"UNNATURAL SELECTION: The DISAPPEARANCE of TRUTH IN PRINT and the POWERFUL WORDS of UNCLEBOB MARTIN"

The world is like a ride at an amusement park. It goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly colored and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: Is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, "Hey - don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride..." But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that?

-Bill Hicks
The “truth”. Do you remember it? Do you remember when you were a kid, when that word – TRUTH – meant a whole lot? Heck, it wasn’t even really a word so much then. It was like a universal constant. You couldn’t MAKE UP the truth; and, you KNEW when you were telling the truth, and you KNEW when you were lying. It made your inside feel all fuzzy with apprehension. It made your ears and cheeks warm, and it made a pit in your little belly. You’d be tingling, your sense of what’s right actually physically battling your body’s actions …

So … what happened?
Well that’s a long story. A story that’s likely different for everybody in some way; but if I were to GUESS, if I were to take a wild friggin’ stab in the dark – I’m thinking that what happened has A LOT to do those little green pieces of paper that we hear so much about. Bear with me here -

Without getting neck deep in the subject, I can say that one of the FACTS of our current existence is, whether you consider it legal or not, that large businesses and institutions own more of “things” (television, radio, print, etc.), both percentage-wise and quantity-wise, than they ever have. Ultimately, it's to secure profit. And somehow, the stronger the quest for dollars gets, the weaker our resistance to not telling the truth becomes; on both the side that’s selling AND the side that’s buying.

Well, it didn’t used to be that way. Really, it didn’t. Even in the greed-soaked excess of the 80’s there was some light at the end of the tunnel. There were still some unique opinions out there, some opinions not based on statistics or fear or payola. There were even companies – both good and evil – that allowed these opinions to be voiced. What was the result? Were these towering monuments of modern American “success” crippled? No, of course not. In fact, a lot of that openness to originality even made money. But as this ownership of “things” got further and further imbalanced, stakes got higher. WAY higher. In fact, the sheer chance of not turning profit began to spell out the potential loss of millions. So, with the strength of wealth, the aid of the US Government, and international renown, the powerhouses of American business all slowly began to eradicate anything but “well-researched”, “tested”, and “safe” practices … the result? Homogeneous tepidity. Look current magazines – the newsstand today is jam-packed with failing slicks. If a magazine is about the lives of famous people, each week’s cover will feature the same plastic faces; even the graphics and text look the same. If the magazine is about a genre of music, the cover again features whichever set of plastic faces are “supposed to” be of interest to the accurately programmed consumer. The problem doesn't exclude Horror Magazines. It’s unnatural selection at best; and at worst it’s a big part of America’s displacement from being a World Power.

The fun of this piece is of course that I can so easily prove my point on the strength of just one Writer / Editor. He edited Fangoria Magazine from 1979 to 1986, the "Splatter Boom Years", and he goes by the name UncleBob Martin (aka Robert Martin, and countless aliases) and in certain circles he’s regarded as a God.

“Why?” you may ask. “How can writing be THAT different or important? CLEARLY you’re just blowing things out of proportion to support your own taste!”

… Ah, the cry of the conditioned, one of the most familiar nature sounds of North America … Look – for me, one of the most aggravating aspects of existing is that some folks aren’t willing to notice the difference of certain things. I think that Fangoria; when it was edited by Bob Martin (and eventually both Bob and David Everitt, who sadly passed away last year), is a glaring and explicit example of Print’s infinite potential to be original, challenging, fascinating, and successful.

Just about any major Horror Magazine that's out now, with very little exception, is a copy of the classic Fango format OR a copy of the classic Famous Monsters format. These mags are willing to ape the template but NOT the attitude (in fact it's an easy argument that Bob's personal rejection of FM was one of Fango's strongest vertebrae). None of them seem to be willing to take the risks that Fangoria took while under UncleBob’s watch, the risks that without question made it revolutionary. As you’ll read about later in his “Fast Food of Horror” article, Bob was handed the helm of a sinking ship and told to "do whatever he wanted". What he wanted was obvious to him - he wanted to produce a magazine so good - so interesting - that he himself would actually fucking read it. I know, sounds complicated, right!?!

Not coincidentally, this is the recipe for success used by EC Comics, MAD Magazine, and of course PLAYBOY - not only market-changingly successful endeavors, but magazines whose creators prided themselves on creating material that appealed to their own tastes. This wildly sensible tone is absent from nearly all widely available print in America - you know, just about any Mag you can buy at 'Barnes and Noble', blecchh ...

You know what’s on the cover of Fangoria #23? A promo shot for "the EVIL DEAD" – a film that wouldn’t be released nationally until 6 months later. It clearly wasn’t Fango’s plan to capitalize on the upcoming release, quite the opposite. Fango’s coverage of the then-unknown "EVIL DEAD" (next to Stephen King’s quote praising the film) was one of the major factors in its success. That's the mark of a fearless Editor. Bob was also selfless and progressive in trying to bring in people like Underground cartoonist Howard Cruise, and especially Michael J. Weldon (of Psychotronic Video fame) and rockabilly singer Johnny Legend. At the time, I don’t know that any other mag with Fango’s level of distribution would have taken these guys on. Yet of course, they were truly experts; guys that were involved at the ground-level, seeking out of new, interesting things. These are the kind of guys who made and contributed to Fanzines, an area of fandom which Fangoria wisely payed close attention to, and even covered regularly.

Bob Martin’s Fangoria had a loving, focused mission: find out about the coolest stuff out there, and share it with their audience. Lucio Fulci’s “Zombie” graces the cover of issue #8 (with an article on it written by Jim Wynorski); the next article is a write up of Hammer’s “Horror of Dracula”, a film released 22 years prior to that issue's publication. Gloriously and successfully so, Fangoria was a free-form project. Films like “Basket Case” were championed alongside big-budget studio fare without a second thought. Fangoria wasn't trying to follow what genre fans already liked - Fangoria was defining it.

Bob Martin's editorial reign at Fangoria changed the landscape of Horror Fandom. Much the same way Forry J. Ackerman's original Famous Monsters did in the 60's, Fangoria grabbed a butcher knife made up of passion and intelligence and psychotically cut their own gory niche into the brain of every literate Monster Kid that was tall enough to reach the newsstand. Gore was good between those pages - and not with an overblown adoration for negativity either - this stuff was fun. That era Fango can make you laugh out loud. But really, now I've gone on way too long - I can't it help it though, very few writers' work have the naked, unbridled passion of UncleBob Martin. I literally teared up a bit looking back on some of these pieces, they're so sadly from another era. An unprogrammed era, still lively with possibility and gore ... Now, finally, I'll let UncleBob speak for himself, first in an interview, then in one of my favorite pieces of his:

I was watching a documentary on Stanley Kubrick and they got into something that I found very interesting - apparently, Kubrick was certain that he was living in "end times" and that his lifetime would actually come close to the end of human race. No matter what time period one looks at, there's always folks like that around; and, of course, in some ways I even feel that way. Where do you stand on this kind of apocalyptic anxiety? Do we reach a point where it's not just paranoia anymore?

