I know I'll probably regret getting involved but can't resist the compulsion to a try and pick a few bones out of all this.
First bone - and seemingly one of some contention, though for the life of me I can't really see why - is this business of Dem's signature. I've no intention of trying to put words in Kev's, or Christine Campbell Thomson's, mouth but my understanding of the quote in question is that it's not saying that there's anything wrong with 'literature' as such. Simply that for her own purposes, Campbell was more interested in a good creepy yarn than something more 'literary'. She was simply meeting what she saw as a need. After all, as she says; "For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty".
This could be viewed as an 'anti-intellectual' stance in some respects but it's certainly not sneering. In fact, it doesn't make any kind of judgements at all. It merely, as I read it, states a personal preference.
Bone #2 is this from Andy;
Quite honestly, Andy mate, I'm not sure things are so very different 'over here'! At least, that's exactly why I signed up to Vault however many years ago it was. That, and it was friendly, and fun, and never took itself too seriously. I've always thought "an exercise in rose-coloured nostalgia, done by a few over 40s" was a great idea. I did back then and I still do. Do I have sufficient time, energy, moments of sanity/clarity, to properly devote myself to such a board? Sadly no, I don't. I'm too knackered and too unstable to be of much use here any more but that doesn't stop me loving the place.
Obviously, if other people are looking for a discussion with a bit more depth than I am, then good luck to them and I'm not so sure that you can't find that here as well if that's your thing. There's no shortage of very knowledgeable people contributing to Vault.
And to finish...
That says it all for me really.
Blight? Is that the one with the rampaging mutant moths? God bless you, Mr Noose. And
Boot Boys... and
Crossroads novelisations... Vault isn't just about having an interest in this stuff and coming together to bang on about it, it's about having a passion for one thing and talking about it here and, through the very act of being here and sharing and participating, learning to love all kinds of other lovely old shite. It's going into a decrepit bookshop looking for that old horror anthology you're missing and coming out with a carrier bag full of
Confessions books and
Art of Coarse whatever it may be books and a biography of Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart... and, well, if you don't understand what I'm talking about there's really not much more I can say.
Is Vault anti-intellectual? The board taken as a whole? No, of course it bloody isn't. It's precisely what people on this thread have been saying the horror genre is. Namely, a broad church. Are there people here who have no interest whatsoever in intellectualising their passions? Yes, it seems to me that there are. It's not a stance, it's just a personal thing. If any dividing lines have been drawn I suggest that they've been drawn around Vault and not from within. And that's fine, you know. Some of the labels that have been attached to us in the past may have been crass and frankly uninformed - and, personally, I'm as anti-crass stupidity as I am anti-intellectual - but the day Vault starts to worry what people think of it will be a very sad day indeed.
Now, where's me tablets?