Initial Waffle

Beyond the realms of superheroes and supervillains, comics contain many interesting corners. Providing more adult entertainment, sex often plays a role (although, it must be admitted, it also plays a role in some of the less mature “for mature readers” titles)… and a very pleasant one at that.Personally, I find two things can make sex in comics particularly interesting to me: the at and the characters involved.

Art-wise, the (Continental) Europeans seem to win hands down – the British & the Americans are seemingly too set in the D.C./Marvel/D.C. Thompson school(s) of comic-art to allow truly beautiful pen & ink work (like that of Milo Manara or Guido Crepax) into their titles, then again, maybe it’s the content that we & the Americans find difficult to cope with… look in any comic shop (or even any newsagent) and you’ll find plenty of violent/funny comic titles there, but the nearest you’ll find to sex & comics is the odd strip in a top-shelf mag.

In fact, in general the chance of the British readers out there finding many of the titles reviewed below (even in specialist comic shops) are minimal.

Yes… last year wasn’t just a year for clampdowns on videos, the comics shops got hit too. Comics were seized in police raids on places like Nostalgia & Comics in Birmingham & Fantasy Inn in London – and this was on top of shipments of comics being seized by H.M. Customs. Unfortunately, seizure by H.M.C.6, E. has a nasty side-effect – if one “obscene” comic is spotted in a shipment, the whole shipment gets seized and no retailer wants to end up lumbered with 200 copies of last months “X-Men” six-months++ down the line when they finally release them back to the importers… hence the importers got scared and all the extremely-pleasant-but-vaguely-dodgy titles disappeared from the shelves. Another worrying fact is that Customs seem to catch the “liberal” titles but allow bigoted crap out freely. How come comics in sealed bags on the top-shelf in a shop are judged as being “freely available to minors” – it’s embarrassing enough reaching for the top-shelf at 24, never mind the added problem of “What-if-they-don’t-believe-I’m-old-enough-to-buy-it”. Anyway, enough idle waffle on the desperate state of our “liberal”, “democratic” country and back to the idle waffle on Sex & Comics…

Character-wise, I probably find Anglo-American comics better – whether this has to do with cultural background I dunno. Best of the lot for characters are Love & Rockets (where sex features regularly, but is definitely not the staple content) and Omaha the Cat Dancer (where sex occurs every half dozen pages or so, and the characters are all cute animals with reasonably human bodies).

The Vaguely Informative Stuff

Eleuteri Serpieri

As far as I’ve seen, the main Serpieri stuff about is Morbus Gravis – a fun tale set in your average post-holocaust world with a plague turning folks into mutants. Asa sucker for “the world’s going down the drain & look where it might end” plots, that’s great by me, but the main attraction of this particular tale is it’s star – Druuna. Druuna is beautiful continental (i.e. French/Spanish style European) nymphette in an ugly run-down world. I like Morbus Gravis a lot, but wish that the remaining parts of Druuna’s tale would appear over here in an understandable form. Morbus Gravis I is out as a Catalan Communications paper-back; book two is available as a French hardback book or in the Spring 1988 issue of Heavy Metal; book three is meant to be out on the continent, but no sign yet in the UK. However, a French hardback Serpieri sketchbook entitled OBSESSION –

A is recherche de Druuna was published last November and was in Forbidden Planet (London) for 4.95. Its full of gorgeous (if a mite sexist) pictures of Druuna and this is currently making the wait for book III bearable. The only other Serpieri I’ve seen was in the Summer 1988 Heavy Metal: a pen & ink tale of weirdness in the Wild West; another Druuna tale also featured in that issue, by Sicomoro it shows what happened to Druuna after Morbus Gravis… no sex in either of those bits though.

Guido Crepax

As far as I’ve seen, Crepax’s specialty is pen & ink work which is incredibly detailed (taken to the individual pubic hair level!!). His women are very much the “Vogue model” type (tall, thin, not overly well endowed up-top), and are most definitely sexually liberated… In 1965 in the Italian comic “Linus”, Crepax started one of the first erotic series in comics – Valentina. Unfortunately, there isn’t much sign at all of this work being available in this country beyond the Fall 1988 issue of Heavy Metal (which features a Valentina Rediscovered tale giving no Valentina 23 years on).

Similarly, the Crepax adaptations of erotic literature (such as tales by De Sade & “The Story Of O” seem to be basically unavailable to the British reader. In fact, all that I’ve seen around is Emmanuelle 1 (published in New York on the Eurotica imprint, after being turned down by some 30 other US printers!!) which gives us an adaptation of the original Emmanuelle book (or at least the first part of it). In here, we have sex on planes, shower scenes, female masturbation, assorted sexual positions, tennis matches followed by sweaty lesbian lust, weirdly symbolic pictures of Emmanuelle entwined with snakes & other wildlife and assorted piccies of Concorde looking particularly thrusting.

Milo Manara

As I mentioned above, Manara’s art is beautiful. His stories are generally fairly laid back affairs, bits of action to keep the scene changing, but the main purpose of the tale is purely to tie in the artwork. Most of the available stuff is in Catalan paperbacks – but here & there, copies of Butterscotch in “proper” comic format have been spotted (published by Eros comics).

The “available” Manara that I’ve spotted is:

Butterscotch
This is most definitely a sex comic. A scientist invents a cream that allows him to become invisible… unfortunately it leaves a tell-tale smell of butterscotch in the air. Our heroine, “Honey”, finds his in the room of Beatrice D’Altavilla, a prima ballerina and a complete bitch. Not being able to have his clothes invisible, “Butterscotch” is nude & Honey soon gets his “sitting up & barking” (accidentally of course). Scenes follow of Honey trying to convince Bea of Butterscotch’s existence… culminating in the marvellous sight of the invisible man getting a blow-job. And there ends the first of the comic-books.