My opinion on this is very much shaped by my experience with Brother Theodore.

Throughout the last thirty years of his life -- perhaps even longer than that -- Theodore lived in anticipation of his end; not just of death, but of the slow breakdown of the physical shell that inevitably preceded it. He was not in terror of death at all, but he was in terror of incapacity, and of dependence on others; he hoped only to die standing on his own two feet, and by his own hands if incapacity was the only other choice.

The thirty years or more that Theodore spent on dying before he was actually dead struck me as a waste and a distraction from time he might otherwise have spent living.

Of course I have no basis to criticize Theodore, we all live our lives by our own means; Theodore's dread probably served him some useful purpose that was invisible to me. But I knew that Theodore's attitude toward death would not serve me well at all, and I have spent all my time since actively rejecting it.

So when Harlan Ellison announced his forthcoming demise to anyone who cared to listen back in the Fall of 2010 [http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=30610], I was a little disgusted. Grandstanding your own death betrays a lack of class. If you can't make a proper exit, you should not even venture onto the stage.

As a solipsist who believes that we all die alone because of the sheer impossibility of communication in any circumstance, I see no personal distinction between the death of an individual and the end of the universe. In either case, anticipating the end, and altering your behavior to accommodate the imagined cessation, is to rob yourself of time -- which is all that you really have.

But, since I also have faith in an objective reality that is not dependent on my observation for its existence, I do not see my personal death as identical with the end of the universe. While grandstanding your death may expose a lack of class, identifying your own death with the end of the universe betrays untrammeled egoism -- since Kubrick created our world in 2001 and destroyed it in Dr. Strangelove, I'm not too surprised that he had a godlike identification with the universe itself.

What I'd choose to communicate to anyone confusing their own demise with that of our 14-billion-year-old universe [or just the end of our 100,000-year-old species] is, 'It's not all about you.'

One of my favorite Fangoria pieces was your Brother Theodore article. While Brother Theodore was purely a source of comedy when he was on Letterman or other shows, you seemed to hone in on his unbridled passion for true "Horror". To me, that kind of approach was very endearing and represents one of the mag's strongest traits. Did you have a sense that you were appealing to "outsiders" at the time?

Nope, we were appealing mostly to teens/children -- kids who lived in suburbs and had enough cash to spend on stupid movie magazines and equally-stupid movies. Children aren't outsiders.

But I did believe that I was cultivating outsiders among those kids. I think that the implied message we delivered was that the worst that could happen was, they wind up in a 9 to 5 job, working for a paycheck instead of for the creative jollies caused by making something.

Can you tell me a little more about getting to meet Brother Theodore?  Did you spend time with him again after that article?

I considered Theodore a comic genius, but Fangoria was about horror.  I wanted the readers to love his work as I did, but I also wanted the readers to identify with him, not to regard him as a freak. I was always mindful that the magazine's audience was young people, at the point when you decide who and what you are, all of them facing the horrifying issue of working for a living ... finding something to do that justifies your existence. I still can't make a reasonable argument about why I should exist ... and I know it’s not really necessary, existence is its own excuse ... no one unlucky enough to be born should be obligated to explain themselves, but the world does insist that we work for a living, and so the work we choose becomes our excuse for existence, at least in our heads. I think the last job I applied for before Fangoria was supermarket checkout, and I was thirty at the time. The whole idea of spending 8 hours daily in thrall to an employer was always a horror to me. None of the people I interviewed were doing 9 to 5, but they all started out as regular folks who had to find a career, I always interviewed people with the idea, 'how come you escaped all of that?'

When Theodore and a handful of other Jews made it out of the concentration camp and wound up in California, Theodore worked on the custodial staff of Stanford University. This was horror for him; he was born wealthy and had planned to devote himself to a life of indolence, hedonism, and the spending of the family fortune. Instead he was spending his days "scraping up the vomit of some worthless college brat" ... he started out reading horror stories in concert venues, mostly Edgar Alan Poe. One of his recordings includes his reading of an Ambrose Bierce story, "Oleum Canis," (the title of the Bierce story is actually "Oil of Dog" but Theodore gave the Latin such a wonderful reading that I always think of the story as "Oleum Canis") which he recites as if it was a memoir of his own youth. It was many years after I first heard it that I realized it was not his own composition.  A wonderful story.

It took quite a while for him to be able to make a living doing this sort of thing, but ultimately it was his passion for horror literature, and his ability to dramatize it, that brought him escape from the horror we all face, of having to make a living; so that was what I saw as the readers' way into the topic of Theodore.

In relation to that, I just noticed that it was you that pointed out Colson Whitehead's memoir of Fangoria and Psychotronic in the New Yorker. I got ahold of Whitehead through Twitter, and sent him a copy of the Brain Damage book, one of the few I have signed by Frank ... I inscribed it, "All I wanted of Fango's readers is that they escape the 9 to 5. Good Job!"

Coincidentally, Fangoria would never have happened if not for The New Yorker. Around 1975, I fell into a bad crowd, and entered a writing workshop that was run by Henry Beard, one of the founding editors of the National Lampoon, and Tony Hiss (son of Alger Hiss), who at that time was on the editorial staff of The New Yorker. My very first writing jobs came through that workshop.

I once heard you explain your acceptance of gore in film and in print with the phrase "I have not yet died".  Can you elaborate on this?

I haven't died yet, so death remains interesting, even if it's only a cessation, as I strongly suspect it to be.

Death is the final mystery, the last taboo ... when my paternal grandfather, who lived with my family, died, my family sent me off to relatives that same day and I came back after all he ritual was over. I was expected to pick up my routine where I'd left it. I hope parents are more sensitive to that nowadays, and include their kids in their rituals ... but then, as I recall, my grandfather was pretty much a pain in the ass to my parents, so I don't know how much actual mourning occurred. Considering their attitude toward my grampa, they were probably pleased to die while relatively young, neither of them ever became a burden to anyone.

But death is fascinating, and portraying death in spectacular fashion raises the interest factor further. We associate physical harm with pain, but the over-the-top grisliness of the gore film overloads those circuits. When extreme pain really does happen, we're shielded, they say, by the state of shock, but I've never been in enough pain to verify that, and I hope never to be. Still, seeing a guy turned inside out in a film is about me, not about the guy on screen.

 ________

And one of my favorite of Bob's non-Fango pieces, with a brief introduction from the man himself:

I forgot that I had written the following essay about 20 years ago, upon leaving Fango. It appeared in "Toxic Horror," another mag from the same publisher, and I recently found it posted on the web under my pseudonym "Berthe Roegger."

