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Post by the paperback fanatic on Nov 18, 2015 20:22:04 GMT
Recently received a mail from Nigel Taylor who is a regular and valued contributor to The Fanatic.
"I’m thinking of launching an A5 fiction magazine and am looking for contributions. The stories will be horror/SF/fantasy and ideally should be ‘old-fashioned’, with the emphasis on plot rather than mood, prose style or characterisation. Could you make a small announcement in the Fanatic, maybe in your editorial or Fanatical Mails? Anyone interested in contributing stories and/or illustrations should contact me at nigeltaylor131*outlook.com." (replace the * with @)
I can vouch for Nigel as an all round good egg and he has previously published at least one collection of short stories, so he has got some previous. Based on my interactions with him, his fave authors are Fred Brown and Robert Bloch if that's a help in any way for interested parties. I will put something in The Fanatic, but based on the Filthy Creations crew that lurked hereabouts, thought he might elicit a better response from this particular den of inequity.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 18, 2015 21:29:28 GMT
This sounds brilliant! There's a gaping huge fucking gap in the market for an "old fashioned" fiction mag of fantasy bent - especially a physical one - and, knowing Nigel via his articles and letters in The Fanatic - it's sure to be interesting. God knows, we've several talented authors and artists slum it on here, so I hope a few of them take up the baton. Should Mr. T get the project off the ground, he's guaranteed at least one review, and will be happy to help spread the word as best able.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 23, 2016 20:49:11 GMT
Hope to be posting a promo poster for début issue soon. Working title is Worlds of Strangeness. The magazine is gradually coming together, but Nigel "could certainly do with some more horror yarns." Illustrations also welcome!
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Post by dem bones on Mar 22, 2016 9:37:22 GMT
Nigel Taylor Vault Of Horror Here's the promo poster - I'm sold on the cover alone, an instant ' sport is horror!' classic! Nigel is still a little light original horror pulp fiction. Maybe a Vault miscreant or two might like to pen a hideous little something for issue #1?
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Post by rawlinson on Mar 26, 2016 18:56:40 GMT
I actually emailed him a few weeks ago just to ask if there were any submission guidelines but I didn't get a reply. I wonder if maybe the mail got caught in a spam filter.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 26, 2016 20:47:05 GMT
I actually emailed him a few weeks ago just to ask if there were any submission guidelines but I didn't get a reply. I wonder if maybe the mail got caught in a spam filter. Sorry to hear that. Please try again as I'm sure Nigel would be delighted to hear from you. The subject line "Your new Horror zine - Worlds of Strangeness" seems to work. If you receive no reply this time, let me know and will see if I can help. Good luck!
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Post by rawlinson on Mar 26, 2016 20:59:48 GMT
Thanks - I'll give it another shot.
Great site, btw. I've read for ages on and off but been a bit nervous about jumping in until I realised I already knew another poster here.
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Post by benedictjjones on Apr 19, 2016 12:13:50 GMT
ooooh, cheers. might drop him a line and see if he's still looking
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Post by dem bones on Apr 19, 2016 12:33:44 GMT
ooooh, cheers. might drop him a line and see if he's still looking Hi Ben, I'm sure Nigel would be delighted to hear from you. Good luck!
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Post by benedictjjones on Apr 19, 2016 15:29:00 GMT
cheers, Dem I've dropped him a line. Hope all is well with you, mate!
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Post by pulphack on Apr 19, 2016 16:25:09 GMT
Hello Ben, nice to see you back. Stick around, the crime section went dead without you!
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Post by dem bones on Nov 7, 2016 16:16:12 GMT
Nigel Taylor (ed.) - Worlds Of Strangeness #1 (Oct. 2016) Nigel Taylor Novella Andy Boot - Pulped! (Part 1 of 2) Short Stories: More Or Less: A Gothic Tale Graham Andrews - Knowing Me, Knowing You Darren Williams - Something In Your Eye Rosita Anthony Watson - Stitches For Smiles Benedict J. Jones - The Appetite Of Shadows Poem: Graham Andrews - I Article The Great Escape: H. Rider Haggard's She Features Editorial: The Stranger Speaks It's A Strange, Strange, Strange Strange World Justin Marriott - Strange Report. Micronicles 1. White-Mare 2. Heated Argument 3. Tomorrow Lies In WeightEither I'm looking in all the wrong places as per, or Horror-SF-Fantasy fiction 'zines are thin on the ground these days, so very well done to Nigel Taylor for launching this attractive 74-pager. A very impressive début issue, very pleased to see contributions from Paperback Fanatic & Vault fiends as this is definitely a venture worthy of support. Cover price is £5 including P&P - order/ further details from The Stranger nigeltaylor131 AToutlook.com
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Post by dem bones on Nov 9, 2016 8:26:59 GMT
Voodoo terror; vintage Spicy pulp thrills; sci-horrors; sinister scarecrows; human head news - the future is squid size : the patron saint of baby-sitters; the enduring powers of Agnetha, Björn, Benny, and Anni-Frid, and why the hungry dead favour a Chinese takeaway. All this and more in the very tasty first issue of what I hope will soon establish itself as a forum favourite publication.
Loads to get through so will start with the short fiction.