The Adventures of Guiseppe Bergman (Dies Irae, Great Adventure, Perchance to Dream)
Three books based around “Guiseppe Bergman”, and his employment by H.P. (supposedly inspired by Hugo Pratt) as a “hero”. G.B. then gets to spend the three books wandering around doing his damnedest to be a hero and ending up in (very) unlikely situations. Not too much sex in here, but very nice when present.

Trip to Tulum
Based on a film idea by Federico Fellini, and therefore pretty weird. Trip is being serialised in the back of the Butterscotch comics, but is also available in a separate Catalan paperback and an Italian hardback – the paperback version includes an assortment of waffle by F.F., plus some other strips & piccies by M.M. Weird people, nude swimming & battling witches. It’s odd. Enjoyable. But Odd.

Hidden Camera
Honey (the heroine of Butterscotch) is working with a camera-crew on a voyeuristic version of Candid Camera (which was actually the original Italian title for this book)… So, in here we have: backstage at a beauty contest; sadomasochism in the suburbs; public reaction to green three-breasted alien women; and a wacko priest attempting to exorcise a “witch”… somehow nudity creeps into all this lot and Manara’s art is every bit as marvellous as ever. Sex-wise, I guess only the S&M sequence counts, but so what.

There are three other books of Manara’s work that I’ve seen out (Shorts, Click!, and The Ape) but unfortunately I’ve yet to get them… Of the three I believe Shorts & Click! contain a plentiful supply of nudity, and regular doses of sex, and I think The Ape is basically sex free… mebbe I’ll get to read them before next time, and I’ll let you know then.

Reed Waller & Kate Worley – Omaha The Cat Dancer

Here we have the cute-animal sex. What can be said… it’s an everyday tale of humans with animal-heads’n’tails. Omaha, the heroine, is an “exotic dancer” (i.e. stripper) and Chuck is the nearest thing we have to a hero. He’s heir to a fortune, and falls for Omaha. Cue mayhem as the system tries to ruin their romance. It’s a fairly “open” relationship… threesomes etc. are fairly natural in this (if cute-animal sex can ever be “natural”). Then there’re Omaha’s friends & their relationships. Yeah, a loada screwing but I still find the characters (& the story) interesting too. Sex-wise there’s probably something for everyone: straight male/female cute-animal sex; male/Male homosexual cute-animal sex… etc. There are three collections of Omaha out, plus the actual comic books. This is definitely one of the more generally available items (give or take the issues that Customs got their grubby paws on).

Heavy Metal

I’ll mention this on its own, as it has featured a fair amount of work by the folks mentioned above. It’s included… Druuna (Serpieri), Valentina (Crepax), stories by Manara, and plenty of other fantasy tales (in the best possible meaning of fantasy). Heavy Metal began life as the American counterpart to the French Metal Hurlant: – a showcase comic for European strips. These days Metal Hurlant has passed on, but Heavy Metal survives. The covers are always stunning (postcards of some of the Olivia covers are available) and the majority of the content is usually worth a read (some of the content is certainly not my cup of tea, but there’s usually sufficient content to make it worth a couple of quid). General format these days appears to be one large strip (about 40 pages or so) plus an assortment of smaller ones. (As examples of the longer strips, consider Serpieri’s Morbus Gravis II & Mills & Bisley’s Slaine & The Horned God I. Like I said… usually worth a look. P.S. It’s bimonthly!!

Hmmm… bad news here. It’s the old ten lines to the end of page 4 problem. Time for a very quick list or two here then…

• Other good sex comics: Little Ego (Giardino); The Survivor (Gillon); Liaisons Delicieuses (Forg); Precious Metal (Arts Industria).
• Current Comics Scene: Toxic; Starsstruck – The Expanding Universe; Dark Horse -Fifth Anniversary Special; Airwaves; Nature Of The Beast
• Back Issue Frenzy: Grendel; God’s Hammer; Rust

The mask was identical to the face Martin wore beneath.

“They’re meant to be uglier than your own mug, Martin. No point otherwise – especially at a Hallowe’en party.” I said this with a tongue in my cheek, as he knew I knew his face was nothing to write home about. And it would probably scare strangers shitless, particularly those of the gatecrasher variety…

“OK, OK, joke’s over. You’ll be laughing the other side of you face before the evening’s over.”

If I didn’t know Martin better, I would have suspected something sinister in that loosely veiled threat. I could even have believed he wasn’t joking.

We were not exactly gatecrashers ourselves. but it was a bit like a friend of a friend of a friend thrice removed who was holding the party in King’s Langley, if you know what I mean. We’d heard at least the rumour that all and sundry were invited. So, here we were, climbing off the M25 in Martin’s 2CV. Neither of us had been North of Watford before and we were eager to discover whether there was life up there…as the saying goes. We knew there would be, but that didn’t stop us chortling on the joke as the rubber band inside Martin’s jalopy finally unwound, bringing us to a halt in the car park of the Rose and Crown, where many of the guests would be tanking up in readiness for the long night ahead.

I turned to Martin and kidded him about all the badges he was wearing on his Albanian Flapjacket. I think he must have belonged to every club and society going including both the Foxhunters and the Anti-Blood Sports Associations. Whether it was just another of his silly jokes or he genuinely didn’t know his own mind, even now, after all the events have finally finished unfolding, I remain unsure.

It’s the story of my life, I know, but to cut a long story short, we’ll go straight to the party which turned out to be a pretty drab affair. Even the strobe lighting in the room dedicated to disco dancing was about as limp wristed as my next door neighbour’s dead mother. Martin and I carried out a few desultory jigs together, but the hotel foyer muzak was not exactly conducive to a real shake-out. On top of this, there were next to no birds. Even Alfred Hitchcok’s film had Tippi Hedren going for it. Unless there was a room upstairs where they had all congregated packed like kids in a Sardines game to escape Martin’s ugly mask, every guest at that shindig wore trousers and hugely dated floral ties. Not one badge between them, to gauge the fellow feeling, if any. Furthermore, not even obne backslapping howdyado from a hale and hearty host, eager to make his guests feel at home. But thinking about it, I could have felt at home anywhere, given an amorous nature.

