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NOVEMBER

NOVEMBER 28

Report by Judi Rohrig
DECEMBER DELICACIES LIGHTS THE DARK
For the past seven years, Burbank's bookstore Darl Delicacies has presented its traditional charity offering. Two years ago, it was THE HORROR WRITERS COOKBOOK. This year, it's THE ALTRUSITIC ALPHABET, edited by "Gomez and Morticia" Howison. This book features the talents of 40+ horror writer and artists including
Jack Ketchum w/ Michel Gagne,
Kelly Laymon w/ gak,
Peter Straub w/ Brad Canby,
Whitley Strieber w/ Jhonen Vasquez,
George Clayton Johnson w/ Eric Pigors,
P. D. Cacek w/ Bernie Wrightson,
Karen Taylor w/ Russ Jones,
Todd McIntosh w/ Clive Barker,
and many others! Proceeds from this year's project will benefit the Shriners Hospitals for Children, a unique organization that provides free medical care for children with orthopaedic disabilities or burns. Through the Shriners' hospitals, there is no fee to either the children or their families, no payment or insurance of any kind is accepted, nor does the hospital accept government grants, state or other agency funding.

On Sunday, December 2, at 2:00 p.m., Dark Delicacies will be hold a big kick-off signing and fundraising party, and a number of the contributors will be there to sign copies of the book. Please note that while the proceeds from the sale of this book go to children, the book is not intended for children. Says Del Howison: "Dark Delicacies has not lost its roots in this age of political correctness. This is a fun book with a strong message to help where help is needed. Some of the original artwork is up for auction on the Dark Delicacies website, www.darkdel.com, with the proceeds going to the same charity."

The book is $19.95 and may be ordered online if you are unable to attend that day but would like to order the book (there is a $4.00 S&H charge). You can order via email to: darkdel@darkdel.com or via telephone tollfree at (888) darkdel.

(That damn Del always figures out a way to get free advertising from me. Dang his ornery hide! -feo)

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NOVEMBER 26

KCONLINE EXPLAINS
A few days ago, (November 21 report)in an article called "KCOnline Kneels To Censorship?", we published Shane Staley's announcement of the troubles he was having with his website/company, Delirium Books, and his web server company, KCOnline.

Shane has now sent us a follow-up letter from KCOnline which explains their position, as well as well as the "complaint" letter tha started it all from a person calling themselves, "Ed Grimm".

The following is the letter from someone claiming to be the "Real" Ed Grimm".

As someone who actually IS Ed Grimm, I wish you to remove this biography and all works attributed to me immediately. I'm certain that virtually every other real Ed Grimm out there would wish the same, if only they knew. When one is making a pen name, and publishing online, it's generally considered a good idea to check to see if the name is in use first; Ed Grimm happens to be fairly heavily in use, and therefore not a good pen name for any type of litterary (sic) work.

Ed

A search through several different books on writing and the creation of pen names turned up absolutely no mention of the "generally considered good idea" in seeing if the name is in use first. No doubt "Marilyn Monroe", "Ed Grimsley", "Madonna", "Richard Bachman", "Marilyn Manson", and "Alice Cooper" have a lot to be held accountable for. There is probably someone somewhere in the world named Feo Amante (though why anyone would name their kid "Ugly Lover" is beyond me), who is already preparing a lawsuit. For the record, my own pen name is from a girlfriend's pet-name for me (That's right, she said it in love...?) - and I'm keeping it!

Shane Staley, after getting harrassing emails from Ed Grimm repeatedly for about a week, was sent this letter from KCOnline.

Shane,

After Mr. Grimm's rather ridiculous complaint about "name-theft" last week, I was inspired to take some time and actually look at your site.

Unfortunately, I need to ask you to remove your website from our server since you are breaking the rules of our User Agreement:

Your content is of an adult nature, which is not acceptable on our servers. Because of the nature of your business, I don't imagine there is much chance that you will be changing your content, so the website needs to live somewhere else where adult content is allowed to be stored.

You can view the User Agreement governing your use of KC Online at http://www.kconline.com/support/user_agreement.html. Paragraph 16 deals with webspaces and website content.

I will remove your website sometime on Friday so that you will have time to download all your content and store it locally (if you don't already have it saved on your computer).