It was full of typos; I've cleaned it up and added a Pulp Fiction reference that wasn't in the original. –UncleBob Martin


The "Fast Food" of Horror: Jason, Michael & Freddy
By Berthe Roegger
Toxic Horror #1


When I first started writing about horror films ten years ago there was no Freddy Kreuger, no Jason, and Michael Myers had appeared in just one film, John Carpenter's Halloween. At that time, graphically violent horror film was still a disreputable genre. Magazine articles and television critics would occasionally throw a sop to George Romero for Night of the Living Dead, but Cronenberg, Craven, Dante, Carpenter, and others had yet to make "respectable" films, embraced by the mainstream opinion makers.

A lot of things have changed since then, for a lot of reasons. Stephen King has become the world’s best-known, best-selling writer. Horror anthologies are the second-largest genre in syndicated television after game shows. It seems that another Fangoria imitator reaches the newsstands every other month. And all the directors named above have gained some measure of "legitimacy."

The "slasher" film is now a genre unto itself, one that seems to thrive on repetition and formula.

But the producers of these films are not solely to blame for the formula; in fact, the makers of the Halloween and Friday The 13th movies attempted to kill off their lead maniacs early on. It was in response to fan demand that Jason and Michael have been snatched from the grave again and again, ultimately to be absorbed by the mainstream. While the M.P.A.A has gotten tougher than ever in its vigilance against breaches of taste, horror itself has become a part of the mainstream.

So why do I miss the "good old days?"

When Fangoria was first launched, I remember how refreshing it was to present a magazine that did not go on endlessly about the superiority of the "classic" approach to horror. I never could share Forry Ackerman's enthusiasm for Lugosi, Karloff and the rest of the moldering corpses of horror's past. An exploding head, gouting blood, cascades of dripping phlegm---that’s what spoke to me, and it still does. So you are not about to read a rant from me about how the "unseen" is more horrifically subtle then the graphic.

No, what annoys me is that horror has become a franchise system. Say the words "horror movie" nowadays, and the crowd will think of Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers.

To see how this has come about think about the rise of "fast food." I live in Hoboken, New Jersey. Ten years ago, there were about 6 different lunch counters on the main drag where you could get a decent hamburger for under two dollars. Today, there is only McDonald's and Burger King. How did these two close six different independent businesses by offering an inferior, more expensive product?

If you can answer that, you can probably tell me why Freddy, Jason and Michael rule the horror field today.

Fast food chains and mass-market maniacs offer brand name recognition and predictability.

A Big Mac tastes the same everywhere.

Jason remains an inarticulate bludgeoner

Michael is always a silent, single-minded stabber.

Freddy is an anarchistic wisecracking torturer.

In France, a quarter-pounder is a Royale. but you can still get it with cheese.

The popular films that first gave birth to the maniacal trio, by Carpenter, Cunningham, and Craven, were far from predictable, before each was killed, returned to life, and transformed into cash cows. All to please the fans.

But there are fans and there are fans. There's a big difference between the sort of fan I'm used to - the one who looks forward to the next Wes Craven or John Carpenter - and the fan that dominates horror today. He's the guy that thinks Jason is cool, and avidly awaits his next slaughter outing. Those fans were in minority ten years ago. Now they are the overwhelming majority. Why?

It used to be that horror films were given a slow, careful release; perhaps a dozen or so prints were initially struck, then more if success warranted it. A film would open first in New York or Los Angeles, and slowly roll out to other major cities. Word of mouth was the most powerful sales tool, and if a film was no good, it was word of mouth that killed it, quickly, before too much harm had been done.

Nowadays, it's all or nothing. It's a small release if only 300 prints are struck, and most horror films open nationwide, unless they go straight to video. Word of mouth? Forget it. TV ads (and Fango articles) get all the Jasonmaniacs' and Freddyphiles' mouths to watering, and the bulk of the film's money is made in the first opening weekend; even if word turns out to be bad, the investors' money has already been secured. Financial security - sure money - is what sequelizing is all about. Unfortunately for moviegoers, financial security and creative risks seldom mix.

Some would say that the horror sequel is the only way for horror to survive at all in today's market. There are less then 25,000 movie screens in this country; in a summer like the one just past, major releases like Indy Jones III, Batman, Ghostbusters II, License to Kill, and others occupied an overwhelming majority of those screens for most of the summer. Without an identifiable figure like Freddy Kreuger, how could a new, unknown horror film get booked into theaters at all, let alone make any kind of a dent in the market? The American moviegoer has been thoroughly trained to catch every "big" movie that they "must" see.

For myself, and a lot of horror fans like me, it was the little movies that hardly anyone had seen that always had the most appeal. But Jason, Michael, and Freddy have changed all that.

Maybe you think I'm an old fogey, a stick-in-th’-mud, someone who resents, out of jealousy, the amalgamation of greater and greater power in Hollywood. Maybe you have a point. But it also occurs to me that one of the first people to raise a howl about this mass market was the man who started it all. John Carpenter, the writer and director who devised the unkillable maniac in his picture Halloween, fought long and hard to prevent its sequelization; he found that it's very hard to stand between Hollywood sharks and money to be made. Today, the Halloween saga continues without Carpenter's participation, while he continues to make worthwhile horror films, particularly They Live! , which all by itself is worth all the Halloween sequels lumped in one basket.

If Carpenter could do it, so can you -- "Just say no" to junk food horror movies. Only when Jason, Freddy and Michael finally and thoroughly die can horror films start anew.

Both the editorial above and the cover below prove it - Fango had guts! The "feud" with Siskel (and Ebert, it went on in later issues) is a powerful example of the brazen truth-saying fire that existed within Fangoria's pages. It wasn't a critic's place to actually interfere with the production of films, especially through blatant censorship, and it was part of Fangoria's mission at the time to bring down any institution that supported such insidious un-American activity.

Who's that handsome fella!? Much like Kurtzman's magazines, the staff at Fango often made uncredited and hilarious cameos in their house ads, and as we see above Bob himself was no stranger to this.

Below is Fangoria's first George Romero interview. This, like the other interviews included here (do yourself a favor - print and READ these!), are with artists whose careers were very much aided by Fango. Although the merits of their films are apparent enough, the rabid fandom and "vision" of what these artists did was put into a community setting through the pages of Fango. I'll preface this with a brief passage, probably written by Bob, from an intro to a contest announcement in Fango #13:

"We've featured well over 100 films in the two years and 12 issues behind us; but there is still only a handful of filmmakers that we consider the real reason for this magazine's existence; the foremost of these is George Romero. Not only is he one of the most talented screenwriter-directors working today; he has also proved the value of independence - time and time again bypassing formula, risking all on each of his features. And, to the benefit of every truly creative filmmaker, as well as moviegoers, he has made that policy work."

A beautiful editorial below, highlighting with relish the intent of Bob's editorship. I can't even remotely imagine reading something like that in a current national mag's opening notes ...

One of my personal favorite Fango covers. I love reading this on the subway and showing off Giovanni Lombardo Radice's acting talents ... "Drilling for Brains!"

An amazing early John Carpenter interview below; again the perception of these artists as part of a "world" or community is apparent.