Eventually, Martin gave me the nod. Back down the M25, to see if we could catch up on a bit of real nightlife in more familiar territory. We felt like fish out of water, or at least I did. Martin, well, he was just Martin, as inscrutable as ever. We walked off the dance floor and thus out of the limelight of the torch that the DJ was flashing upon us from his plinth.

Suddenly we were accosted by a bright young spark who called himself Aretha Franklin.

“That’s a funny name for someone who looks as if he’s just walked out of one of Hitler’s gas chambers.”

“Hark who’s talking. With a face like that…” – Aretha pointed at Martin’s mask – “I bet your face wouldn’t win a beauty competition against my bum.”

I look quizzically at Aretha’s backside, but could find no clue as to why he had made such an outrageous statement.

Martin evidently decided this was it. He was standing no nonsense from the likes of this Northern upstart and he immediately made a hefty kick at Aretha’s backside.

“That’ll change the odds somewhat – I hear judges don’t like bruises on the merchandise.”

Or that’s what Martin’d probably have said, given half the chance. For, in the event, his leg was left stuck up at right angles, the foot sunk to it’s ankle in Aretha’s buttocks. The trouser seat had disappeared with the merest ripping noise, leaving the weltering cheeks literally to munch up Martin’s calf. I tried to steady my friend, as he hopped precariously on his free leg.

As the others watched this amazing fandango in which the three of us were participating, I noticed the arrival of the Bad Crowd. Every shindig’s got them, even down South. But this lot were the worst I’d ever seen. Plug Uglies to the bone. Undergrunts to the letter. Martin’s mush was not even in the same league. The fact that made them seem particularly horrendous was the female gender they wielded. Fresh from girl talk, no doubt, in that Ladies Room I’d imagined earlier, they were waving red-stained panties as if this were some preliminary to a mating dance. If I’d ever fancied a bird, now was the time to stamp homosexual authority on my proclivities…

To come clean, it was a good job that Martin’s really only my alter ego and his leg, if I can put it this way, my metaphor for manly pride. Aretha (whose real name turned out to be Digory Smalls) wasn’t all that bad looking, despite my earlier misgivings…and the Bad Crows eventually skulked off churlishly, presumably crestfallen, hopefully back to the Ladies Room where they belonged together.

D.F. Lewis

or “Life’s a bitch, and so’s Michaella Strachan”.

Next year is 1992, when Britain, despite Mrs.T’s best efforts, will become more closely linked to the rest of the European community. Trade barriers will be lowered, frontier restrictions will be eased and we can will hopefully see more cross-cultural pollination, ideally in the form of large packs of French schoolgirls roaming the streets.

But there’s a down side to pay: it’s not all sexy game shows and a glimpse of the cost was provided by the 5th annual Diamond Awards, broadcast in the early hours of Sunday, February 17th on ITV. This four-hour spectacular, recorded in Antwerp in front of an audience of 18,000 hysterical Belgians, celebrates the genre of Europop by giving awards to the artists whose records sold the most the previous year and giving the artists a free plug. In theory, it sounds ok; after all a lot of my favourite acts are from the continent – Front 242, Claudia Brucken, Laibach, Yello – so it looked promising.

I missed the first few minutes: I’d got bored about 30 seconds into the edition of ‘After Dark’ I was watching, as is normal (only they could take a topic like ‘Addicted to Sex?’ and make it duller than ditch-water) and went to brush my teeth. Coming out of the bathroom, I heard the strains of “I Think We’re Alone Now” coming from downstairs so returned to the living room to see one moderately ugly female miming badly to the song. Now, to one who remembers Tiffany as a kinda cute teenager, unspoiled by success and who even had the guts to sing live on ‘Top of the Pops’, this was a shock. Dyed hair, and it looked as if her plastic surgeon had bought a job-lot of all the bits Cher’s got rid of over the past ten years.

The format of the show became clear: the act sang their ‘greatest hit’, got their award and then sang their current single. There were a few exceptions to this rule: Kylie Minogue (above) got to do three songs, as did a group I’ve never heard of called London Beat. On the other hand, Timmy Mallett (the presenter of the show raved about “his talent, his humour, his creativity” – surely some mistake here?) was restricted to one song: whether this was on the grounds of taste or because at the time this show was recorded Bombalurina had only recorded one is not known.

Perhaps surprisingly, this was actually something of a pity. Whatever one can say about the music, he was accompanied by two of the prettier backing singers that appeared in the course of the programme, which ensured that the entire song was viewed with deep interest, rather than being fast forwarded as soon as it was clear a) the music was crap and b) there were no cutey-pies to be seen. This happened to a majority of the acts: Kylie lasted about half a minute, though this at least 29.5 seconds of this was due to the black PVC dress she was wearing. Jason Donovan was remote-controlled out before he could even appear on the stage and Jimmy Sommerville lasted about as long, though some sick puppy at ITV chose the advert break which immediately followed Jimmy to insert the only National Aids Helpline public information films of the night…

There was definitely something of an air of history about the proceedings, with a large number of the acts “has-beens” as far as this country is concerned: apart from Tiffany, Duran Duran fall into this category, as does Holly Johnson but most spectacular of the wrinklies was Helen Schapiro: “Walking Back to Happiness” was apparently a big hit in Europe in 1990, a mere 30 years after it hit the British charts. Even the new acts didn’t seem to have very much originality, with Irish band Something Else sounding more like Supertramp without the squeaky vocals.

Trust The Human League (above) to come up with something bizarre. Bonus points go to both their bimbos, Suzanne Sulley for looking highly droolworthy + stealing Kylie Minogue’s thunder by wearing PVC a good two hours before the girl from Oz, and Joanne Catherall for bravely performing despite a broken arm, subtly concealed inside a silver lam‚ sling which was easily mistakeable for a particular flashy shirt-collar. Other highlights, though for non-musical reasons, included Technotronic, who at least attempted to sing rather than mime (at least I hope so because if their records sound as bad, we’re in worse trouble than I thought) and Roch Voisine, a Canadian who managed to get the crowd waving from side to side holding lighters in the air: despite this, the Incinerated Belgian Quotient remained low.

