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Obscure Electronic 04
>Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1993 14:47:04 -0500 (CDT)
From: James P Romenesko <obscure@csd4.csd.uwm.edu>
Subject: OBSCURE ELECTRIC #4
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W E L C O M E T O O B S C U R E E L E C T R I C # 4
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Edited by JIM ROMENESKO
[He can be reached at Obscure@csd4.csd.uwm.edu]
OBSCURE is the zine that profiles the people in this publishing
subculture. The more in-depth print version is available for $2 at POB 1334,
Milwaukee, WI 53201. Why not check it out?
................................................................
T H E M A N B E H I N D E V I L Z I N E
Really, he's a nice guy!
------------------------
Dan Kelly doesn't look like the kind of guy who'd
publish a zine called EVIL.
His picture, reproduced in a recent issue of his publication, shows
him to be a clean-cut guy, not unlike the young man who served you up a
Big Mac at your neighborhood McDonald's.
"Yeah, I AM a clean-cut guy and yeah, it throws people when they
'discover' my seedier interests," says the twenty-something Kelly, a
Chicago resident. "But like my cartoon [in the zine] said, I don't exactly
bring it up while dining with the Queen."
What he's keeping from the queen is his harmless (and I'm making an
assumption here) fascination with serial killers and the like whom he
enjoys reading and writing about in EVIL and his other zine, VOX CANIS.
Kelly is no "Frank" -- the psychopathic publisher who was profiled in
the last issue of OBSCURE ELECTRIC. Says Kelly: "Essentially, my friends
know me well enough to know that this one thing that I do isn't all that I
do, and that's good enough for me. Anyone who gets freaked out about EVIL
-- well I'm more worried about them hurting me than vice-versa."
EVIL, subtitled "The Newsletter for True Crime Book Fanatics," is but
four issues old. It covers everything from trading cards to books to
current events crime items. To his credit, crime-fan Dan isn't afraid to
dish out criticism when it's deserved; he's not just a true-crime
cheerleader. Of the "52 Famous Murderers" card set, he writes:
"Misspellings, faulty grammar and downright erroneous
facts abound. It's shameful!"
A practical man, Kelly also uses the zine to solicit his various
"wants" -- which include bad made-for-TV movies on serial killers, books
on British murderers, Ted Bundy's last interview, and other items that you
might just have. (Dan began licking his chops when he heard that I have a
rare, John Wayne Gacy trash-read called 29 BELOW on my shelves. This awful
baby is mine! Hands-off, Dan!)
At one time, people with almost obsessive interests in killers and
serious crimes would be considered twisted. Today, it's practically the
norm and you're considered a freak if you missed Dahmer on "Inside
Edition." Even Time-Life has jumped on the psycho-literature bandwagon
with its upcoming series on serial killers. This amuses the editor of EVIL.
"I'm alternately appalled and reduced to tears of laughter," he says
of the books. "I haven't seen it yet, but knowing Time-Life's other
series, I'm sure it'll be high gloss/low content. I love how they can
reduce human tragedy, history and science to a compact, 20-volume set. I
have to scoff at anything from a company that alternately publishes home
"how-to" books, True Crime series and sets that chronicle the Third Reich."
When you think of cleancut Chicago zinesters, you usually drop the
name of the notorious Peter Sotos, who was convicted of child pornography
a few years ago; the feds claimed that his zine, PURE, was porno, but I
think Sotos got a bum rap. (What got the authorities upset was Sotos
publishing pictures of missing children next to a Xerox of an ejaculating
penis.) Has Dan Kelly heard of Sotos and what does he think of comparisons
between him and the PURE editor?
"Everybody who is 'alternative' in Chicago has heard of PURE, but less
than one-tenth of 1% have actually seen a copy," he says. "I first heard
of it in an article by Steve Albini in FORCED EXPOSURE. He was talking
about how he was 'punker than thou' because he digged PURE before anybody;
how it featured shots of a violated young girl who, as I recall the quote,
'was beyond caring. She has been destroyed.' Truthfully, it turned my
stomach to read about it, but that's as close as I ever got to seeing PURE."
In fact, Kelly's interests go beyond things criminal, which is shown
in his zine VOX CANIS. Each issue has a different theme and Kelly does
extensive research for every article. His topics always have a somewhat
quirky, offbeat edge. His "Fun and Games" issue, for example, has an
article on Kelly's venture into Chicago's sex-shop underworld. He and a
friend cruised the red-light districts with pencil and notepad in hands
and presented a minute-by-minute diary. In his 11:55 p.m. entry, Kelly
writes: "The booth smells like a wet armpit, and I stand stock still in
the center of it, trying not to touch anything. Yeah, I'm a white suburban
boy...I know what I am. But I defy anybody to even want to put his hands
anywhere near his face, mouth or eyes after touching the knob of one of
those doors, before scrubbing down with Bactine first."
In his "America" theme issue, Kelly takes a close look at the dark
side of McDonald's restaurants. The chain's founder, Ray Kroc, was a
sexist pig of sorts, according to this well-researched article.
"Until the late 1960s, McDonald's expressly forbade the hiring of
female workers," Kelly writes. "The perky little miss we see behind the
counter on McDonald's commercials today might well have given the early
Kroc a coronary. Though the McDonald's employee manual, in the first ten
years of the chain's existance, spelled out that women couldn't be hired
because of the amount of strenous work the job required, the real reason
was that Kroc didn't want McD's to become a hang-out joint for rowdy
teenagers."
Kelly's zines are well-designed and well-written and I have to hand
him "the most prolific letter-writer award" for his incredibly prompt
postal responses. If your interests match Dan's, you'll have a penpal for
life. To get EVIL, drop him a buck at POB 476641, Chicago, IL 60647. VOX
CANIS is $2.