For me this is one of the truly interesting special effects pieces. Tom Sullivan and Bart Pierce were totally unknown, and the story of their effects for "Evil Dead" is hardly ordinary.

And in closing, another masterpiece of a cover. I hope to write more on UncleBob in the future, but until then please - for your own sanity, seek out some of his writing. And if perchance there's any young writers out there - take UncleBob on as an influence, it's likely your writing will become more truthful because of it. And if you don't want to write the truth - please don't write at all.

-Mike Hunchback

Sex and Science Fiction

WARNING: Below is a bunch of pretty serious-sounding (aka boring) writing about the extremely broad topic of sex. The reason for it is the pay off at the end, an absolutely brilliant and hilarious song and video by comedian Rachel Bloom. I’m a life-long enthusiast of Novelty music and I’m passionately in awe of this piece. While literally making me laugh as hard as top-classics like “I’ll Be Mellow When I’m Dead” and “Marty Feldman Eyes”, it also addresses an area of human sexuality that I’ve tried to champion in music that I myself have made, an area of sexuality that I feel while totally valid, is ignored or disregarded by both big media and small social circles alike; hence the essay.

Human beings are animals. Unique ones, but animals nonetheless. It goes hand in hand with our animal nature that sex, both directly and indirectly, is a big part of our lives and minds. It’s such a powerfully natural part of being human that even forced and unforced personal asexuality is glaringly indicative of sexual thought and behavior.

So much of the total crap we see on TV, online, and in print is trapped by the roles that nature mapped out for us. Men are dominant, strong and stupid (or if they’re smart they’re a witty, cynical asshole). They grab women, of only a couple body types, by the hips or hair and force them into literal and metaphorical submission. The women put up a front at first, but ultimately the strongest male is so powerful that they give in to what they “really want”, to be taken; like we’re cartoon cave-people or something. With homosexuality the representation isn’t that much different, arguably because according to the media the appeal of sex to an audience has to be black and white; one of two things with no room for unique voices and feelings.

I assume and hope that if you’re reading this blog, you think that these roles have little-to-no place in your life. But the thing that scares me is that so many people I know are so affected by this false representation of sexuality that they actually let it interfere with their own sexual comfort. It’s not easy, (and certainly one could argue that girls have much less of a chance to be unaffected by this than boys) but to me, that only means we should try harder to NEVER submit to these stupid templates drawn out by others. Personally, the more I’m disgusted by something or the more I disagree with it morally, the less I let it dictate my actions and beliefs – I disregard it; it’s without value to me. It’s not that the issues aren’t important, or worth fighting over – but personally, the way I feel about things inside is largely unaffected by the massive inaccuracies of both the media and the masses.

I often feel an inner urge to point out areas of things that I think are TRULY sexy, wonderfully sexy, and, absolutely – healthily sexy. Sexuality in American culture has become two very incorrect versions of its actual self – almost aping the Two Party political system we suffer under. On one hand there’s the who-cares-bravado of:

“Hey, none of this stuff is actually that sexist or dangerous, it’s all good, people fuckin’ is A-OK, dawg!”

And on the other side it sounds like:

“Things have gotten so bad with the portrayals of sex that we must even disregard the idea that people’s physical appearance or gender can have sexual connotation.”

And obviously I think neither extreme is true, and that both are potentially dangerous. It’s an endless topic to debate, and it should be debated. But the reason I’m bring it up here today is a somewhat personal one, as mentioned in the warning at the top. So many things that inspire lust in me are things that are part of a rapidly declining underworld, growing more and more “anti-social” in the public's eyes day by day. My mind works like this: I live in a world where READING is sexier than bikinis. I get more way turned on by looking at ladies in the Library than I do at a stupid strip club. For Pete’s sake, BEING YOURSELF is like dirty dancing to me! Are my feelings of sexuality invalid because they’re not represented in mass media or by my peers? Fuck no! And that’s why it feels SOOOO good to have someone be brave enough to just get out there and say something like “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury!".

The song/video "Fuck Me Ray Bradbury" is the work of stand-up comic Rachel Bloom, and is by no means a work of absurdist humor – it’s hilarious because of its heart-on-sleeve confession of the song’s protagonist’s very real sexual desire to commit acts of lust and passion with someone because of his incredible talent to use words for creating sublime and fantastical works of aesthetic beauty and moral truth. It’s not the rigid and unnatural decision of “I AM ONLY ATTRACTED TO PEOPLE FOR THEIR PERSONALITY”, it’s genuine, and that particularly individual view is one of many that’s totally shut out of widely seen visions of sexuality.

“Fuck Me Ray Bradbury” actually sexualizes reading (heck, it goes even further, it sexualizes reading physical BOOKS, no kindles or ipads are present here). And it’s not that we laugh AT her for it, because she’s different. On the contrary – the whole song is a wild celebration of this sexuality; so much of the song’s strength comes from the individualism of her view. The protagonist simply doesn’t see sex any other way, this is how she really feels and the idea that she’s “weird” or “wrong” never crosses her lips. In fact, just the opposite – those who walk the line of the "normal" dating world are ridiculed here!

The parodying of pop and media sensibilities to put forth this kind of vision has seldom been this spot-on – it’s as if there’s a little hope left in this world …

And as far as funny/sexy videos on the internet go, this thing is a fucking light at the end of the tunnel that’s as bright as Golden Apples of the Sun. It’s a Medicine for Melancholy stronger than any I’ve seen since the birth of the ‘net. So please … enjoy!!!

I’m a total novice on this subject, but I am fascinated by it. I urge all of you to check out this brilliant blog sometime (a big influence on this piece): http://sexualityinart.wordpress.com/ .

And as a sort of addendum, I wanted to include a couple short pieces I wrote several years back. They're nowhere online any longer, but I was always happy with these two. The first is a piece on Bradbury's inspirational individualism, and the second is a passage by Theodore Sturgeon, (who's capabilities as writer are arguably equal to that of Mr. Bradbury) in which I attempt to indicate just how damn sexy science fiction writing can be.


Majority's Rules Dept.

When Ray Bradbury was a kid he loved Buck Rogers comic strips. He loved them so much in fact that he began to collect them; with the intention of having all of them and keeping them in order. He took them to school one day and found out very quickly that the other boys shared none of his interest in comics and in fact they berated him for it. The pressure and name-calling from his peers caused Bradbury to do something awful. In a fit of anger and a longing for acceptence he tore up all of his collected Buck Rogers comics, vowing that he wouldn't have anything to do with such childish things as comics again.

Two days later Bradbury found himself crying uncontrollably. He felt enormous anxiety and was so emotionally distraught that he did not at first know what exactly the problem was. He soon realized the terrible mistake he had made. The Buck Rogers comic strips had meant more to him than he had known; they filled a void in him that when left empty would take great feats of ignorance to live with. He knew he needed to cure himself and he knew how to do it. He went out and collected every single strip that he had torn up and replaced it; and he collected every strip that came after those as well.