--

Lamar Peugh KC Online System Administration - sysadmin@kconline.com

So be on the lookout folks. It only takes one person to shut you down. If you find this censorship repugnant, then you need to find the time out of your busy schedule to address these problems whenever you are confronted with them. KCOnline has every right to enforce their rules they way they see fit. My problem with them stems from the fact that they are enforcing this rule in an act of bowing down to someone, who they admit has a ridiculous complaint, and ruining the livelihood of many.

There is nothing visually pornographic at delirium books and though the gross-out writing contest has become disgusting (though no less disgusting than the children's animated movie Osmosis Jones - which prides itself on being "Extra disgusting"), there is certainly nothing titillating about the writing there. Shane admits, however, that he had similar problems with tripod.com just the year before. The day may already be on us where online free speech - that in no way supports or endorses pornography - may only find a home on the servers of pornography companies.

This situation would have been far better handled had Lamar Peugh of KCOnline issued a warning with a reminder. That would have been fair. As it is, KCOnline is knowingly bowing down to ridiculous complaints.

Consider this before trusting your business to KCOnline.

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NOVEMBER 23

From Stealth Press
NO STORM, BUT GROWING NICELY
We launched Stealth Press last November 1. At the time, there was a great deal of ballyhoo about e-books. Most of that has died down and there's some very interesting redaction going on about e-publishing among the so-called experts. Print evidently is not dead after all and e-books are not quite taking the world by storm yet. Well, we knew that, didn't we?

Stealth hasn't stirred up as much of a storm as we would have liked in the last year. We've had to revise a lot of our thinking on many subjects and, frankly, we've had to gain an education while on-the-job.

But one thing remains the same: our e-book philosophy. We think they are great. We love giving them away and using them for promotion. Paula gets to vent her creativity in producing them (and is slowly beginning to figure out what she's doing.) We intend to keep publishing our e-freebies as long as they seem to be reaching readers. (And with over 13,000 downloads of the ALL HALLOWS-E antho in less than one month, we suspect they are.) We think there's a future for e-books -- but they aren't going to replace or even threaten real books with real pages any more than paperbacks took the place of hardcovers.

Maybe we've become so used to rapid change in technology in the last decade or so, we expect revolutions to occur almost immediately. Sometimes the first sentences of history *are* written with lightening speed, but the complete story takes a bit longer. And there are risks involved. Gutenberg completed his press using movable metal type in 1450. Five years later he was bankrupt. Nevertheless, fifty years later there were 1000 printing shops in Europe which had produced 35,000 titles and 20 million copies of books.

It may not take 50 years for e-books to catch on or for some of our ideas at Stealth about publishing and the Internet to become completely workable, but it won't happen overnight. We suspect we all still have some learning to do, too!

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NOVEMBER 21

Report from Shane Staley
KCONLINE KNEELS TO CENSORSHIP?
It is with great regret that I have to announce that once again Delirium Books' website will be taken off its host server due to what the host's administration has termed Graphic Material, unsuitable for their web presence. Their decision was tipped off by a complaint about the website. This comes almost a year from when Tripod shut Delirium's website down for the same reason.

KC Online, which is currently the host server, is my only means of access to the internet, the only local dial-in number to be used in the area I reside, so this makes for a difficult decision. The administration has reviewed the site and highlighted both the e-zine and Gross-Out Tournament as unsuitable for their server, as well as certain message boards directly linked to the Delirium site.

After careful consideration, I've decided to do the following:

A revamped Delirium website will go in effect in approximately one week after the discontinuance of the KC Online-hosted site, which is scheduled to be removed this Friday, Nov. 23, 2001. It will be placed onto another server, minus the Gross-Out Tournament and e-zine which will, unfortunately, have to be cancelled in the future. The current Gross-Out Tournament will remain active, but will be moved to an interim website: http://www.members.tripod.com/deliriumbooks. This extension of the site will only contain the gross-out tournament until its end and then will be removed permanently.

In regards to the annual Gross-Out Tournament, there will be a new set of guidelines circulating shortly about a a new anthology / extreme story competition that will involve being published in print next year instead of being associated with an e-zine. The same award will still apply which is a $1,500 original sculpture made by Robert Blair. Instead of votes from readers on the website, next year's contest will be decided by actual judges.

In regards to Delirium Magazine, and due to the problems with publishing extreme material online, I've decided to cancel it.

