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Bloodsongs Issue 1
Zines From Hell by Chris A. Masters
Daarke Worlde #4 Formerly the newsletter for the Melbourne Horror Society, this is the first issue to come out since Daarke Worlde went off to seek its own destiny. I don’t know why Tony has credited me as assistant editor. I did help him out in a couple of earlier issues, but this one is entirely his effort –- take credit for your own work Tony! This issue also sees the exit of the alliterate Dreadmaster and the entrance of one Morbidon Daarke: if you haven’t guessed, Tony has a thing for inventing weird names which he edits under a la Tales From The Crypt. Daarke Worlde comes with a striking flame-red cover, featuring artwork by Des Waterman and a well-laid out interior, which when combined make up one attractive package. This issue contains thirteen stories and I couldn’t find a weak one among the lot. The fiction is very impressive indeed and includes stories by D.F. Lewis, S. Darnbrook Colson, Sean Williams, David Tansey (writing under the name of Yannish Criticorum), P.J. Roberts, and many others. If this mag keeps improving with every issue as it has done, the next one should be a real beauty! Recommended.
Prohibited Matter (Vol. 1, No. 2) Subtitled CRIME, HORROR, SCIENCE FICTION and divided into three sections each under one of these titles. Prohibited Matter attempts to cater to more than one genre, with horror as the binding element. But before I get further into the contents, a quibble or two about the production. Why someone would choose to side-staple a magazine I can never understand: apart from almost falling apart in my hands and the fact that it won’t stay open unless you fold the pages down, side-stapling is unattractive and makes the magazine look amateurish. Printing it on A3 paper, which could then be folded and assembled into a booklet would result in a much more pleasing and durable package. The layout, although much improved from the previous issue, it is still as what can most diplomatically be described as not well thought out, with many bits looking as if being thrown in as an afterthought and clashing severely with the rest of the page. It should be noted that the overall look and “feel” of a magazine, although obviously not as important as the content, is still an important aspect and will often determine whether a browser will buy it or put it back on the shelf after flipping through and noticing a sloppy layout. The artwork throughout the magazine is of high quality and generally enhances the fiction, although in one case the illo does give away too much of the story for my liking. Most of the artwork is by Steve Carter and Antoinette Rydyr who do a great job. "Bloody Mary" by Rod Marsden kicks off the fiction. A readable story which suffers from poor characterisation. Also blood congeals if left in open air Rod. Unfortunately this is the best story of the section, with the others not worth mentioning. Next up is Rod Marsden’s article, "The Phantom Fights Censorship", which is an interesting account of some of the problems the comic faced in Australia. The Horror section kicks off with "The Original" by Denise Dumars, which along with "The Restroom" by Steve Carter and Antoinette Rydyr, restored my faith in this magazine. Next, the Science Fiction section carried a sub-section centred around a common theme -– somewhere in our not-too-distant future, Australia has come under the rule of religious zealot Fred Rivers (whom I assume to be based on Fred Nile). And here follow seven stories –-three by Don Boyd and four by Rod Marsden. An interesting premise you might think, but in the hands of these two, what you get is a series of bad puns –- for some reason these two (especially Don) have a fixation for basing the names of their characters on Australian celebrities! Luckily following these is "Mutant Dawn" and "Hostile Earth: Special Delivery" by Steve Carter, and the mag is worth buying just for these two stories. Also good work by Keith Rex and Geoff Jackson. Overall, although of uneven quality, Prohibited Matter is not as bad as might be indicated by this review. Yeah, the magazine does have a few problems to overcome, but it is worth having a look at.
Palace Corbie: The Magazine of Personal Terror This is a horror fiction and poetry magazine whose contents are tied together by the theme of “perseverance in extreme circumstances”. It is obvious that editor Wayne Edwards takes a lot of care and is very selective about what goes into Palace Corbie as there isn’t a bad story amongst the lot; in fact the quality of the fiction and poetry is very high indeed. There’s no point in giving you a rundown on each story as I don’t have the space. My favourites though were "Spring Ahead, Fall Back" by Michael A. Arnzen, a psycho yarn with a twist about a bus driver who comes across one real weirdo, and "Noshing" by Lorin Emery, a brilliant piece about being trapped with one real hungry … something. Send Wayne your money now!
