After publishing two bi-monthly issues in 2001, Sovereign Media officially terminated Dan Perez’s editorship of Sci Fi at the end of May, following the breakdown of negotiations between the publisher and the Sci Fi Channel regarding the transfer of ownership and the future management of the magazine.
Despite the tragic death of founder Frederick S. Clarke, Cinefantastique still produced six issues under publisher Celeste C. Clarke and editor Dan Pearsons. These included a Far scape double issue and cover features on Hannibal, The Mummy Returns, Planet of the Apes, Ghosts of Mars and The Lord of the Rings.
Produced on a strict monthly schedule, Tim and Donna Lucas’s Video Watchdog featured the usual fascinating articles on James Bond, AIP’s Beach Party series, both versions of The Haunting of Hill House, Godzilla 2000, Frank Herbert’s Dune, Hitchcock on DVD, the restorations of The Lost World and Planet of the Vampires, superheroes and an interview with Mel Welles. With a list of contributors that included Kim Newman, Douglas E. Winter, Stephen R. Bissette and Tom Weaver, the quality of the reviews was exemplary. However, readers were once again left wondering whether Lucas’s long-promised book on Mario Bava would ever be published.
From Visual Imagination Limited, David Miller’s Shivers included cover features on Shadow of the Vampire, the cinema’s greatest bogeymen, the Buffy monster make-up, Resident Evil, Jeepers Creepers and a bumper edition on The Mummy Returns.
Cult Movies featured a fascinating piece about Bela Lugosi visiting England, while Dennis J. Druktenis’s enthusiastic Scary Monsters Magazine reached its fortieth issue and celebrated ten years of publication with the usual articles on TV horror hosts, regional conventions and old movies.
Alternative Cinema, the magazine of independent and underground film-making edited by Michael J. Raso, included interviews with Donald F. Glut, Julie Strain and Sam Sherman, plus an article about the making of Erotic Witch Project 2.
The revived Castle of Frankenstein magazine began reprinting Don Glut’s series of novels The New Adventures of Frankenstein in an appallingly illustrated magazine format from Druktenis Publishing. At least they also included a black and white reprint of Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein comic book from the 1950s.
For serious fans of model kits, the fortieth issue of Kitbuilders was a special Halloween edition featuring some impressive monster models.
After twenty-one years, Rosemary Pardoe’s acclaimed M. R. Jamesian publication Ghosts & Scholars rounded out the year and its print incarnation with issues 32 and 33 featuring fiction by David Longhorn, C. E. Ward, Anthony Wilkins, Don Tumasonis, James Doig, David G. Rowlands, Katherine Haynes and Michael Chislett, plus articles by Pardoe, Christopher and Barbara Roden, and Andy Sawyer.
With Pardoe’s fine fanzine transformed into a web-based, non-fiction magazine and the recent demise of Maynard and Sims’s Enigmatic Tales, David Longhorn launched Supernatural Tales to fill the gap in the British small-press market. The first two issues contained some fine new supernatural stories by Chico Kidd, Michael Chislett, David G. Rowlands, Tina Rath and Steve Duffy. However, the dull presentation and lack of artwork did not do the new title any favours.
As usual, Gordon Linzner’s Space and Time published two issues, featuring fiction and poetry by Mary Soon Lee, Darrell Schweitzer, Bruce Boston and others, plus interviews with Ursula K. Le Guin and James Morrow. Joe Morey and Bobbi Sinha-Morey’s Dark Regions: A Journal of Fantasy, Horror & Science Fiction also managed two issues that included stories and poems by Charlee Jacob, Bruce Boston, P. D. Cacek and James S. Dorr.
James Van Pelt, Denise Dumars and Bruce Boston were amongst those contributing fiction and poetry to Patrick and Honna Swenson’s Talebones, which also featured interviews with Dan Simmons and Charles de Lint and a review column by Edward Bryant.
The twelfth issue of Mark McLaughlin’s The Urbanite was a special ‘Zodiac’ issue featuring stories by Christopher Fowler, Shane Ryan Staley, John Pelan, Hugh B. Cave and others, plus an impressive poetry suite by Jo Fletcher.
Subtitled ‘a journal of parthenogenetic fiction and late labelling’, the first edition of Nemonymdus was an attractively designed collection of sixteen stories, whose author bylines would not be revealed until the second issue.
Graeme Hurry’s Kimota published its regular two issues, with stories by Peter Tennant, Joel Lane, Hugh Cook, Paul Finch and others, along with articles on old radio drama and artist Sidney H. Sime, the usual reviews and letters columns, and more outstanding artwork from ‘T23’.
Indigenous Fiction, edited by Sherry Decker, featured the usual mix of fiction, poetry and reviews, while Jack Fisher’sFlesh & Blood: Tales of Dark Fantasy & Horror included an interview with Tom Piccirilli.
Paul Bradshaw’s The Dream Zone reached its tenth number with two issues packed with fiction and poetry by Ian Watson, Mark McLaughlin, Allen Ashley, Peter Tennant, Rhys Hughes and many less familiar names, plus reviews and letters columns, and a useful article aimed at writers explaining how to avoid rejection.
Robert M. Price’s Crypt of Cthulhu No.104 featured fiction and poetry by Joséph S. Pulver, Sr., Darrell Schweitzer, Richard L. Tierney, Frank Searight and David E. Schultz, articles by Ross F. Bagby, Rawlik and T. G. Cockcroft, plus the usual ‘Mail-Call of Cthulhu’ and ‘R’lyeh Reviews’.
The Lovecraftian Dark Legacy from ‘H’chtelegoth Press included Cthulhu Mythos fan fiction and poetry from James Ambuehl, Phillip A. Ellis, Ron Shiflet and Peter Worthy, plus artwork by Sinestro. There was more of the same in Cthulhu Cultus, including work by James and Tracy Ambuehl, and Chris Loveless.
The fourth issue of Pentagram Publications’ Lovecraft’s Weird Mysteries featured four stories and a poem, plus an old interview with Weird Tales cover artist Margaret Brundage.
Brian Lingard’s Mythos Collector was a new magazine devoted to Lovecraft with fiction by Christopher O’Brian and James P. Roberts, an interview with artist John Coulthart, and articles on collecting Mythos-related material.
Paul Fry’s Peep Show was launched by Birmingham’s Short, Scary Tales Publishing with a colour cover by Mike Bohatch and fiction from Sheri White, Daniel Harr, Michael O’Connor, Alex Severin, Glen Hamilton, Kobe Nihilis and Jim Lee.
The latest double issue ofAurealis, Australia’s longest-running science fiction and fantasy magazine, was mailed to subscribers just before Christmas. It included fifteen stories by Dirk Strasser, Robert Hood, Robert Browne and others, plus a warts-and-all interview with outgoing editors Strasser and Stephen Higgins, an interview with author Ian Irvine, Bill Congreve’s book reviews, and new editor Keith Stevenson’s plans for the future of the title.
Also from Australia came the second issue of small-press magazine Orb, edited by Sarah Endacott, and former Allen & Unwin publicist Darran Jordan launched two issues of a new magazine called Eschaton from his Eclectica imprint.