I apologize to everyone that this will affect, but these are decisions that had to made and had to made quickly. I can't afford to be changing servers every year, just because some idiot wants to complain. And I do think it is unfair of KC Online and others to censor in such a way, to cripple a business on the whim of a lousy complaint. I could go on and on about this, but it wouldn't make a difference, and, anyway, I'm looking at a ton of work ahead of me just to make these changes...

Meanwhile, the domain name www.deliriumbooks.com will stay active and will link to the new server, whichever one that might be. There may be a few days of downtime until the domain name can link to the new server, so please be patient and keep checking back by typing in the domain name.

FeoNote: For those who may wish to inquire about company rules and policies at KCOnline, they can be found at http://www.kconline.com/, http://www.kconline.net, and http://www.kconline.org.

Or visit them in person at:
KC Online, Inc.
401 Kings Hwy
Winona Lake, IN 46590
Or you can reach them at:
(TEL) 219-267-1480
(FAX) 219-268-2120

Their domain servers are:

NS.KCONLINE.COM 216.241.132.3
NS2.KCONLINE.COM 216.241.132.2

kconline.com runs their servers on Apache/1.3.20 (Unix) on FreeBSD
kconline.net runs their servers on Apache/1.3.19 (Unix) mod_perl/1.26 on FreeBSD
kconline.org runs their servers on Apache/1.3.19 (Unix) mod_perl/1.26 on FreeBSD

We will continue to report on this issue as the story develops.

Report by Judi Rohrig
QUICK BITE
November 23
WESTLAKE, MI - Steve Lee Climer will signing books at Waldenbooks in Westland Mall from noon to 4:00 p.m.

November 30 BERKLEY, CA - Cody's Books on Telegraph Ave. will host a signing for Clive Barker at 7:30 p.m.

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NOVEMBER 19

From the Epitaphs newsletter
THIS IS TOM'S WORLD
Leisure has accepted Tom Piccirilli's novel THE NIGHT CLASS and will be reprinting the book in mass market paperback October 2002. What's more, the novel will have 10,000 more words than its limited edition Hardcover brother. Tom says the paperback will have no new characters or scenes, but "an enhanced horrific atmosphere."

Seems Cemetery Dance will be taking CAST IN DARK WATERS for their novella line. This strange action-adventure-horror tale was co-written with Ed Gorman, and tells of a female pirate in the early 18th Century who is haunted by her dead husband as she seeks to save a young woman trapped on an island where demons supposedly roam. Tom assures us that, "Despite its pulpish elements, this one is actually played pretty straight and is full of Caribbean myths and lore, along with a historical edge."

And if you are a hardcore Piccirilli fan, you'll find his short story "Those Vanished I Recognize" in Dennis Etchison's MUSEUM OF HORRORS (the HWA anthology). One of Leisure's first hardback books, this work also contains fiction by Peter Straub, Richard Laymon, Joyce Carol Oates, Ramsey Campbell, Charles L. Grant, Peter Atkins, Melanie Tem, plus many more.

His dark fantasy tale "City of Dog" now up at the premium section of Gothic.net.

His tale "Water Music for the Tillers of Soil" appears in the Chaosium anthology SONG OF CTHULHU edited by Stephen Mark Rainey.

Tom's story "A Square Wedge of Vanilla" is at Darkfluidity.com.

Another piece "A Whisper of Dead Whiskers" is slated for DEAD CATS BOUNCING, an anthology being brought out from Bedlam Press, co-edited by GAK and Gerard Houarner, based on the concept for their acclaimed original chapbook DEAD CAT BOUNCE.

Of course, you'd know all of this if you just visited his site at: TomPiccirilli.com.

Report by Judi Rohrig
QUICK BITES
JACKSON, MS - Author Andrew Vachss will be appearing at Lemuria, 202 Banner Hall at 5:30 p.m.

WAYNE, MI - Steve Lee Climer will be appearing at the Wayne Public Library from 7-9 p.m. for a reading and signing.

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NOVEMBER 16

Report by Christos N. Gage
BARKER & MCFARLANE'S TORTURED SOULS
Clive Barker (HELLRAISER) and Todd McFarlane (SPAWN) have signed a deal with Universal Pictures to create a movie based on their "Tortured Souls" line of action figures.

