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Bloodsongs Issue 2
Well, by the grace of everything dark n’ dirty we’ve made it to a second issue. It was touch and go there for a while, but it looks as though we’re sticking it out for the long run against all odds. Before we get into the editorial proper, let’s just mention a major erratum in the first issue. Despite our best efforts, issue one did end up with a number of mistakes scattered throughout. For example, the contents page leads you to believe that the poem "Come Poet", by D.P. Medici, was on page 15, whereas that page was devoted to an ad for Mean Streets magazine, and the second last line of William P. Robertson’s fine poem "Some Corpses Gab" kind of lost its effect when the word “slab” was replaced by “slap”. But by far the worst slip-up occurred on page 36, in the middle of our regular column "Cut", by Michael Helms, where the photograph of a man standing over a corpse with its innards on display was given the caption “Philip Brophy and friend”. In fact the man in the picture was not Philip Brophy at all, but Bob McCarron, who created the Skinflex corpse on the table. Our apologies to all concerned. Now onto our gripe for this issue, namely the wonderful human beings that produce that line of well known video games which we won’t mention by name … promise. Thing is, we thought that an article about these games and their creators would make an interesting feature for our second issue, so off we go and contact our intrepid columnist and reporter, Steven Paulsen to see if he’d want to write about them in his column. Sure enough he was keen and set to work. The interviewees also jumped at the chance to be in a magazine as illustrious as Bloodsongs (who wouldn’t?), and were even pleasantly surprised at the fact that someone was finally producing an Australian horror magazine. After Steven’s initial contact they were very enthusiastic and asked to view a copy of Bloodsongs. Meanwhile Steven was off interviewing the two dudes responsible for the games, completing a very good article and getting it to us on time! All fine and good. Then comes the phone call to end what could have been a beautiful relationship for all concerned -– ya see, those devastatingly intelligent minds at the top of the organisation concerned, deemed Bloodsongs as too extreme for the audience at which the games are aimed. Apparently, little kiddies are the only ones interested in horror video games. This is probably why they advertise their games during the trailers for such “fine family viewing” videos as Polanski’s Bitter Moon and Argento’s Suspiria! Perhaps we should take their reaction to Bloodsongs as a compliment … then again, perhaps not. We don’t mind if someone doesn’t want to be in Bloodsongs. And if they told us this up front, there would have been no problem. But as the whole deal not only inconvenienced Mr. Paulsen, who spent valuable time firstly interviewing the “dudes”, then writing a fine piece about them, but also set our own production schedule and hopes for essential advertising dollars back to the stone age, all we’ve got to say to them, in no uncertain terms, is FUCK YOU! You know who you are. And we know where you live. Our thanks go to Steven Paulsen for being professional enough to come up with an alternative article so quickly. We might also mention that we could have run the article anyway, against the “dudes” wishes. This would have pissed them off, sure enough, but it would also be giving publicity and possible sales to an organisation that, frankly, we just don’t believe have the guts, or whatever it takes, to deserve such attention. Now, we’d like to take a little time here to help you understand where Bloodsongs is coming from. Basically, we are two broke, unemployed writers with a little editing experience and a lot of guts and determination, who noticed a massive gap in the market and decided that it needed filling. For our efforts we have been rewarded with high praise from the majority of those involved with the horror industry both here and overseas, and condemnation from a few (and we do mean few -– where are all those letters of protest we were expecting people?) tight-arsed and narrow minded citizens who failed to see the benefits of what we are trying to do. To the latter, mainly consisting of those of the religious bent, who not only can’t see the value in Bloodsongs, but also the hypocrisy of their own existence, all we say is, if you don’t like it, don’t buy it, don’t read it, but for fuck’s sake don’t stop, or complain, about others reading it. Whether you like it or not, we live in a free country. Chris A. Masters & Steve Proposch |
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All material on this site is Copyright 2007 to Chris A. Masters
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