Bones #1, Fall 1996
48 pages /$5.95 per issue
Editor Paula Guran
P.O. Box 5410
Akron, OH 44334

I have to say at the outset that as the music columnist for this debut magazine, my opinions could be construed as being colored by self-interest. However, just a look at the names of the fiction writers on the cover should give the reader an idea as to the quality of the content: John Shirley, Yvonne Navarro, Steve Rasnic Tem, David Nial Wilson, Del James, Brian Hopkins and Stephen Dedman all contribute stories, and there are columns by Philip Nutman and Andre Scheluchin, among others, as well as an interveiw with Poppy Z. Brite. My personal disinterest in hip "street" horror meant that I found Shirley's & James' pieces a bit tedious (Shirley writes about crack that turns people into brain-eating zombies and James' story is about a gang of Smashing Pumpkins-style hoods who crash a funeral home). But I found Hopkins "Dead Art," a beautifully written piece of edgy horror: is the tattooing of a woman's life on her dead body (which is then displayed in clear acrylic) a tribute or a travesty?

Navarro's "Remembering What He Was" seems like the depiction of a robber being seduced by the robbee at the outset, but it reveals itself as something far different, and more disturbing. And Tem's "Close To You," takes those cliched lover-spoken lines to their inevitable (in a horror story) extreme.

With its second issue, Bones (which was renamed at the press due to title conflict as Bones of the children) will be renamed again and restructured. Due in late winter/early spring, Wetbones will be released. The horror-on-the-edge content will be retained, but the comic book art and large size will be replaced by a digest format. With Guran's editorial vision, it should remain a magazine to watch (and to deluge with submissions!).

Copyright © 1997 by John Everson. All Rights Reserved.