Titled "Clive Barker's Tortured Souls & Animae Damnatae", the limited edition figures were manufactured and released by McFarlane Toys earlier this year. Each of the six "Agnoistes, Lucidique, Mongroid, Scythe-Meister, Talisac, and Venal Anatomica" came packaged with a chapter of an original horror novella by Barker that explained their world and origins. Presumably this novella will serve as the basis for the film.

A treatment is currently being written by Barker, though there is no word yet on whether he will write the screenplay as well.

Report by Christos N. Gage
SILVESTRI'S INFERNO
Later this month, Top Cow comics will release INFERNO, a comic that marks company founder Marc Silvestri's return to drawing a regular series. The premise is that Earth is being threatened by an invasion from Hell, and the military wants to send in a team of operatives to fight back. The only catch is that, to enter Hell, your soul has to be damned.

So the team is assembled from the dregs of the military prison system; sort of a horror DIRTY DOZEN. Interestingly, the project began as a pitch for a movie brought in to Top Cow's film division, and word is INFERNO is being developed as a film at the same time it is being done as a comic, with ideas from one medium making their way into the other and vice versa. Nice high concept, could be interesting, expect a review as soon as the first issue is released in late November.

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NOVEMBER 12

WELCOME FANBOY!
Newcomer, Christos N. Gage, a long time fan of the site could not bear to watch the Comics page die, so he has decided to take it over:

Christos N. Gage is a screenwriter and member of the Writer's Guild of America, West. His produced feature film credits in the horror/suspense genre include HBO Films' CREATURE FEATURES: TEENAGE CAVEMAN, directed by Larry Clark and starring Andrew Keegan, and Sony/Screen Gems' THE BREED, starring Adrian Paul, Bokeem Woodbine, and Ling Bai. Scripts in development include an adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's classic sci-fi novel RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA for Morgan Freeman's Revelations Films (the latter two co-written with his partner and wife, Ruth Fletcher Gage). He holds a Master's Degree in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute (AFI) and a BA from Brown University. He's been reading comics since the age of three, and started collecting with Marvel's GODZILLA series back in the 1970s. He knew it was time to propose to his wife when she gave him the original cover art to Godzilla #10 for Christmas. You just don't let a woman like that get away.

Hi, I'm Chris Gage, and I'll be the new captain of this electronic Flying Dutchman known as Feo Amante's Comics Page. Who the hell am I? Well, I'm a screenwriter and lifelong comics fan living in L.A. I ran across the mighty Feo Amante site when I heard it contained a nice mention of a movie I wrote (with my wife Ruth) called THE BREED (to be reviewed later this year -feo).

I wrote Eddie to thank him for the kind words and we got to talking, as fanboys are wont to do. When I found out the comics section of the site was about to go under, I decided I couldn't let that happen, and with a trembling hand, took on the moldy mantle of Fanboy of Fear! So, here I am, feeling like Martin Sheen in APOCALYPSE NOW when he asks a soldier who the commanding officer is, and the guy replies, "Ain't you?"

So what can you expect? Lord, I wish I knew: I'm making this up as I go along. I know I won't live up to the high standard set by Mike, at least at first, but I hope to improve as I go. My goal is to update the site once a week, with news items of interest to horror comics fans and reviews of current books that fit the genre. I'll be pretty inclusive; for instance, I may cover crime/noir comics that lack a specific supernatural element. There will also be items from Feo's regular contributors.

My email address is: feoamantecomics@aol.com. I invite (beg and plead for) feedback; let me know what you'd like to see, what I'm doing right, and what I'm doing wrong. If you have information you think belongs on the site, by all means, send it along! Also contact me if you have review copies of horror comics you'd like me to check out. My policy is the same as Feo's on indie films: if I don't like an independent book, I probably just won't mention it at all; it's tough enough doing things on a budget, and a feat worthy of congratulations just getting it out there. I also prefer to focus on items that are deserving of praise rather than bash ones that suck (although you may see negative reviews of books from the big boys now and again, I figure they can take it). My ultimate goal is to help you decide what to spend your hard-earned credit card debt on, not to show how clever I am by tearing hard-working creative people a new orifice.

Folks, every year we lose more great talents of this industry, so when you're attending conventions, make sure you take a moment to thank them for what they've given us while you still have the chance.