There was an even larger part to this cure that he also realized he had to follow if he wanted to forever escape the feeling the emptiness of that void: he never listened to ANYONE else ever again. What he liked was his business, and things he thought were valid or beautiful were just that; no questions asked, no seal of approval needed but his own. The world is so much like this in so many ways. Where Ray Bradbury saw beauty and excitement and an influence for pure creativity the world saw a bunch of silly drawings, and those from that world felt threatened enough by this that they tried to scare him into lying to himself. He wouldn't do it. Most people do though, and perhaps the majority rules? Young Mr. Bradbury, don't write The Martian Chronicles. Don't write the Illustrated Man or Something Wicked This Way Comes or be one of the most successful American fiction writers in history. Instead why don't you go play football with the rest of the boys? Don't you want lots of friends? At least that way no one will think you're weird. And after all, that really is the most important thing, isn't it? ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­


___________________________________________________________


Oh Theodore ... Dept.

The quoted text below is from Theodore Sturgeon's sexually potent masterpiece "The Sex Opposite", one of the author's finest short stories:

"Muhlenberg met the girl's eyes, and whether she nodded ever so slightly or whether she did it with a single movement of her eyelids, he did not know, but it meant "yes." He slid into the booth opposite her.

Music came. Only some of it was from the records. He sat and listened to it all. Rudy came with a second drink before he said anything, and only then did he realize how much time had passed while he rested there, taking in her face as if it were quite a new painting by a favorite artist. She did nothing to draw his attention or reject it. She did not stare rapturously into his eyes or avoid them. She did not even appear to be waiting, or expecting anything of him. She was neither remote nor intimate. She was close, and it was good.

He thought, in your most secret dreams you cut a niche in yourself, and it is finished early, and then you wait for someone to come along to fill it - but to fill it exactly, every cut, every curve, hollow and plane of it. And people do come along, and one covers up the niche, and another rattles around inside it, and another is so surrounded by fog that for the longest time you don't know if she fits or not; but each of them hits you with tremendous impact. And then one comes along and slips in so quietly that you don't know when it happened, and fits so well you almost can't feel anything at all. And that is it."

"I LOVE HORROR!"

You think you’re a Zombie, you think it’s a ‘scene’
From some Monster Magazine
Opened your eyes too late
This ain’t no fantasy, boy …

From the MISFITS’ song “NIGHT OF THE IVING DEAD”, lyrics by Glen Danzig

I LOVE HORROR.

Wait, no –

I
LOVE
HORROR!

Before I just climb on the roof and start shouting it like I want to, let me try to explain myself a little better. I love Horror. And not in the way that people love westerns - and not in the way that people love comedies or film noirs, either. Horror – perhaps beyond any literary or cinematic “genre” - has a lifestyle attached to it. Although there’s a wildly varied fanbase for Horror, there’s still a more cohesive structure to its serious fans than that of any other genre.

Ok, wait, let me back this up - WAY up … OK, I’m in high school, like 10th grade. I worship the vinyl and counter culture gods weekly by visiting one of the finest shops America has ever seen, TRASH AMERICAN STYLE in Danbury, CT, just 30 minutes from where I lived at the time. Malcolm Tent, one of the store’s proprietors, was often the man behind the counter and is also somewhat of a legend. For me, he was an obvious moral role model, and perhaps even more importantly, he was extremely kind at the same time as being head-over-heels excited about things he loved. Malcolm is one of those folks that’s far beyond most humans when it comes to taste, he doesn’t even remotely care that most people want their entertainment pre-packaged with what their reaction should be written on the front. It’s not an easy way to be, and in retrospect, I thank him for his patience talking to yours-truly, one hell of a basket case in those teen years.

So, as is usual for most teenagers, I had a streak of gross intellectualism born out of fear. I was genuinely unsure of how to feel about certain things because I was sure I couldn’t understand them. I often pre-supposed what bands I had only heard of would actually sound like, which at times was unfair to my first impression. But worst of all, it was as if I thought there was a physical line to be crossed with enjoying music and film, as if when one crossed this line through exposure to the “correct” records and movies he or she would technically be an “expert”, or at least an “adult fan” or something. Of course, that’s not reality – that’s not how things work - it’s just easier for the human mind to concoct this kind of absurdity in order to avoid embracing the universe’s distinct penchant for chaos.

At this time, my friends and I had started really making fun of Danzig a lot. I mean, A LOT. We loved the Misfits, Samhain, and Danzig (probably in that order) just like any decent American, but we still wanted to lampoon it/him too. Among other things, we would read the lyric sheets and just howl at what our young minds thought were totally ridiculous words and ideas. WELL, one day, while I was shopping at TRASH by myself, and in conversation with Malcolm ended up uttering a disparaging remark about Mr. Danzig. Malcolm turned to me quietly and inquired what I meant by it, and not in a disagreeable way either. I built up my cynicism quickly and said something like:

“Well, yeah, but you know Danzig’s a crazy egomaniac!”

Malcolm, who was likely upset by my onset of teenaged negativity, retained full composure, looked me in the eye, then spoke a sentence - calmly and plainly – that still echoes in my head to this day:

“Well, I think he’s really one of the great songwriters of our time.”

WOW. That shut me right up. What an amazing notion! What an honest and naked thing to say … I knew I had been totally schooled, and it felt good. But it was kinda tough too – I mean, the artists that I really, in-my-heart thought were geniuses weren’t often the “popular” choice (Napoleon the XIV or Andy Milligan would be good examples), and therefore all of those unpopular faves would have to suffer a rebranding-with-humor; to “justify” their enjoyment … you know, like GUILTY PLEASURES (EEECHHH!).

The point is not that you HAVE TO like Danzig – but, that if you do, it’s OK to just LIKE IT. You can find true beauty in ANYTHING, something doesn’t have to be in a museum in order for you to be moved by it. Hell, it could be the way your trashcan looks when it’s full, it could be a cartoon you watched as a kid, ANYTHING. The only rule is that there are no rules, AT ALL. So, of course it’s easy to laugh at Danzig. Because he wasn’t holding back, he was wearing his heart on his sleeve. There are words and stories of extreme natures in his lyrics, and I definitely think they’re successful the way they are. Some are perfect. How great would the Misfits really be without the absolutely kitschy Horror obsession? Not nearly as great. It often takes doing something potentially embarrassing or unpopular to have a lasting impact. It takes a fearless person to laugh in the face of what’s “normal” or accepted and create truly original, dark art that’s readily disposable as junk to most people. For the world of Horror, Danzig should be considered a Saint.

So, now that we’ve cleared up the nakedity of mind that it requires to be a fully operational member of my twisted tribe, let’s get to the meat of this blather - I find myself in parallel with Danzig, because:

I
LOVE
HORROR!

I really do! I need it. I depend on it, and if it weren’t for Saints like Poe, Romero, Coye, and of course Danzig, I can pretty safely say that I probably would have committed an act of actual horror on the world. Instead of just having a lot of fun with all that darkness, I likely would have let it consume me.

