Fangoria #133: The Stand


Almost as much as I love books by Stephen King, I enjoy books about Stephen King. And almost as much as I like books about Stephen King, I dig old magazines about Stephen King! Go figure, it's kinda strange.
.
I got a copy of Fangoria #133, which had as its cover feature the 1994 mini-series The Stand. In fact, there's a pretty nasty picture on the front of Flagg bearing his teeth. He won't win Miss America with that pose.
.
The articles include:
  • Elegy, "The Stand Comes To New York."

  • Baby, Can You Dig "The Stand"? Douglas Winter does, and finds plenty to praise in the lengthy miniseries.

  • "Stand" By Your Book, after seeing dozens of his works adapted by others, Stephen King takes on the script for "The Stand" himself.

Time warp:

One of the things I like about the magazines is that it gives us King's stories in a cultural context. They act as a kind of time warp. In 1994, Clive barker was on the rise. In fact, Fangoria wrote, "If Clive Barker hasn't already staked his claim as a one-man horror/fantasy industry to rival Stephen King, then 1994 looks set to propel him into the stratosphere. No fewer than four movies are set to go before the camera's this year, plus a major eight-hour TV miniseries."

There is also a great interview with Fiath Domergue. She did a lot of 50's B-movies, including: Where danger Lives, The Duel at Silver Creek, This is My love, This Island Earth, It Came From beneath The Sea, Cult of the Cobra. This is funny, Domergue says, "House of Seven Corpses was backed by Mormons. There was always one on set making sure there was no smoking or alcohol."

Douglas E. Winter's "Television Stand-Out" piece is outstanding. Not only the article itself, but the pictures and layout are quite nice. the cover of the review looks like the cover of the Revised edition of The Stand (good fighting evil on a desert backdrop). He writes, "King and Garris wisely chose to adapt the book, not to reinvent it; because any shorter version would have required the unpalatable (and for some, heretical) act of cutting or consolidating characters, no one who has treasured Kings' novel (or, indeed who has written fiction) will fault their decision."

I must admit, my favortie thing in this magazine: The ad for life sized skulls, only $30. I'm getting up early in the morning and leaving one on my pillow, just to show my wife how much I love her.

No comments:

Post a Comment