Magic Month of Mags

 

The genre magazine business is healthy -- at least in terms of output (I don't know the rumpus on profits).

This month sees the release of the 170th (!) edition of Tim and Donna Lucas's Video Watchdog, the true successor to the French Midi-Minuit and the first decade or so of the late Frederick S. Clarke's Cinefantastique.

This issue features an extensive Lucas interview with the delicious screen siren Dalia (The Whip and the Body, Two Weeks in Another Town, The Silencers) Lavi. Also inside, and waiting to bust out, is a great piece on Almodovar's audacious The Skin I Live In by Lianne Spiderbaby. Ms. Spiderbaby explores the challenges women encounter in a man's world...a man's world seen through Mr. Almodovar's eyes, to be exact.

Nathaniel Thompson's review of the German Blu-Ray of Argento's Four Flies on Grey Velvet heaps praise on this edition's color palette and silky blacks.  Clearly an essential buy. Also reviewed are Lewis Gilbert's Paradise Lagoon, The Stranger Within (from Warner Archive) and The Boogens, the new Blu-Ray from Olive Films. The last time I saw that film, I was unsticking my foot from a floor in Detroit's 'Northgate Theater'. 

If all that wasn't enough for me, I was delighted to read Douglas Winter's 'Audio Watchdog' column on Jerry Goldsmith. The column marks the eighth anniversary of the composer's death, and the release of  the fantastic and definitive CD of his Star Trek - The Motion Picture score. Hard to believe, but there are sixty-five cues on this sucker, by crikey! 

As always, a brilliant issue that demonstrates the relevance of a serious genre magazine in an internet-dominated culture.

 

I never thought I'd be holding in my hand an entire magazine dedicated to the Dr. Phibes films and associated phenomena.  But Richard Klemensen's twenty-ninth issue of 'Little Shoppe of Horrors' is exactly that. 

It's an exhaustive look at Phibes from every conceivable angle production-wise; there are also pieces on 'The Unphilmed Phibes'(sic), Phibes in print, and Phibes on stage and on CD.

Coming up the rear is also a remembrance of Frank Darabont's first time (with Phibes, that is), and director Tim Burton pipes in with an affectionate piece on meeting Mr. Price.

Fanaticism then reaches a new peak with David Taylor's account of his hunt for Phibes' Rolls Royce(!). 

 

Justin Marriott's poem to pulpy paperback goodness hits new highs with its twenty-third issue. 

There is a terrific gallery of old Bradbury covers, a remembrance of the late Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes, a fascinating piece on 'Digit', the post-war publisher of crime author Edgar Wallace (replete with dynamic paperback cover reproductions), a colorful look at 'Eve Drum, The Lady From L.U.S.T.', a spy created to cash in on everything Bondish, and a rare look at the pulp 'Fantastic Adventures' accompanied by vivid color covers.

Published virtually simultaneously with this issue was Marriott's two-volume portrait of ace fantasy artist (and childhood hero of mine) Bruce Pennington. Featuring interviews, overviews, and amazing cover reproductions, this type of publication, dedicated to one artist, needs to be encouraged.

  

With this quarter's booty of Video Watchdog, Little Shoppe of Horrors, The Paperback Fantatic, and a slew of others (Diabolique, Mad Scientist, Mondo Cult, and Monsters From The Vault), it's a great time for the eyes!

The Cinefantastique

Frederick S. Clarke's Cinefantastique magazine, launched in the early 70's, one of the greatest ever, was inspired by Eric Losfeld's midi/minuit Fantastique, which debuted in the 60's.

Losfeld's magazine (entirely in French) was the first in publishing history to cover the genre seriously. Clarke picked up the baton in the U.S. and produced dozens of stunning issues (with spectacular cover art) devoted to little known luminaries such as Hans J. Salter, unseen cult films (at the time) such as The Wicker Man, and directors such as David Cronenberg and George Pal.

 

 

For mine, the magazine became less interesting when the genre itself became more mainstream (ironically). Clarke's double issue devoted to Star Wars, then subsequent issues devoted to fare such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, while extraordinary for their penetrative examination of these cultural phenomena, were indicative of a new, more commercial direction for the magazine, a direction that saw more marginalized genre films receiving less attention. 

 

After years of struggling to pay the bills, it's understandable that Clarke embraced what sold. Only an independently wealthy man could have chosen to ignore the call of commerce.

Although the magazine did eventually die, leaving an almost unrecognizable corpse, Clarke's spirit of affording the genre some serious consideration endured with magazines such as Tim Lucas's Video Watchdog, Richard Klemensen's Little Shoppe of Horrors, Gary J. Svehla's Midnight Marquee, and the French L'Ecran Fantastique.

Even though there is a deluge of information on the genre these days, there is still something very special about something you can hold in your hand that is dedicated to in-depth analysis of it. Print possesses a permanence, an authority, a sincerity that data on a computer screen does not.

I treasure my collections of these wonderful magazines, and still feel the texture of the connection they make to my childhood. On Saturday mornings, I'd catch the 'Red Rattler' train into Melbourne's CBD, bound up the station steps, flee into the busy street, and sprint four blocks to Space Age Books, a titan of destinations that was more like a church than a bookshop. It offered me the safety of a church, and there was reverence for that which I held dear.

Entering Space Age Books and its kaleidoscope of wonders was akin to arriving on another planet, a planet where my kind were welcome, where flights of imagination were encouraged, and where our hearts were consoled with our minds.

These magazines still smell of that long deceased bookstore, a brick and glass monument to dreaming.