Over the entire four hours of it, there were three new acts I might like to see more of: Twenty 4 Seven (harmless, catchy Eurodisco), Beverley Craven (a cross between Kate Bush and Judie Tzuke) and Joelle Ursull – she was France’s entry in last year’s Eurovision Song Contest and came second, but her songs had an infectious, carnival rhythm to them. Of course, being a former Miss Guadaloupe is of no relevance at all. At the other end, Totto Cotunno, the 1990 winner was also there with “Insieme 1992” – as you may remember, the contest this year was dominated by lots of songs about the unification of Europe with “Nineteen ninety, Europe unite-ee” lyrics. And in the “whatever-happened-to” section, there was David Hasselhoff. Yes, that one – David “Knight Rider” Hasselhoff, whose single “Crazy for You” sold three million copies in Germany. He sings every bit as good as he acted…

All of this, coupled with presenter Desiree Nosbusch’s tendency to speak a language that was like English, except with no sense of idiom, meant that by the end of the four hours I was ready to bomb the Channel Tunnel and stage a military coup to pull us out of Europe and prevent Britain’s musical identity from being submerged beneath a tidal wave of Europap.

Then I saw ‘The Hitman and Her’. and now, as far as I’m concerned, the sooner we unite the better.

A brief precis of the idea behind this programme might be useful, for those people who have better things to do at 04:10 on a Sunday morning. Take a nightclub, any nightclub – Mr. Smith’s in Warrington will do. Fill it with people by the simple method of sending out free tickets to anyone you can think of (even I was sent ten once – I did like the idea of going along to sabotage the event, but unfortunately it was in Brechin [on the coast between Dundee and Aberdeen, in case you were wondering] and I was in London). Now, when you have somewhere like that full of the sort of Darrens and Sharons who frequent such places, the sensible thing to do would be to lock all the doors and pop a couple of incendiaries through the window. Not ITV. They play records and make an hour-long programme consisting of shots of people dancing – it’s like Top of the Pops with the groups removed. There’s also a section where they haul people out of the audience and ask them where they bought their clothes.

It’s all so happy and cheerful and everyone’s enjoying themselves, although the combined IQ of those present is probably exceeded by your average digital watch. But even if you’re not worried about the exploitation of the educationally subnormal, Michaella Strachan and Pete Waterman who present it (respectively, her and the Hitman) will succeed in sending the most extrovert optimist out for a sick-bag. While I’m quite prepared to admit that Ms.Strachan is cute and Mr.Waterman knows something about record production, I’m at a bit of a loss to see why this should per se make them any good as commentators at a cattle-market. It’s probably part of the trend towards making presenters so inept that even the most tedious guest appears a master of wit and charm next to them.

This reached it’s ultimate extreme in ‘The Word’, fronted by Amammary de Cadanet (though I can’t comment on her abilities since I’ve been unable to concentrate on what she says for more than five seconds without being distracted by a cleavage in which you could conceal several battalions of the Republican Guard) and Terry Christian, who has been described as “the unthinking woman’s crumpet” on the reasonable grounds that he is about as coherent as most things you find in a baker’s window and could thus be replaced by a chocolate eclair with no detrimental effect on the program.

After about 50 minutes or so of forced jollity relieved only by certain cameramen tending to zoom down blouses or up skirts in a manner reminscent of a Russ Meyer movie, I gave up. On the balance of that evening’s viewing, although there are certain continental commodities I am not looking forward to receiving, I still reckon European union is a good thing. But can we please send Timmy Mallett on a very long, extremely slow European tour, and swap Michaella Strachan for Desiree Nosbusch first?

Help! I’m trapped in a snow-bound suburb of London, with a rapidly diminishing supply of Guinness and no crisps at all. Which is why I’ve lashed myself to the typewriter, in readiness to review this quarter’s pile of ‘zines, before using them to build a warming bonfire… Well, this was true when I started writing the piece, it’s not quite accurate any longer: April 7th!  This long time gap means a lot to get through, as a good number of ‘zines have put out two issues – where this is true, there’s a slash between the numbers.

From a long time back we have Anti Clock Wise 9 (12 A4, 40p), probably the first politizine to be mentioned here. Flag-burning in the States, anti-Fascist action, football hooliganism: a pretty mixed bag as you can tell, generally anarchic in tone. Needless to say, I disagreed with a lot of it! Subterrene 3/4/5 (26,30,30 A4, 50p) is one of the most frequent ‘zines I get; given this, the rough-hewn feel is to be expected, and in fact nicely fits most of the films reviewed – no ‘Bambi’ pieces here! No doubting Anthony’s commitment to the genre, who else but a fan would list, and time, the differences between the 126- and 140-minute versions of ‘Dawn of the Dead’? Dementia 13 No. 5/6 (52 A4 for 1.75 – lots of calorific value there!) is a fiction ‘zine; I don’t read much genre stuff, but most of this was interesting and challenging – perhaps a little too difficult occasionally, though I’m not really qualified to tell since the last book I bought was ‘The Railway Children’ (I’m not kidding!).

Even thicker is Factsheet Five 40/41 (136/104 A4ish, $7 inc p&p), and the price reflects this and postage costs – if you’re in no hurry you can get a surface mail version for $4. Alternatively, get in touch with me, as Tower Records here in London  stock it and I’ll happily buy copies for you if I can; it’ll be about £2 or so. Anyway, it’s a monumental listing of every ‘zine, comic and tape the editor gets sent (and that’s a lot – 1000+ I’d guess), from porno comics to earnest, political theory magazines all with capsule reviews. An awesome amount of work goes into this, and it shows. The same is true of Little Shop of Horrors 10/11 (double issue, 172 A4, £6.95) – with my usual chauvinism, I think most ‘zines I trade with are getting the better side of the deal, but this is quite the opposite and at the moment I feel very guilty about trading for it. It’s not a ‘zine about Hammer, it’s a book with more information about the company than anything else I’ve ever read. Fortunately (for my guilt complex) it’s irregularly published (No.9 appeared in 1986), but it’ll take me about five more years to read it all!