Horror is my escape, my relief; it’s my fucking religion. I pray to Dracula, Frankenstein and ghouls, I giggle with grave-robbers and I’m married to the Macabre. It’s not a joke for me. I’m brought to tears by Tod Browning’s DRACULA, I weep at the beauty of KING KONG and Lovecraft’s written word can literally exhilarate me to the point of physical tingling. With Horror, I’ve managed to find a place where I actually FIT. A place where I not only belong, but a place where I’m welcome. Wanted. Cared for. In the deeper pits of my thought I hypothosize that that’s what Lon Chaney was doing. He was caring for generations beyond his own life. Chaney was painfully conscious of that dark sliver of humanity, the needy, the meek – the “ugly”. Chaney gave of himself – the cost of which was often massive amounts of pain and discomfort – and he did it for them, for US. For the hurt, for the desperate, for the lonely ones - he did it for ALL of us watching who in herself or himself saw the Phantom, the Hunchback, Alonzo the Armless, and 997 other beautiful faces. And, as grand a statement as it may be, this is an aspect I try to bring to things I create, either through performing music or writing.

I just can’t help it – I just see SO CLEARLY the need to travel to dark places, to unknown worlds of nite that remove me from the sickening and mundane nature of modern existence. The obligations and compromises of “reality” leave me DESPERATE, SALIVATING for removal from my surroundings … I’m not ashamed to say it either. The world has a lot of remarkable beauty to it, but it’s simply not enough for me. I need more, I can’t be grounded to this world at all times and not lose my mind. I need to go further out, to Fantasy and to Horror.

One of my favorite quotations is from musician Patti Smith:

“After MAD, drugs were nothing.”

In order to save space, I won’t blab about the sheer brilliance of that summation for too long, let me just say it’s probably one of the most acute observations ever realized by a human and we’ll move on. The point is this: it wouldn’t even make sense to argue that drugs (as well as any other thing that isn’t art) hold a fraction of the power that art does when it comes to expanding one’s mind. Music, poetry, paintings, films, literature - they’re all psychoactive substances of potentially endless impact. They can be so powerful on the mind that the sensation of departure from reality will always be unmatched.

The forced distances of imaginative possibility that one receives from works like Lovecraft’s “The Color Out Of Space”, Clark Ashton Smith’s “Abominations of Yondo”, and Arthur Machen’s “The White People” will never be comparable to anything besides other works of art. Works like these, the paintings of Goya, the truly great Horror films, EC Comics, and an infinite list of other significant works, have the power to take you away – in a way that only the darker elements, only Horror, can. I’ll leave you with a particularly touching poem, featured in Weird Tales in the 40’s. It was written by the then 17 year old Robert Nelson, who very sadly took his own life not long after writing this. It’s a poem that in three short verses touches the very heart of Horror, and longingly embraces it in the dark.

See you under the Tomb,

-Mike Hunchback


UNDER THE TOMB
Robert Nelson

Dread beings grope and sport in gory lakes,
A foul mist creeps and feeds on swollen slugs:
From beds of perfumed plants squirm fetid snakes,
And like a flower grown from sable drugs,
A moon of steel drips blood upon a sky
Darkened by what mad phantoms prophesy.

By this hath ceased and passed, and now in that
Mephitic, crumbling woodland 'neath the tomb
The dead sup with the dead o'er flowing vat,
And searing candles cleanse the rotting gloom;
And they who stood in sorrow's joy and pain,
Tread now through hell's ecstatical refrain.

Far still beneath, where bloated babes are kept
In glacial rooms, and skulls are lit as lamps
To guide through life beyond, and where are swept
Green veils of oozing slime and deadly damps,
There is an everlasting resonance
Pealed by the tomb in glad deliverance.

DRINKING AT THE MOVIES, by JULIA WERTZ ... BOOK REVIEW!

Easily the best new feature-length comic that's come out this year, “Drinking at the Movies” heralds something shocking for the modern world of comics – the return of that fully-distilled emotional nudity that made the latter-undergrounds and 90's alternatives so legendary. It was an element of many popular comics that was easy to make fun of, and by the late 90's it seemed like everyone had copied the structure of self-introspective books like “HATE”, certain amazing pieces in “Eightball” and “Peep Show”. However, without the manic neurosis of these books, the end result was simply a xeroxed sea of sad, tepid “woe is me” junk. In retrospect, it's as if the style died out for a newer wave, one of falsely-intellectual absurdity. People seemed afraid to bear their true feelings in the major output of comics this past decade, instead creating either acid-influenced nonsense so abstract it could avoid any serious scrutiny, or even worse comics that were basically supposed to be humorous simply because they weren't funny at all.

As with current mainstream film, television, and literature, indie comics seemed 95% terrified of being GENUINE. Having an unaltered, perhaps ugly slice of reality became unpopular – and it's a goddamn shame, too. Art's potential is often related to just how genuine it is. Peter Bagge's tale of Buddy Bradley (from Neat Stuff through to the recent HATE Annuals) is as classic and as wonderful a story as any piece of literature that America has yet produced, and Justin Green's “Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary” (1970) is every bit as affecting as Salinger's “Catcher In the Rye”. It's the genuine aspect of these works that makes them excel; at their core they are ONLY truth mixed with twisted, vibrant story-telling. Even the most fantastic elements become believable because they're not presented like just facts on a piece of paper; the reader is made to believe they are some insane character's version of the absolute truth.



So, the comics-world probably wasn't ready for Julia Wertz – her truthful, self-deprecating adventures seem to begin with the fact that she feels far removed from anything resembling a “respected” 20-something cartoonist. One gets the sense she begins her projects by staring at a blank page, pen in hand, thinking for a few moments; then says aloud “fuck it” and draws what that voice in the back of her head is begging her to keep secret. The funny and endearing nature of Wertz's comics bring back floods of memories from works by artists like Joe Matt, Mary Fleener, Lynda Barry, and of course Diane Noomin (why isn't she the most famous cartoonist in the world, by the way?) as well as the previously mentioned Bagge and Green.

Like the most talented filmmakers and authors, the best comic artists realize their medium and exploit it appropriately. It's one of the stronger elements of Wertz's work here – the story, while technically being a 200 page narrative about moving to NYC, mal-adjusting into alcoholism and self-loathing, and then eventually overcoming some really huge, crippling fears (and not in some unbelievable, TV-movie style either); is peppered throughout with various different breaks in style, time, and most welcome of all, the narrative itself. Wertz will derail her tale without notice, and all of a sudden Sherlock and Watson are there, following around her escaped brain trying to figure out why cartoon Julia makes such poor choices. Time-travel/flashbacks, MAD-esque “pros and cons”, total fantasy; it's ALL possible here. This story, which is told as best as it could possibly be told, could only be told in comics form. In “Drinking at the Movies” there's even mention of “Fart Party” (Wertz's first two books are under this title) being turned into a TV show or movie. While the humor and basics of the story are applicable to other mediums, it would be impossible to duplicate the essence of “Drinking at the Movies” because it's so perfectly rooted in its awesome comic-ness. Visually, Wertz has established her own style that (wonderfully) seems to stem from 90's and 2000's alternative comics and TV cartoons. It houses the humor (and softens the pathos) in a way that makes all its elements seem inseparable, like Beavis and Butthead, South Park, or the Simpsons.