------
EVIL Editor Dan Kelly Explains Himself in a Comic Strip
.......................................................
How does one grow up to become the publisher of a zine called EVIL?
Good question, and Dan Kelly answers it in an autobiographical comic strip
that he recently published. Here are some of Kelly's quotes, which explain
himself quite well"
"My life is a series of guilty pleasures,
the first and foremost being my collecting of
sleazebooks about serial killers and mass murderers.
When I was about nine or ten years old, I developed
a Jack the Ripper fixation. Over the course of
summer vacation, I devoured everything I could
find about the Whitechapel killings, and, for a
time, Jack the Ripper was as much an imaginary friend
to me as Superman was to other kids. I guess this
kinda explains my current obsession with violent crime."
"As you may have guessed by now, I didn't have a
normal childhood. I think I might have otherwise
grown up normal if I had made a few different decisions,
but in a lot of ways I'm glad I didn't go the same,
boring route. Still my 'normal' compatriots teased me
unmercifully, since I wasn't only strange, I was quiet,
too. My terrible shyness manifested itself as a complete
aversion to all things female. No surprise that the
uncomprehending (and sexually burgeoning) dears began
to assimilate my quietness with my, well, unconventional
reading material."
"Despite social ostracization and designation as being
a creep, there has always been the occasional measure of
'revenge' made available to me. Recently, a college friend
of mine received two life sentences for the murders of
his ex-girlfriend's parents (bludgeoning and stabbing
them to death). If you're picturing him as a long-haired,
crazy-eyed freak, yer wrong. He was the high school football
hero and his girlfriend was the Homecoming queen. Completely
normal in all ways. It does the class weirdo good to
get such a healthy dose of irony."
"To tell the truth, murder is a foreign concept
to me. I can't comprehend it completely because it hasn't
actually happened to me (or to anyone close to me). I'm
sure if it did, I'd change my tune (so spare me the high 'n
mighty speeches). I haven't killed anything in my life and
I don't intend to start now."
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HOT OFF THE PRESS!!
Dan Kelly's fourth issue of EVIL just came out and the highlight of the
issue is a series of sketches done by convicted killers, including Henry Lee
Lucas, Charles Manson and Ottis Elwood Toole. This collection comes from
DEATH SCENES videomaker Nick Bougas, who writes of his "hobby." He says:
"Yours truly began accumulating just such treasures before it became
fashionable, and thus can now provide some reliable insight into this
unique and fascinating hobby. ...It's important to understand that the
collecting of killer art can be costly in more ways than one. When your
hobby becomes common knowledge, there are scores of sanctimonious types
who will feverishly accuse you of being 'morally bankrupt' and 'unfeeling
toward the victims' families'..."
In this issue of EVIL, Bougas also offers his analysis of the various
murderers' artistic talents. A few opinions:
* On John Wayne Gacy's paintings: "Gacy's work is somewhat crude but
colorful, and includes self-portraits of his clown creations, 'Pogo' and
'Patches,' a host of Disney characters and even some mildly ghoulish
images like skulls and witches."
* On Manson associate Bobby Beausoleil's work: "He produces
breathtakingly rich, pastoral fantasy scenes of winged lovers and
frolicking mermaids which are comparable to some of the finest graphics
I've seen."
* On Henry Lee Lucas's talents: "Henry's art, like Henry himself, is
somewhat folksy and simple, but is pleasant nonetheless."
Interested in more? Ask Dan for issue #4 of EVIL (and send your buck).
..............................................................................
AND IN OTHER ZINE-WORLD NEWS......
Give it up, Andrew! You've lost!
................................
In the Hudson Luce/Seth Friedman FACSHEET FIVE transition, a comics
publisher named Andrew Roller began a zine called, of all things,
FACTSHEET FIVE. It contained but a handful of reviews -- ten at most.
Roller's effort seemed like a joke, a one-shot deal probably. Wrong!
Recently, Roller's fourth issue of F5 came out, and it's as lame as
his debut ish; in fact there are but six reviews in it. He continues to
publish under this name just to tweak Friedman, the real F5 publisher.
Roller's F5 cover features a copy of a letter he received from
Friedman; it reads: "Andrew, I have no intention of taking legal action
against you, however, as long as you continue publishing under the name
FACTSHEET FIVE, I refuse to review anything that you send me."
In response, Roller and his sidekick, Jim Corrigan, scrawled this on
the cover of their zine: "Seth - if you're serious about taking on the
FACTSHEET FIVE name, then how about the debts? Hudson Luce owes (owed)
Andrew Roller, among others, over $40 for advertisements paid for but
never published. If you can afford to pay a lawyer, how about paying your
debts? You can start with Roller."
Hey guys: why don't you take it up with Luce? He's the guy who stiffed
you and Friedman merely stepped in to rescue the publication.
I didn't think anybody would confuse Roller's pathetic rag with the
authentic F5 -- until I read the April issue of FLIPSIDE. The zines
reviewer wrote a blurb on Roller's F5 and noted that this was "the
legendary" zines directory. Huh???
*******
The next issue of the print version of OBSCURE comes out soon and
features a profile of the people behind the huge LOOMPANICS CATALOG. Also,
it has a chat with Loompanics' hottest author these days -- Michael Hoffman, the
author of DUMPSTER DIVING FOR FUN AND PROFIT. Order this issue now. Just
$2 from Jim Romenesko, POB 1334, Milwaukee, WI 53201.
.............................................................................
To comment, unsubscribe or whatever, write me at Obscure@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
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