Cyber-Psychos A.O.D., Issue 4 I found a copy of this mag lurking on the shelves at Polyester Books, one of the few shops in Melbourne that cater for my bizarre tastes in reading. Cyber’s content matter concentrates more on the more off-beat, I wouldn’t call it a horror mag but a lot of its contents do lean that way, with a heavy emphasis on the more experimental end of the Cyber-splatter-sexual spectrum. And editor/publisher Jasmine Sailing really manages to pack a lot into this magazine’s 60 pages. The fiction opens with a short short from Kurt Newton called "On the Anniversary of John F. Kennedy" which in just 500 words manages to convey all the feelings of conspiracy and paranoia that took Oliver Stone over three hours to achieve. Next serving is Edward Lee with "The Wrong Guy", a nicely told piece of splatter about a couple of feminist-lesbian serial-killers who get more than they bargained for with one of their victims -– a potentially great story which is let down by a poorly executed ending. "Closed Casket" by Jeffrey A. Stadt was a well written and delightfully surreal journey, with some genuinely creepy moments. Next up, "Clockwork Mount" by D.F. Lewis, who no doubt is one of the few really original voices in weird fiction, and this tale is no exception, featuring more of Lewis’s fondness for serving up a strange concoction of creatures that have a predilection for perching on roofs when no-one’s looking. Apart from the last story, "Erotic Vignette", by Jacie Marsh, which although well written was nowhere near the standard of the previous selection, the fiction is of very high quality, some of which borders on surrealism and the experimental at times. Definitely not recommended for those who don’t like to be challenged by what they read. If the fiction isn’t enough, Cyber… also features regular columns by the likes of t. Winter-Damon and S. Darnbrook Colson, as well as interesting interviews with some writers and artists I’d never heard of, but which after reading made me want to go out and try to chase up some of their work. Although I kept getting the impression that this magazine caters to a select and in-house readership, I did enjoy the read.
Charnel House #5 Decorated with blurbs like “Steve Carter’s Comic Nasties”, “Not recommended for the sensitive new aged and politically correct”, “WARNING: Contains prolonged graphic scenes of gratuitous, cruel and relished violence, and explicit sex and mutilations”, it is pretty obvious that this won’t meet with the approval of Fred Nile or Derryn Hinch. As Steve Carter puts it most eloquently in his “EdiTERRORial”, “… too many people these days wanna clean up horror and make it respectable, they feel it needs elevating into the ranks of legitimate literature. All too often that means discarding its visceral impact and diluting the horror element. Screw that! We’d rather it were rough and raw! We don’t need any maudlin pretensions to cushion the impact, and there’s no point worrying about what obscure minority group is going to be offended …” Charnel House is a comic magazine featuring the work of artist/writer team Steve Carter and Antoinette Rydyr (Who used to work for the Censorship Board of all things!) Their work, as one might guess from the above blurb and editorial extracts, is full of mutated humanoids, twisted humour. Lots of blood, nudity and weird sex, gratuitous violence, etc. ad nauseam. In the pages of Charnel House one will find future dystopian visions populated by mutant humanoids -– products of genetic experimentation gone crazy, some real twisted humour that takes some nice “stabs” at our surface culture, crazed and naked cannibal women, baked babies, mutant sex, and lots of blood. If this sounds like your idea of a good read, send Steve and Antoinette your money now. What I’d really like to see is these two produce a full colour comic, that’ll be something.
Cemetery Dance Cemetery Dance, with a list of published writers that reads like the “who’s who” of horror (and is enough to make someone like myself, who is just starting a horror mag, drool with envy), is generally regarded by the horror fraternity as the leading horror mag in the world at the moment. Apart from the big names writing for it, another thing CD has going for it is the good balance between the fiction and non-fiction, and it’s the non-fiction/columns that I really enjoy reading the most, featuring the likes of Ed Gorman (great name), Charles L. Grant, Joe R. Lansdale, Thomas F. Monteleone, Paul Sammon, just to name a few. My favourite column was probably "Trash Theatre" by Joe R. Lansdale and David E. Webb, brilliantly funny, bizarre, totally tasteless, these guys don’t take themselves too seriously here. Joe R. takes the time to tell us about their secretary who has a thing for photocopying her naked butt and giving away copies at office parties … or is this Joe’s imagination? The fiction is well written, and although not all of it was to my taste, there were a couple of gems here. Highly recommended.
