly from the “funny pages” and in the United States the majority of these films were morality plays where the forces of good triumph over brilliant but ultimately weaker evil. Good wins thanks to a combination of brains and brawn, two characteristics that the ominous villain never has quite enough of to compete. Stories like these are as old as humankind itself.

It appears that there’s been a resurgence of interest in the horror film, with even the city’s newspaper of record profiling the surge. A number of upstart filmmakers are using the genre as an entry to the marketplace, in the same way that compelling directors utilized exploitation genres in the past.