The Return of Fangoria Magazine

Unless you've been hiding under the rock of horror for the past couple of months, you should know that the venerable magazine of horror, Fangoria, is poised for a comeback.

This kind of venture generally brings forth mixed emotions. I'm sure there are naysayers, but I am excited.

I have difficulty describing how much Fangoria meant to me in the middle nineteen-eighties. It wasn't easy to find information or news on the horror genre in those days. There were cool fanzines, books, and occasional documentaries, but the one place to locate the straight dope on horror was Fangoria.

I used to see it on the shelves of WaldenBooks well before I ever bought or read an issue. Money was scarce in my young years, and if I was in the bookstore with a few bucks to spare, I generally bought a book or two. But by around nineteen eighty-six I began to have a little more disposable income. Not a hell of a lot, but enough to start to buy Fangoria.

My love of horror had fully blossomed by that point. I always loved the genre, but it was then that it was becoming obvious that horror was more than just a passing interest for me. The time was ripe. Great movies were coming out all the time. Consider it: Classics like The Fly, Alien, Street Trash, From Beyond, Evil Dead 2, were taking the field by storm. Just plain fun movies like Psycho 3, The Lost Boys, Vamp, Maximum Overdrive, Friday the 13th Part Six: Jason Lives, and dozens of others painted the landscape with gore.

Plus there was the exploding horror fiction genre. Classic writers were still around, but strange rumblings were afoot. Not just Clive Barker, who became an international sensation, but hard-hitting young writers with rock and roll and midnight movie backgrounds were turning the field on its head.

Fangoria was there to cover it all. The first issue I bought featured Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive on the cover, and the asking price was a steep $2.95. Not always easy to come by in those days, but I managed to get every issue for years to come.

I greedily devoured each issue, and I would read them again and again while I waited for the next one. I learned so much. Great filmmakers, authors, the European movie gems to be mined. I'll never regain the passion I felt for the magazine--and the genre--that I had then. But I am trying to regain the feelings I had in those first few years I was a Fangoria fanatic.

As the years went on, I read Fangoria, even when coverage started to focus on things of no interest to me. Horror video games, TV shows, comics, these were not my pastimes.

Then came the internet, which changed everything. Suddenly there was more information and news on horror than anyone could ever process. Current horror productions weren't to my liking. I fell off and stopped buying the magazine.

I feel bad about it now. Of course I alone could not have changed things, but each of us really do make a difference. And maybe the old regime needed to go. Sometimes the earth needs to be scorched for new growth to occur.

Fangoria is indeed coming back, and subscriptions are now being offered. Yes, sixty dollars might be a lot for many of you, but I think we need Fangoria to return. I see it as nothing less than a marriage the old and the new horror. Fangoria, the first major magazine to focus on serious horror and gore, back to celebrate the past and to help bring about the genre's future.

So I am asking you to please consider making the plunge and subscribe. I like what I am hearing from the new blood behind Fangoria, and I have the highest hopes that it will fulfill our hopes and...nightmares.