Skinned Alive #5 Rod not only draws the great cover art, but types the whole thing up, writes most of the reviews, and puts this magazine together almost single-handedly. It might be only 24 pages, but the writing is real tiny and Rod manages to pack a lot of stuff into it. Heaps of intelligently written book reviews, a review column by Leigh Blackmore, A "Fuck Censorshit" column by the editor, but not a lot in the way of fiction here, not that D.F. Lewis ever needed a lot of space to be effective. Then there’s Rod’s artwork which alone is more than worth paying the measly two bucks that Rod sells this mag for. Recommended with extreme prejudice.
Fatal Visions #14 You know all those movies all us degenerates love to watch: the ones with all the blood’n’guts, minimal plot, nudity, and really fucking big guns; not to mention horror flicks, the fantastic cinema and just the outright bizarre. The type of stuff that the mainstream frowns upon and which the likes of Leonard Maltin and other assorted fuckwits, invariably give only one star to in the reviews. Well, Michael Helms is one dude that takes it seriously enough to edit and publish Fatal Visions, a mag which devotes itself to what many have labelled “exploitation cinema”. Not only do you get heaps of reviews, interviews, articles and grisly stills, but it’s all nicely packaged as well. A lot of thought has gone into the layout and overall look and feel of the magazine –- this is one area that a lot of the smaller magazines overlook. This issue contains the second part of Steve Fentone’s article on the exploitation film scene in Mexico –- and you better believe me when I tell you that there’s some really bizarre stuff being filmed there. Then there’s "Chinatown Beat", a section devoted largely to that soon to become (what with Hong Kong going back to China in a few years) extinct phenomena known as the Hong Kong action film. Editor Michael Helms also gives us a great article covering the filming and background of Bodymelt -– “the first film based solely around special FX ever to be financed by Australian Film funding bodies.” Bodymelt is one film I am looking forward to seeing. There’s also an interview with martial arts film queen Cynthia Rothrock, who recently visited Australia; and a book/magazine review column concentrating mainly on the bizarre. But the highlight of this issue, for me anyway, was the interview with American “hitman, racketeer and sex industry executive” known as Mad Dog McKenna (Interviewed in Florida State Prison by convicted serial killer and author Gerard John Schaefer!), which gives us a grisly insight into the sleazy world of the sex industry in the USA –- child sex, murder, you name it, Mad Dog McKenna knew it first hand. Yeah, shit like this happens, and thanks to magazines like Fatal Visions we get an inside view. This interview should only be read by those with strong stomachs and not too easily offended. Hinch definitely wouldn’t approve. But highly recommended by Bloodsongs.
The Australia Science Fiction Writers’ News, #7 September ’93 Although the title may imply that this mag caters for science fiction writers, the listings contained include those for horror and fantasy as well. Steve Paulsen compiles and prints listings about which magazines and publishers are interested (or not interested) in publishing sf/h/f. Also includes heaps of news about what is happening in the local publishing scene, articles about writing and publishing, and more. ASFWN is invaluable to anyone writing in these genres in Australia.
Scavenger’s Newsletter, #118 Slickly produced information newsletter for SF/F/H writers. Publishes contributor guidelines for publications after these types of contributions, plus articles, letters, gossip and other information of interest to SF/F/H writers, publishers and editors. As you may have guessed from the issue number (#118!!), Janet Fox has been at this for quite a few years. If you’re a writer looking for somewhere to send your work, or just interested in finding out about new mags and what’s happening in the SF/F/H end of the small press, Scavengers Newsletter (as well as the locally produced Australian SF Writers’ News) is invaluable. |
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All material on this site is Copyright 2007 to Chris A. Masters
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