I really like fanzines. I made my first one when I was nine or ten. I don’t even know how I got that idea in the first place, it’s not like the Greek small town I lived in had a zine scene. Probably a project some other, more well-funded school did. I got my buddy at the time to help out and we filled almost 30 pages with inane drivel. Knowing nothing about copyright and IP law, I used some Christmas cards as illustrations. I got my uncle to photocopy it for free at his job and after selling copies to all my relatives, we straight up went door to door (or store to store) selling this. I guess I figured stores and doctors’ offices needed magazines and they’d love a copy of THE CHILDREN OF 2000. In retrospect, the title sounds like a bad 50s sci-fi movie, but at the time the year 2000 was far far away.
Anyway, this is a really roundabout way of saying, I love magazines and more than anything, I love making them. I tried my hand on a one-off magazine for a comics convention and it did reasonably well (sold out, actually), so it was time to go bigger.
That’s AGHAST – A Journal of the Darkly Fantastic. An illustrated journal of dark fantasy and horror. Each story will be accompanied by an illustration done by me. I believe in presenting fiction in the best way possible; wide margins, art, good layout. The first issue will contain short stories by Jonathan Maberry, Megan Arkenberg, Tim Waggoner, Jeff Strand and Gemma Files.
It’s my own work, but I think the art I made for it so far looks pretty good and will only get better. I really hope someone snags that AGHAST! Backer reward, where you get to be illustrated on the cover of issue #2. It should be fun to do.
And don’t forget, we’re still open to submissions and AGHAST is a paying market (1c/word).
I’d appreciate your support and help in getting the message out there.
Let’s make some zines!
