World of Horror

[Calenture]

Drawings by Jim Pitts

Terror on the Moors by David A Riley

Published in World of Horror monthly, No. 6, 1974

Ridgeway wants to get home from the office by five, but snow is falling over the town and the roads are bad. He decides to take a shorter route across the moors. Startled by a figure jumping out, his car skids off the road and gets stuck in the middle of nowhere. He begins to walk. But in the distance he sees something moving “like a grease smear dabbed across glass.”

At last he finds the cottage, deserted and tumbledown, but dry. There are some sinister old books on a shelf, but it’s obvious that no-one lives there now. In fact, there can be no one around for miles. Lighting a fire, he soon falls asleep in front of it – when there’s a knock at the door.

David Riley is good at creating atmosphere. The mood of this one is set from the first few lines with Ridgeway looking out at the snow falling over the roofs of the town, then later trekking across the moor in search of a lost village.

Hopefully this one will have been republished since in a collection or anthology?

[David A. Riley]

I have the originals to these two pictures, framed, on my wall.

They were done by the artist Jim Pitts, who did a hell of a lot of good work, including a record cover and at least one paperback, as well as working on Steve Jones' Innsmouth anthology along with Dave Carson and Martin McKenna.

Although he lives somewhere in the Blackburn area, not more than 5 miles from me, I've lost touch with him for the past ten years or more - as, it seems, have most other people in the genre.

Anybody know anything about him these days?

I'm not aware of any new work by Jim for years.

David

[dem]

I don't know what he's up to now, but he was a regular contributor to Ghosts And Scholars during the 'eighties. Here's his splendid cover illustration for issue 12

[Calenture]

I'm afraid I can't find anything recent on Jim Pitts, David, but these few links will add a little detail about him. Dem's linked cover does more than these links, which I saved earlier.

Stephen Jones is offering a copy of the magazine he brought out in 1980 with David Sutton AIRGEDLÁMH: AN IRISH FANTASY FICTION MAGAZINE for which Jim Pitts did the cover.

1993 he won a BFS Best Artist award BFS Best Artist award

The Shadows Over Innsmouth cover is credited on this Locus page (1994)

[David A. Riley]

Many thanks for checking on Jim for me.
I think he must have lost interest in the genre. Or something... He is still around. I have heard reports from one or two people in Blackburn who have seen him, but nobody seems to have any idea where he lives.
A great pity, as he was a good artist, whose style and abilities were improving steadily over the years. At one time hardly anything came out in the UK without either a cover or an interior illustration being done by him. I forget how many covers he did for Steve Jones and Dave Sutton's Fantasy Tales.
I think in reality he didn't just win the BFS Award for Best Artist in 1993. In fact at one point he won it several years running.
David

[David A. Riley]

Here are a couple of covers from World of Horror. I will try to get round to scanning more when I get the chance:





David

[David A. Riley]

This is an illustration that the unique Jim Pitts did for another of my stories in the magazine:



David

[David A. Riley]

These are some details of the magazine that I posted on the previous site:

Issue one (price 25p) included such gems as Scream Scene, The Making of a Monster, Creature from the Tomb, The Price of Horror, Christopher Lee Horror Gallery, The Thing in the Greenhouse, The Monsters are Coming, Horror Japanese Style, Taking the Wraps off the Mummies, Lon Chaney - Man of a Thousand Disguises, A Plague of Zombies, Petrifying Pin-ups, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

The two stories included in the first issue are anonymous and were probably written by the magazine's assistant editor, who may have also written some of the stories in later issues by writers whose names are totally unknown elsewhere!

Issue 2, though, has Don't Go Up The Stairs by R. Chetwynd-Hayes and The Clown That Cried Blood by Georgianna Lee (with a rare black and white illustration by Steve Jones, better known today as Britain's premiere anthologist).

Issue 4 has another RCH story, The Head of the Firm, illustrated by a full-colour cartoon, and Rising Generation by Ramsey Campbell, with a full page illustration by Steve Jones.

Issue 5 has Nutrient by Lee James and a second story by Lee James, Death Run. There is a third story, Mr Watkins Farewell by Georgianna Lee. I suspect, with strong justification, that both Lee James and Georgianna Lee were thin nom-de-plumes for the magazine's assistant editor, Lee Kennedy, with who I struck up a friendly correspondance at the time, when I was joint editor of the BFS's monthly newsletter.

Issues 6 and 7 included stories of my own, Terror on the Moors and The Shade of Apollyon, both of them illustrated by Jim Pitts. Issue 6 also included Can't See The Wood For The Trees by Playten Syder, who also had Man's Best Friend in issue 7.

Issue 8 boasted The Bestwick Papers by David A. Sutton, illustrated by Jim Pitts, and Jewel Duel by Malcolm Furnass.

The final issue had The Brain-Eaters by Frank Belknap Long, illustrated by Jim Pitts, plus a free half-page ad for the BFS, which did much to boost the organisation's membership at that time.

Although this was far from being a classy magazine (it had more in common with Fangoria than Castle of Frankenstein) it was lively and varied and was only too keen to give reviews of fanzines and give support for groups like the BFS. And was a handy professional market for stories during its brief lifetime.

[Johnlprobert]

A bit before my time this magazine, but I remember buying the Dr Who special when I was about seven and then being fairly mortified by some of the gorier spreads (one of which was from The Beast Must Die if I recall).

Much later I bought the issue that features Sheila Keith's demise in House of Mortal Sin on the cover. It featured a huge in depth interview with her about films I never even knew existed (British horror to me was Hammer/Amicus/Tigon) and set me off on an odyssey to discover crud Brit horror that continues to this day. Hooray!

[dem]

Before my time too but I love those covers (number 7 just shades it) and, speaking of which: have I got the right magazine or did World Of Horror run into trouble over the imagery on the front of an early issue which led to it being withdrawn/ reissued?

I'll go with your educated guess that the lesser known authors are pseudonymous. It's odd, though. I thought far more of the day's established writers would have been falling over themselves to get into the mag.

[justin]

I'm sure it was Monster Mag, the giant poster mag that run into trouble with issue 2. There was quite a stir in collector's circles when it turned out that had been a number 2 published in France. An article about it was in a yearly fanzine called Magazines of the Movies back in the 90s.

I'm sure Dez Skinn, later of Halls of Horror mag was behind Monster Mag.

[dem]

That's the one! Thanks for setting me straight, Justin. There's an article and tricked up approximation of the 'banned' Monster Mag cover here:

www.geocities.com/unifan2001/MMag.html

[Dr Terror]

admin said:

Before my time too but I love those covers (number 7 just shades it)

Of course #7 does!

[benedictjjones]

Jan 8, 2008 15:20:51 GMT Johnlprobert said:

I was about seven and then being fairly mortified by some of the gorier spreads (one of which was from The Beast Must Die if I recall).
Hooray!

THE BEAST MUST DIE!!! bloody classic.

'...not who is the murderer, but who is the ...werewolf..."

[killercrab]

I love this flick! Here's my contribution to Little Shoppe of Horrors AMICUS themed issue coming soon...

ade