“Drinking At the Movies” is refreshing, it comes off almost as a semi-unconscious throwback to what many would call a hey-day of creativity in comics. But it's also vibrantly new. The nasty social-networking/ego-porn that saturates so many young people nowadays is neither absent nor preached about, it's present and not ignored, but never the focus. The time and place is very accurate (Brooklyn late 2000's), and the portrayals of the types within its population are all on point. For those who live in the areas she writes about and draws it's almost eerie. These comics will be a valuable time capsule of human ridiculousness in years to come. 50 years from now, formerly-very-cool grandparents will slam down a copy of "Drinking at the Movies" in front of their grandchildren and be able to say "I'M NOT LYING, SEE? BROOKLYN WAS ACTUALLY LIKE THIS!"

UNAVAILABLE AND AGITATED

I have been gone for so, so long. I'm sorry.

But I will be back. I'm at a new job, and I'm without time or a scanner.

But I'm getting one ... soon!

-Mike

The DEATH of WONDER?

"INTRINSIC" - what a great word. It means "Of the essential nature of a thing". I obsess over the intrinsic value of many things - the surface, while tangible, is potentially misleading. What are the elements of a thing that REALLY make that thing THAT THING? Paul McCartney has a great quote - once, after being asked incessantly about the Beatles during an interview he said this: "The Beatles were a very good band". WOW. Now, on the surface it may appear humorously simple. But think about it - what does it MEAN to be a good band? Well, there's an endless list of little things that count for a lot- and they can even change 100% depending on the artist you're talking about. The answer of course lies in the intrinsic nature of being a good band, and even more gloriously in that there is no exact definition for the term! I won't pose here, I'm giving it to you straight - the answer is mystical. It's cosmic, and it's beyond moment-long human understanding.

I encounter anti-creative people all the time. Most of them have gone to college, and perhaps the MOST anti-creative of which went to art school. I got into a discussion with a young woman recently that nearly bowled me over. Referring to Nine Inch Nails and Nirvana I stated that: [the 90's] was perhaps the last time we (America) would have "real" music played on the (top 40) radio, and that that was a very sad thing. I claimed that Nirvana was important, because it proved that audiences ultimately want the work of individuals, of artists, and not music produced by committee (as nearly all music on mainstream radio is now). I claimed that the music industry thrives on controlling the artists it creates (or appropriates) because people that make music from their own hearts/minds/gut have proven to be thoroughly non-understanding when it comes to what their label thinks would be a "good direction" - OBVIOUSLY. I said major record labels do not, in any way, attempt to find the most creative artists they can; to which she replied "yes they do - they love that!". She went on to explain that record labels would love for another Nirvana to come along so they could be snatched up and make them lots of money. I barely knew what to say!

I see it like this - Nirvana marked the failure of controlled, marketable music. The music on the radio by the late 80's was SO homogenized and interchangeable (and again, by committee) that once Nirvana was made available to people, they freaked out. Like if you had someone trapped in your basement and only fed them your boogers for 5 years then offered them a HUGE Banana Split. As real as this factor was, major (and minor nowadays) record labels are simply NOT interested in finding people who are working hard at being creative on their own terms. Major record labels believe that THEY KNOW what people want and have made a business of shoving it in people's faces AND THEN covering enormous losses by gouging the unknowing consumer. Through red tape and bullshit, they've found a way to keep a failing system afloat.

After I attempted to convey these logistics, she replied, "well, they were just guys with guitars". Now, I'm quite aware of the literal fact that Nirvana were in fact a band made up from three (or four) men just like any other band that came down the pipe - BUT can one seriously say there wasn't something special about Nirvana? Or the Beatles? As much as these are indeed two groups that I love very much, I think I can safely say that there was absolute genius in what these artists did, just like ANY remembered artist from history. I don't look at Da Vinci's paintings all the time, but when I see the Mona Lisa I don't say "Eh, he was just a guy with a paintbrush".

Was Houdini just "a guy who could get out of a lot of stuff"? Was Thomas Edison just "a guy who thought of some stuff"? God-fucking-damnit NO, NO they WERE NOT - they were geniuses! Artists with visions SO big that a whole lifetime wasn't enough! Do people really have NO understanding of Wonder anymore? Wonder is the KEY to being truly open-minded. Wonder is the miracle that mindless, frightened losers attempt to squash when they see it in us, the lonely few prone to actually using our imaginations. I know I said it before, but I really mean it - as I get older I want to distance myself as far as possible from the type that claim intellectual superiority simply because they look DOWN on EVERYTHING. Were there people during Tchaikovsky's time that said "You know Swan Lake isn't THAT cool ..." I'm sure there were. And if ANY of the creative output of these naysayers is available to read today, I'll bet it looks ... kinda stupid. Or perhaps like they were trying too hard. Or maybe like they were simply a fucking idiot that didn't know a damn thing. I'm more and more concerned with how my actions will look given the perspective of future history, and less and less so with the peer pressure of the present.

Can EVERYTHING be boiled down to the cold-hard facts and stuck under a microscope just so some fearful little speck with some paperwork on his wall can say "Eh - not that great". FUCK YOU! It would be less blatantly obvious if some of these cynical folks were creating important, real art - but they're not. Smug equals scared. Here again we have the destructive nature of the pseudo-intellectual mind seeping into different aspects of human creativity, now that it's been going on for YEARS there are poor souls who know nothing else; and go to "school" to back up their belief - in NOTHING.

MADNESS! Roger Corman Intrudes on ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES

You’ve really got to hand it to Anthology Film Archives on this one – they’re the only ones who are crazy enough and cool enough to host this mammoth thirteen-film Roger Corman retrospective, easily one of the best NYC film programs all year. One of my favorite NY theatres, Anthology is an actual film archive as well as regularly operating theatre. Their film selection leans mostly toward the experimental and avant-garde (it was founded by some of the field’s heavies) but they’re also relentless when it comes to those who produce independent films outside of the art community, even when they may be as bent as the likes of outsider mavericks like Jim Van Bebber (DEADBEAT AT DAWN, THE MANSON FAMILY) or in this case, “indie”-before-there-was-such-a-thing impresario Roger Corman.

Ultra-sexy Barbara Steele in the excellent PIT AND THE PENDULUM.