Slipping out into left field, away from the horror scene, we find Mektek 4 (60 A5, 1.50), a glossy little number, mainly about Battle Suit Warfare (seems to be part wargame, part role-playing). I found those bits incomprehensible (but intriguing), and took refuge in the other sections: manga and anime reviews and a handy review of the Panasonic NVL 28B, a video capable of playing unconverted NTSC format videos. Also in the same area (at least, in the box marked “Miscellaneous”) is Green Goblin 15 (48 A5 including the subzine, 50p). Mostly SF-ish though like TC, the editor is willing to write about what he damn well pleases – everything from music to books to computers – which makes for a pleasant ambience since the areas of interest are similar to mine, even if the specifics aren’t.

Arglebargle 23 (36 A5, 70p) is in the same vein, though with slightly less chat and more postal games instead: I was impressed with the rules for one called ‘International Terrorism’, which I’ll probably try to take part in. I’ll let you know how I get on! Sliding gently back towards the horror genre, on the way we see Rattler’s Tale 10/11 (40 A5, 1.00?), a green horror ‘zine? Odd combination, you might think – it’s a mix of ecology, the paranormal and short horror/mystery fiction, favouring bite-size chunks rather than hefty articles. Again, while I might disagree with much of it, I still find it interesting stuff.

Most essential US ‘zine comes from Tim Paxton, who has produced that rare beast, a ‘zine likely to be of lasting use. Naked!Screaming!Terror! 4/5 (double issue, 48 A5, $4 + p&p) contains reviews and ratings of about 150 Oriental horror/action movies, from ‘A Better Tomorrow’ to ‘Zu Warriors’ plus some truly bizarre stuff in between. A definite must-have for anyone interested in the genre. He also publishes Monster 45-49 (variable, normally 8 A5, $1?) which reviews only monster movies, though his definition is wide enough to take in more than Godzilla and Frankenstein. Scareaphanalia 96-99 (8 A5,$1) heads smoothly on towards its century with more literate, intelligent reviews of films that won’t arrive here for ages yet (though oddly ‘Warlock’ is only just out in the States – the death of New World Pictures strikes again!). The new Stephen King adaption, ‘Misery’, gets the front cover this time.

ETC Vol.2 No.1 (I think: the inside says “welcome to the first issue” so you pays your $3 [+ p&p] and takes your 32 A5 pages) is devoted to European Trash Cinema: Fulci, d’Amato, Almodovar, etc. And while I might quibble about the subject matter (though I admire the effort in a Joe d’Amato filmography, the point eludes me!), the writing is lucid, there’s a good range of contributors and it’s very professionally done. Gore Gazette 103 (9 A4, $2) celebrates ten years in business by devoting room to the delightful tale of how the Rev.Rick Sullivan got to meet Pres.George Bush, which just about nails the claims-to-fame game played in the letter column here on occasion. Oh, and some film reviews too, naturally. To finish off the foreign ‘zines section, we have Black 5 (according to the cover it’s #7, in any case, it’s 20 A4, $6/four issues). Mikael reckons I’m “possessed by” Nastassja Kinski: does he mean “obsessed by”, or does he know something…?  Lots of reviews, music, comics and an interesting bit about a trip to Denmark, all written in English, or a close relation thereof!

Strange Adventures 23-27 (20-24 A4, 90p-£1) continues to publish issues at a rapid rate. Guess there’s nothing else to do on the Isle of Wight! If it happens in the fantasy genre, there’s a good chance it’ll be reviewed in this ‘zine, which retains it’s friendly atmosphere. From Beyond 2 (28 A4, 50p) is a new one on me, with a striking cover of Leatherface. An all review ‘zine, be interesting to see whether it’ll find a niche to live in and what personality it’ll develop: such things take time. Personality is something Headcheese and Chainsaws 6 (20 A5, 70p+SAE) certainly possesses in abundance. Also, a Peter Atkins interview, an article on telling the difference between original tapes and copies, reviews of films, book, comics and a bizarre Christmassy comic strip. “Bah, humbug” seems to be the message. Creeping Unknown 16 (36 A5, 95p) virtually avoids mentioning the subject of Xmas altogether preferring, understandably, to concentrate on film & festival reviews, a major (and informative) piece on ‘Revenge of Billy the Kid’ and four pages of weirdness from Lino, who seems to be under the impression that I have a thing about ‘Gwendoline’. Well, only when it’s Winona Ryder’s night off… 17 is also out, but has yet to be unpacked so I can’t give details, but it was certainly as good as ever.  

TC9’s most essential UK zine is Anime UK 3/4 (24 A4, £6/6 issues, no samples): at last someone is providing news, reviews and information for us fans of Japanese animation, and is doing a good job of it too. It looks pretty good, too, especially #4. Own-up time: the Midnight in Hell reviewed in TC8 was issue 4, not 5. This was brought home by the real arrival of issue 5 (20 A4, œ1), including an interview with Nick Park – with neat timing, it arrived in my hands the day Mr.Park was awarded his Oscar for best animation! Nora K 3 (44 A5, œ1.50) has arrived; that’s no misprint as the title’s changed from Norma K. The subject matter is the same: Traci Lords, both her recent mainstream pictures and the other ones, which of course I know nothing about – Steve makes even them sound interesting. A labour of lust?

And finally, Samhain. Last time out, I slagged them off something rotten so a sense of fairness forces me to admit that their latest issues are an awful lot better (for some strange reason, I wasn’t sent a freebie copy as normal!) . Rather than writing about films that have been done to death in the mainstream press (like ‘Flatliners’), this issue concentrates on movies that you won’t read much about in Q/Empire/Sky. The result is much more interesting, and it does suggest that the preceding issue was an aberration (I stand by my review – it didn’t get any better on rereading) rather than a change in direction.