Darren Williams - Something In Your Eye: Nine-year-old David is a deeply unpleasant child who contrives to make a babysitter's life Hell. But not to worry. Tonight Jackie, fourteen, has volunteered her services. Reminiscent of Pan Horror-era Alan Temperley in one of his restrained moments.
Nigel Taylor - A Gothic Tale: "Cover story, more or less." Future man will have a very low opinion of our present day scientists - especially those whose who have devoted their puny "expertise" to the advancement of cryogenics ....
Graham Andrews - Knowing Me, Knowing You: Professor Langenschmidt's experiment in parapsychology takes a disastrous turn for, Reg Ridout, his pet sociopath when fellow guinea pig, Wally McWhirter, exposes him to the music of a certain Swedish pop phenomenon.
Benedict J. Jones - The Appetite Of Shadows: Nasty! Xin Ying returns to London and enrols at an English Language School off New Oxford Street. She's already fluent in the tongue but her predatory young tutor, Toby Conway, is too busy sizing up his next victim to suspect any ulterior motive on her part.
Nigel Taylor - Rosita: A lonesome Professor of Anthropology comes to bitterly regret his marriage to the beautiful young daughter of a Peruvian witch-doctor. Rosita's jealous streak proves fatal to any woman who dares even say hello to him. Her single weakness is that she is pathologically camera shy. Would that he'd insisted on a wedding album.
Anthony Watson - Stitches For Smiles: Kelson Bogle curses his impulsive decision to roam the hills. Cold, hungry and exhausted, he tramps aimlessly through driving rain until he encounters a scarecrow ....
More to follow
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Post by dem bones on Nov 9, 2016 19:35:28 GMT
The 'Micronicles' are good fun, macabre gems of flash fiction culminating in a black punchline. But perhaps my pick of the launch issue's fiction is the delightful novella.
"The customer looked down at the pulp in his hands, Unearthly Thrills for August, 1935. It had a luridly coloured painting on the cover depicting a scantily-clad and buxom redhead ... tied to a stake, menaced by a green blob that looked like a cross between an octopus and a jelly-fish. "Evil from beyond the sundered veil seeks human sacrifice to sustain a terrifying half life!" trumpeted the tag-line, adding underneath "Another wondrous tale of terror from macabre master Joss Likely!"
Andy Boot - Pulped!: New York, mid-'thirties. A grimy publishing plant on Lower East Side. Frank Nugent, former scientist turned pulp entrepreneur, has recruited some of the most down-at-heel of down-at-heel hacks to speed-write racy fiction for his several titles. Frank may not realise it, but said hacks - Montague John Summers, Ray Flanagan, Josh Likely, Pete MacLean and his estranged wife, Jenny - are no mere purveyors of cheap thrills. Away from their typewriters, the frazzled five spend every waking moment fighting super-villains, mad occultists and wannabe dictators from beyond the stars as though the world's future depended on them. Which it does.
Enter Howard Phillips. He's the guy just picked up a copy of Unearthly Thrills at the news-stand, and he is not best pleased. The reason? Unearthly Thrills' cover story stars Joss Likely as the only man who can save us from Count Waldheim, an evil Nazi Black Sorcerer intent on reawakening the Elder Gods and letting them loose upon mankind. Phillips is aghast. How could a burnt-out pulphack have stumbled upon the truth?
Further investigation reveals that several Thrills publications expose similar conspiracies.
Crash Flanagan, space ace, battles Zandar, Emporer of the far-flung planet with designs on entire galactic domination. Closer to home, dashing adventurer Monty Summers, aka 'Quarterstaff of the Jungle' continually thwarts Professor N'gan, Africa's answer to Fu Manchu - Syleeta, his beautiful but deadly daughter providing the smouldering love interest. Jen 'The Black Pearl' MacLean super-heroine of Slinky, Spicy Wonder Stories, takes on Al Bowley, local gangster, whose henchmen double as the house orchestra at his sleazy dive. Her ex-husband, Pete, is better known to mobsters as the Red Admiral, a superhero straight from the Batman production line.
The more he reads, the less the quietly terrifying Phillips likes. Something will have to be done about these meddlers!
I seriously cannot wait for part 2!
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Post by dem bones on Nov 10, 2016 20:03:05 GMT
A few rambling words about the issue's non-fiction. Justin Marriott devotes his initial column to discussing the merits of five contemporary 'zines, three of them - Weng Chop, Monster and Grindhouse Purgatory - predominantly exploitation movie orientated, two - the long-running Paperback Parade and Chris Mikul's Biblio-Curiosa - devoted to literature (in the Vault sense of the word). Shamefully, I've sampled not a one but, in case of the latter, hope to put that right in 2017. Stand-out for this reader is the Stranger's enthusiastic celebration of H. R. Haggard She referencing King Kong, Beauty And The Beast, Charles Aznavour, H. P. Lovecraft, Charlie Higson, and a support cast of thousands! If many a Men Of Violence review makes you thankful to have avoided a bullet by passing on such-and-such novel, The Great Escape inspired me to bump She approximately 100 pages up the to-read-pile-that-knows-no-sanity. What else? Am very pleased that there is a section devoted to the contributor's potted biog's. For those among our creative element - the Advent Calendar Corps - who have, rightly bemoaned the lack of physical magazine outlets for their talents, editor Nigel WELCOMES CONTRIBUTIONS. Write him at: nigeltaylor131 AToutlook.com
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