Of all 60’s and 70’s exploitation filmmakers, Corman is probably the most famous. In a way he almost serves as a figurehead for “cheap movie directors”, a title he deserves for a myriad of valid reasons. In addition to this title, perhaps because of his cable and video offerings in the 80’s and 90’s (I’m having BLOODFIST flashbacks, WHOA … !), he is also well-known for making “bad” movies. Although some films to Corman’s directorial credit may be considerable as drek, nothing can take away the power and genuine craftsmanship of his best work. The recent Anthology program entitled “Roger Corman: Poe and Beyond!” represents some of this work, including almost all of the “Corman/Poe Cycle” (absent is the superb HAUNTED PALACE (1963), actually based on Lovecraft’s writing; I say it still would have been nice to see in this line-up) as well as a smattering of other Corman classics, mostly from AIP’s hey-day in the 60’s.

Although Corman worked on small budgets and had massive time constraints (AIP produced an average of nearly six films per year) he wasn’t a film director who looked down on the medium like many other Exploitation film directors did. In fact, with his distribution company New World, Corman imported many European films ranging from simply saleable to crucially classic (Bergman’s CRIES AND WHISPERS and Herzog’s FITZCARRALDO falling into the latter category). He was a fanatical film fan, consistently enamored by cinema and not afraid to utilize this affection when directing. A fine example would be the Bergman-esque touches on MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964). Widely considered the best of the Cycle, it showcases several of AIP’s strongest links: the clash of the gothic and the psychedelic, captured brilliantly here in the cinematography of future director Nicholas Roeg; Vincent Price’s studied cruelty in the role of Prince Prospero – a truly ideal part for Price, who’s class blends with murderous nastiness that would’ve no doubt delighted Poe himself; and a solid script that spans more Poe than just MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (the lesser-known Hop-Frog tale is prominent). Charles Beaumont (one of the three writers of the Twilight Zone and also this program’s PREMATURE BURIAL, 1962) and R. Wright Campbell (who wrote the superb Lon Chaney biopic MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES, 1957) collaborated on the script. Another writer, the legend Richard Matheson, penned the Cycle’s HOUSE OF USHER (1960), THE RAVEN (1963), TALES OF TERROR (1962), and PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961) and the Robert Towne scripted TOMB OF LIGEA (1964) completes the Cycle entries in Anthology’s program, and the consistency of all these films is fascinating. Floyd Crosby was the cinematographer of most of these films and the look is always wonderful and a little insane. The creativity of his camerawork blends the stark almost documentary feel of someone at the forefront of his artistic awareness with some rather madcap camera wielding and positioning.

X: THE MAN WITH X-RAY EYES (1963) is a cool, bizarre flexing of Crosby’s massive talent, from peering thru flesh and organs to undressing an entire dance party, from hospitals to the seedy carnival circuit to the bright-hot desert chase at the film’s conclusion, Crosby displays lush perspective and color for all sorts of settings and tones. The beyond-impressive low budget effects really kick in when THE MAN (with X-Ray Eyes)’s vision starts to intensify further and he can see through things SO much that his vision is reduced to insanity-inducing splotches of colors, bone, and blinding light.

A BUCKET OF BLOOD (1959) is an invigorating achievement. It’s a small budget horror story fueled by excellent acting, madcap characters, and a brilliant script (by AIP staffer Charles B. Griffith). With A BUCKET OF BLOOD, something has been made out of nothing, an achievement Roger Corman accomplished many times over. The low budget film is cinema’s answer to the one act play, and like the one-act play there’s no reason that a low budget film can’t pack in just as much drama, excitement, emotion and intensity as its heavily funded contemporary.

A BUCKET OF BLOOD is the story of Walter Paisley (Dick Miller’s best performance), an almost-retarded coffee shop bus boy who spends his time daydreaming and trying to fit in amongst the fancy artiste-types he serves coffee to. The setting is a mad and cinematic stereotype of a 1950’s beatnik dive, an even cartoonish backdrop. Poets and jazzbos, painters and bikers - everyone in Walter’s world looks down on him. Even those who like him treat him as an inferior – including the girl he loves. It doesn’t stop him from smiling though, or believing that he too could be an artist. One night in a fit of frustration, Walter accidentally kills his landlady’s cat. He takes some molding clay and does the only think he can think to do – hide the cat as a work of art, which of course rockets him to art-stardom.

As Walter soaks in this undue fame he begins to distance himself with the ideals he had as a failure, and then things go wonderfully, bloodily wrong. It’s absolutely one of Corman’s finest moments. LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS is A BUCKET OF BLOOD’s contemporary in many ways, and it’s also the only other film in this series that showcases what Corman was doing in the 1950’s. Even in it’s silliness and impoverished appearance the creativity does shine through in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (the remake is great evidence) and almost shockingly it remains a unique, budget-less wonder.

All of Corman’s films for AIP were genre pictures except for one. Called the lone “serious” picture in the Corman/AIP canon, it performed poorly at the box-office and both were scared enough of not turning a profit again to ensure only genre outings from then out. And it’s a crime! This lone exception is THE INTRUDER (1962), a harrowing tale of a spineless racist instigator named Adam Cramer (played by William Shatner).

He arrives by bus to a small southern town soon after desegregation laws have passed that will integrate blacks and whites in American public schools. Using this as an opportunity to stir up the townspeople enough to create a Ku Klux Klan following, Cramer travels the south doing this “duty” for modern American white supremacy, getting the Klan going wherever he can. As ugly as it sounds, THE INTRUDER is perhaps the most attractive film of the whole set. It’s a brazen low-budget take on serious social concerns, and Corman, armed with a razor sharp script by Twilight Zone alum/AIP staff screenwriter Charles Beaumont (based on a his paperback), delivers a powerful piece of raw filmmaking that seems to inspire raving praise from all who cross it’s stark, black and white path (seriously, check out the User Comments on IMDB). THE INTRUDER spits in the face of average filmgoer expectation on all fronts – not only did Corman execute a perfect and lyrical parable proving the gross injustices of prejudice and fear, but William Shatner, whom laymen seem to consider a ham, shines so darkly as the sick-minded racist instigator that many a pea-brained Shatner-detractor are transformed after experiencing perhaps the finest role of his career. THE INTRUDER has chunks of painful realness that make it stand out from so many similarly themed but less effective films - in the beginning of the film the town’s newspaper editor is quite distasteful towards the idea of his daughter going to school with blacks, but wants to go along with the school integration because, as he says, “it’s the law”. It’s Shatner’s Cramer that incites the violence that convinces the same man that racism itself is an act of violence that only begets more violence. Charles Beaumont makes an appearance as the school principal, and many Corman AIP regulars flesh out the townsfolk.

It was a rare batch of films, and it was an absolute treat to see them given appropriate status at Anthology Film Archives. Roger Corman gets a lot of credit for a lot of different things – he gets credit for being absurdly prolific and for setting some trends in the world of pop culture filmmaking. He gets credit for being a hack and stealing ideas from both art house and mainstream films, and he wrongly gets credit for simply being talentless. It’s quite welcome and all-to-rare to hear his name in association with the thing he really was passionate about – making good movies. It’s something he did quite a few times, and finally, thanks to Anthology, Roger Corman got some of the credit he deserves.