• Anime UK – Helen McCarthy, 147 Francis Road, Leyton, London E10 6NT.
• Anti Clock Wise – PO Box 175, Liverpool, L69 8DX.
• Black – Mikael Bomark, Aspv.28, 14141 Huddinge, Sweden.
• Creeping Unknown – Nick Cairns, 33 Maltby Road, Mansfield, Notts, NG18 3BN.
• Dementia 13 – Pam Creais, 17 Pinewood Avenue, Sidcup, Kent, DA15 8BB.
• Factsheet Five – Mike Gunderloy, 6 Arizona Ave, Rensellaer, NY 12144-4502, USA.
• From Beyond – G.W.Sherratt, ‘Brimstree’, 1 Greenway, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, DE6 1EF.
• Gore Gazette – c/o Sullivan, 469 Hazel St, Clifton, N.J. 07011, USA.
• Green Goblin – John Breakwell, 170 Caversham Road, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 8AZ.
• Headcheese & Chainsaws – Rob Bewick, 33 Ernwill Ave, Castletown, Sunderland, SR5 3EB.
• Little Shop of Horrors – Dick Klemensen, PO Box 3107, Des Moines, Iowa 50316, USA.
• Mektek – Ashley Watkins, 62 May Rd, Brighton, E.Sussex, BN2 3EB.
• Midnight in Hell – The Cottage, Smithy Brae, Kilmalcolm, Renfrewshire, PA13 4EN.
• N!S!T + Monster – Kronos Productions, MPO Box 67, Oberlin, Ohio 44074-0067, USA.
• Nora K – Steve Rag, 118 High Street, Eastleigh, Hants, S05 5LR.
• Rattler’s Tale – Anthony North Enterprises, BCM Keyhole, London, WC1N 3XX.
• Samhain – John Gullidge, 19 Elm Grove Road, Topsham, Exeter, Devon, EX3 0EQ.
• Scareaphanalia – Michael Gingold, 55 Nordica Drive, Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520, USA.
• Strange Adventures – Tony Lee, 13 Hazely Combe, Arreton, Isle of Wight, PO30 3AJ.
• Subterrene – Anthony Cawood, 6 Daleside Avenue, Pudsey, Leeds, LS28 8HD.

Arachnophobia (Frank Marshall) – Odd that those most likely to find this scary will be the least likely to go and see it. I’m no arachnophobe (wasps are my pet hate) so the film began at a disadvantage with me and I found myself cheering on the beasties – any hero who is a wine connoisseur loses my sympathy straight away. Most of the other characters are just as obnoxious: Julian Sands as the mandatory scientist and John Goodman as a bug-killer are the best of the (human) cast. After an hour of warming-up, it does provide some nice thrills to justify it’s existence and I suspect how much you enjoy the movie depends a lot on your feelings about spiders. Just spare a moment’s silence for the ones that died in production and those mercilessly crushed by jumpy citizens who’ve seen the movie… 6/10.

Buried Alive (Gerard Kikoine) – Cliche ridden Edgar Allen Poe adaption – you can tell because there’s a black cat in every other frame – seems like a cross between ‘Suspiria’ (lots of insects and a girls’ school) and ‘Reform School Girls’ (they’re naughty bimbos). Someone is doing nasty things to the inhabitants and Donald Pleasence wanders round saying things like “Yvonne sees reality as a warped rejection of her own super-ego” and “Who’s to say they are dead? There are many different levels of existence”. A film with all the problems of Argento movies and none of the benefits, this is a distinct disappointment from the director of ‘Edge of Sanity’ despite the first ever food-mixer scalping. 2/10.

Cafe Flesh (Rinse Dream) – “This is not a porn movie” says the Scala Cinema’s programme in block capitals and a tone of certainty. Oh, yes it is! Despite a surreal post-apocalyptic culture setting, where only 1% of the population are able to have sex (watched by the other 99%) and better characters and dialogue than might be expected, without the hard-core it’d bear a strong resemblance to ‘The Comic’. However, the decidedly cute presence of a pre-‘Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers’ Michelle Bauer (under the name of Pia Snow) is adequate compensation. 6/10.

Dead Calm (Philip Noyce) – Effective, if often predictable thriller has a husband and wife on a sailing cruise, up against a psycho who maroons the husband on the gradually sinking ship belonging to his last victims, and begins to close in on the wife. The setting is nicely claustrophobic and the set pieces work well but some sections require too much credulity. Does succeed in adding a new dimension to the phrase “dumb bitch deserves to die”, however! 7/10.

Deathstalker III (Alfonso Corona) – A third director and a third lead actor remove all traces of continuity (apart from the customary rip-off footage from the previous adventures) leaving little more than a very tired idea and not enough sex or violence to justify it. What’s the point of a sword and sorcery movie without nudity or blood? It certainly isn’t the acting or the plot, neither of which stand up to scrutiny even at 3am in the morning after several beers and a lot of sandwiches. 3/10.

Desperate Hours (Michael Cimino) – Neither Cimino nor star Mickey Rourke are exactly flavour of the month with the critics so this one has been drowned in a sea of vitriol.  A pity, because it’s a very slick, taut and plausible (at least as these things go) thriller. Rourke plays a psycho, sprung from jail by his girlfriend, who takes over the house of a lawyer (Anthony Hopkins) as somewhere to lie low. The police net closes inexorably towards them and the stresses start to show. It may be formula stuff, but it’s beautifully shot (perhaps too much so, it occasionally looks like a Utah Tourist Board promo film), relentlessly cool, Hopkins is as good as ever and Rourke shows that when he isn’t trying to play the sexual animal, he can act – more of this might help his career, though I know at least one female reader who’d disagree!). 8/10.

Fantasia (Walt Disney) – 50 years old, and wearing well, despite, or maybe because of astonishing naivety: it takes a while to work out why the male centaurs look odd, then you realise they’ve no nipples or belly-buttons, leaving their bodies totally blank! At least the females have breasts,  albeit nippleless ones. And while the animation is less detailed than in later pictures it’s still easily as good as anything produced these days. The sequences either tell a story (‘The Sorceror’s Apprentice’ is the best known) or are more or less abstract sequences of pretty pictures, such as for Bach’s Toccata – restful to the point of soporific, so it’s a good job there aren’t many of them. Advertised as “the ultimate trip”, there wasn’t a kid in sight when I saw it and if it won’t replace LSD, it’s more mind-expanding than ‘My Little Pony’. 3-8/10, mostly towards the upper end.

Flesh Gordon 2 (Howard Ziehm) – Subtitled ‘Flesh Gordon Meets The Cosmic Cheerleaders’, this delayed sequel starts off being self-consciously stupid, then hammers the viewer  with an endless succession of juvenile tit-and-fart jokes until…hell, you’ve got to laugh at the awfulness of it all. Good thing too, because the actual jokes aren’t all that funny. Unlike the first, it’s aimed at the ‘R’ market so there’s a lack of blatantly removed hardcore which helps and the performances are at the right level of naffness. Racist, sexist and homophobic to the point where even I began to wince, leave all liberal sensibilities at the door. 6/10.

Goregasm (Hugh Gallagher) – After a man is found murdered and the entire police force is too busy to investigate, the case is assigned to desk detective Chase (Rick Billock). Soon he’s delving into the world of porn videos after discovering an ad for ‘Goregasm’ in the dead man’s house. The murderer turns out to be Tara (Gabriela), the wacked-out bitch in the Goregasm ad and soon Chase is trying to find her while she goes about, killing men, in various states of undress. The film (actually it’s shot on video) isn’t quite as exciting as the synopsis sounds. It is a fun “bad” film loaded with cheesy gore, the topless Gabriela and some bad acting – as a “real” film, this one has some good ideas, just doesn’t execute them well. But taken on the level that Hugh Gallagher (publisher of the ‘zine ‘Draculina’) had the guts to make a film despite having no money or stars, I’d say he did quite well: it’s a big improvement over his first venture into film-making with the dull ‘Dead Silence’. (DP)

Grim Prairie Tales (Wayne Coe) – The problem with anthology movies is that they tend to mediocrity: I’ve yet to see one with four really good  stories and ‘Grim’ certainly doesn’t qualify. The linking sections are better than the tales themselves, Brad Dourif and James Earl Jones providing an otherwise too often lacking frisson. For the record, No.1 has an Indian burial ground being disturbed – I fell asleep during it, so missed the end and the start of No.2, though I did get to see it’s spectacular climax (and ‘climax’ is the word). I was kept awake for No.3 by the guy in the next seat writhing every time the 14-year old daughter appeared (Hi, Jason, isn’t libel fun?); it was otherwise pointless, and No.4, about a gunfighter scared of blood, wasn’t much better. 4/10.

Heavy Petting (Obie Benz) – A group of celebrities, from William Burroughs to Zoe Tamerlis (now with red hair and calling herself Zoe Tamerlaine, still looking wonderful) via David Byrne talk straight to camera about their early sexual experiences with varying degrees of coherency and frankness. While these often strike a chord, the confessions never give more than a glimpse of the personalities behind them, and I enjoyed the interspersed clips from 50’s and 60’s sex-education films more – these varied from the ridiculous to the very ridiculous. 7/10.

Leningrad Cowboys Go America (Aki Kaurismaki) – If David Lynch had directed ‘The Blues Brothers’ while having one of his notorious sugar rushes, this might have been the result. A group of Finnish, vaguely Pogue-like musicians possessing incredible quiffs and minimal talent head for the States on the very reasonable grounds that “they’ll swallow any shit there”. Most of the movie centres round their journey to Mexico to play at a wedding, via encounters with Jim Jarmusch, Nicky Tesco, bikers and police – it’s all highly weird and if the far-too-numerous musical interludes do little except prove that the Leningrad Cowboys are indeed completely untainted by commercial potential, it’s still likeably unique. 6/10.

The Little Mermaid (John Musker/Ron Clements) – There used to be rumours that Walt Disney had made pornographic cartoons, which were locked away deep in the vaults of Disneyworld. While T.L.M. is no X-rated movie, it’s story resembles ‘The Trials of Traci’ (mermaid goes onto land seeking mate) and the heroine looks less like Snow White, and more like Cherry Poptart, star of a comic book high on H.M. Customs’ hit-list. Very suspicious. And then there’s all these hidden messages – beautiful people are good, ugly ones are bad – designed to influence our children. It’s a plot, I tell ya! Paranoia aside, this is good stuff, almost classic Disney and easily better than any of the American competition. While the animation may be simplified to reduce effort, it’s rarely noticeable – people lack teeth, that’s all. Nice songs, an evil villainess and an entirely predictable story: exactly what one expects from Disney. 8/10.

The Match Factory Girl (Aki Kaurismaki) – Probably the most depressing film I’ve seen in ages: a woman has a dull job, a joyless homelife and spends her evenings being gloomy. The first 20 minutes has three words of spoken dialogue: “Half of beer”. The comic highlight is someone getting poisoned. And it’s in Finnish. Yet despite being the visual equivalent of a Joy Division douple LP, it’s more engrossing than it sounds (though I can’t for the life of me work out why) – only confirmed depressives will actually enjoy it and the rest of us should be sure to put away any sharp objects before viewing. 6/10.

Meet the Applegates (Michael Lehmann). The director of ‘Heathers’ has certainly come up with one of the more original films of the year so far: giant insects move to Median, Ohio from the Amazon so they can sabotage the local nuclear plant and save the rain forests. Their instruction manual to “being American” is a Dick and Jane reading book – reality is somewhat different, the husband has an affair with a secretary, his wife discovers the joy of credit cards, their son is hooked on dope and the daughter gets pregnant. This very thin veneer of normality reaches monomolecular levels as people who discover the  truth   end  up  cocooned   in  the  cellar.  The problem is that, like ‘Twin Peaks’, there’s nothing behind the weirdness: while the scenes of the family adjusting to American life are fun, it can’t support an entire movie and the interval between inventive scenes gets steadily longer. However, bear in mind it took several viewings for ‘Heathers’ to take root… 6/10.

Mortal Passions (Andrew Lane) – This fails totally as serious drama, yet provides ninety minutes of tacky entertainment and a couple of the cutest actresses to appear on our screens this year. Zach Galligan plays a suicidal house-painter whose wife (Krista Errickson), the sort of girl who apologises by taking her clothes off, is having it away with a customer at the cocktail bar where she works, and is planning to kill her spouse for his money. But his brother finds out, kills the cuckold and takes over screwing the wife. Then the murdered man’s girlfriend appears. Oh, and both husband and wife are getting therapy from a psychologist played by David Warner. No good comes of all this, you will not be surprised to hear. Victorian melodrama, 1991-style, that gets steadily more ridiculous and sleazy by turns. I liked it. 7/10.

Nuns on the Run (Jonathan Lynn) – TC’s continuing quest to bring you the full range of nun-pics brings you a one joke movie (two criminals hide out in a convent) which by some sleight of hand still manages to be an enjoyable piece of mindless entertainment. This is mainly thanks to Robbie Coltrane (was he a nun in a previous life?) doing miracles with a script that is rarely less than obvious and never subtle. Eric Idle marks time incomparison, being frequently diverted by a love interest, presumably to reassure the audience that he and Coltrane are ‘normal’ and don’t get any pleasure out of cross-dressing. 6/10.

Polyester (John Waters) – Could be considered inspiration for ‘Meet the Applegates’ as Divine and family are so bizarre they might well be from Amazonia. Originally released with scratch and sniff cards to enhance the ambience (I’ve got an unused one – any offers?), even without them it remains trash in a compressed, concentrated form and a monument to tack. While it lacks the deliberate offensiveness of ‘Pink Flamingos’, this is no bad thing, as it’s replaced by vicious parody of American lifestyles, clothes, habits and everything from shopping to Alcoholics Anonymous. Despite a tendency to go on ramming the point home beyond what’s necessary, this is perhaps Divine’s finest moment. The plot? You wouldn’t believe me if I told you… 7/10.

Predator 2 (Steven Hopkins) – Blam! Boom! Bang! Arnie may be missing, but the bad guy is back, or at least one like it. This Predator is even better equipped to kick human ass having all sorts of nifty optional extras: ultra-violet sight as well as infra-red, killer frisbees and lots of freaky weapons, as opposed to the original Predator’s minimalist style (it went for the locking wheel nuts and a stereo radio instead). Virtually an expanded remake, set in the urban jungle of LA, I don’t think this will disappoint – it’s intelligently exploitative, Danny Glover bringing more to his character than Schwarzeneggar did, while the action sequences easily make up for some slack moments early on. The last ten minutes, as our hero finds the alien spaceship, made me sit back and go ‘Whoa!’. An early contender for Pyrotechnic Overkill Movie of 1991. 8/10.

The Presidio (Peter Hyams) – Shaun Connery is a policeman on a military base who has to contend with murders, a renegade ex-soldier turned cop and a fairly un-necessary romantic subplot involving said cop and Sean’s daughter. Needless to say, he ignores them all and proves again that while he may play a limited range of characters (this time, it’s roughly 50/50 ‘Name of the Rose’ and ‘Hunt for Red October’), he’s pretty good at them. 7/10.

Sex Madness (???) – From the same people that brought you ‘Reefer Madness’, a solemn tale of what happens to those who dare to have sex outside the sanctity of marriage. They get syphilis, pass it onto their husbands and children, are forced to the edge of suicide and lose any acting ability they may have possessed. Or maybe it just seems that way, as whoever the director is, he was clearly a one-take man: a half-open window slams shut, making the actress talking at the time visibly jump and the camera keeps right on rolling. These little technical quibbles aside, this is medical melodrama pushed to the limits – do I mark it as such or do I write it off for the dated exploitation it is? Both, and neither. 5/10.

Sugar Hill (Paul Maslansky) – You can tell you’re in trouble from the song on the opening credits of this stinker: a groovy number called ‘Supernatural Voodoo’ (available on Motown records, we’re told). Made during the blaxploitation period, the ‘plot’ concerns Sugar (Maki Bey), the death of her boyfriend and her subsequent revenge. It turns out Robert Quarry wants to get his greedy hands on the bar owned by the boyfriend – first they try buying him out but he refuses. Several minutes later they appear outside and in a totally hilarious fight scene, kill him – don’t ask why they’re wearing ladies stockings on their heads or appear to be dancing on the victim. Sugar Hill pops down to the local swamp and calls on Baron Zombie, a dude who thinks evil is breaking out into a nasty laugh every couple of minutes. He raises his zombie friends, who turn out to be a couple of black actors with silvery eyes, covered in cobwebs, and together with Sugar, they set about knocking off the dudes that killed her boyfriend. The movie is laced with well thought-out dialogue: “Honky, you killed my man – now you’re going to die, sucker” and Quarry’s insistence on calling Sugar a “black bitch”. This one has to be seen to be believed. 3 (but for a good laugh 6)/10. (MM)

The Vanishing (George Sluizer) – Dutch film that got a minimal release at cinemas to critical acclaim and is now out on video as a result. It’s unusual story has a man obsessed by the disappearance of his girl-friend, who vanished three years ago at a service station, and trying to find out what happened to her. He eventually finds the man responsible – to say any more would be unfair. A psychological thriller (roughly translated: “not action-packed”), it concentrates on the characters involved – as a drama, it’s fine (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu as the kidnapper deserves especial mention) – as a horror movie, it lacks punch and I didn’t feel it’s ending lived up to the hype. Mind you, I’m not claustrophobic… 6/10.