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NOVEMBER 9

Report by Judi Rohrig
DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS!
People in the Austin, Texas, area can forget plucking that turkey for now as Thanksgiving comes early with two author events happening during the same weekend. The Sixth Annual Texas Book Festival opens Thursday, November 15, at the Texas State Capitol. Slated to attend for readings and signings are a number of authors including that man from Nacogdoches, Joe R. Lansdale, and his very good friend, Andrew Vachss. Both have new books to sign: for Lansdale, it's his latest Hap & Leonard mystery, CAPTAINS OUTRAGEOUS, while Vachss will put pen to title page on PAIN MANAGEMENT.

There's much more in store and many more authors scheduled for this event which lasts through Sunday, November 18. A complete schedule of events, authors, readings, and signings may be found at the website: austin360.com.

Meanwhile, November 16-18, finds the Fandom Association of Central Texas playing host to ArmadilloCon at the Hilton-North in Austin. Guest of Honor is J. Gregory Keyes, but the there's a well-rounded guestlist that includes Neal Barrett, Jr., Jack McDevitt, Elizabeth Moon, Michael Moorcock, Brian A. Hopkins, Bradley Denton, Rick Klaw, Michael Bracken, Bill Crider, and Judi Rohrig, among others. More information on specific panels, signings, and readings may be found at the website, fact.org.

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NOVEMBER 8

Report by Judi Rohrig
AND THE WINNER IS...
This past weekend of November 4 saw the World Fantasy Convention in Montreal, Canada and the Bouchercon in Washington, D.C. Here are the winners:

LIFE ACHIEVEMENT: Philip José Farmer and Frank Frazetta
NOVEL: (tie) DECLARE by Tim Powers (Subterranean Press; Morrow 2001) and GALVESTON by Sean Stewart (Ace)
NOVELLA: THE MAN ON THE CEILING, Steve Rasnic Tem & Melanie Tem (American Fantasy)
SHORT FICTION: THE POTTAWATOMIE GIANT by Andy Duncan (Sci Fiction 1 Nov 2000)
ANTHOLOGY: DARK MATTER: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora by Sheree R. Thomas, ed. (Warner Aspect)
COLLECTION: BELUTHAHATCHIE and Other Stories by Andy Duncan (Golden Gryphon)
ARTIST: Shaun Tan
SPECIAL AWARD, PROFESSIONAL: Tom Shippey (for J.R.R. TOLKIEN: Author of the Century, HarperCollins UK; Houghton Mifflin 2001)
SPECIAL AWARD, NON-PROFESSIONAL: Bill Sheehan (for AT THE FOOT OF THE STORY TREE: An Inquiry into the Fiction of Peter Straub, Subterranean Press)

Judges for this year's awards were Steven Erikson, Paula Guran, Diana Wynne Jones, Graham Joyce, and Jonathan Strahan.

Then at the Washington, DC, Bouchercon, these mystery writers went home fat and happy:

BEST NOVEL: PLACE OF EXECUTION by Val McDermid (St. Martin's Minotaur)
BEST FIRST NOVEL: DEATH OF A RED HEROINE by Qiu Xialong (SoHo Press)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL: DEATH DANCE TO A REGGAE BEAT by Kate Grilley (Berkley)
BEST SHORT STORY: THE PROBLEM OF THE POTTING SHED Edward D. Hoch (EQMM, July 2000)

Also named at Bouchercon were the Herodotus Awards (presented by the Historical Mystery Appreciation Society) for Historical Mysteries:

BEST SHORT STORY: "The Man Who Never Was" by Charles Todd (Malice Domestic 9, presented by Joan Hess, Avon Twilight)
BEST FIRST INTERNATIONAL: BONE HOUSE by Betsy Tobin (UK, Headline)
BEST FIRST US: THE BOTTOMS by Joe Lansdale (Mysterious Press)
BEST INTERNATIONAL: THE COMPANY: THE STORY OF A MURDERER by Arabella Edge (Australia, Pan Macmillan)
BEST US: A DANGEROUS ROAD by Kris Nelscott (St. Martin's)
And the Herodotus Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Historical Mysteries was awarded to LINDSEY DAVIS.

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NOVEMBER 2

THE REAL SOWERBUTT
13 year old British actor, Joe Sowerbutt (TURN OF THE SCREW), was paid L.205,422.43 or about $300,000 in U.S. currency for dubbing over the voice of Daniel Radcliffe who plays Harry Potter in the upcoming children's fantasy / thriller, HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE. This is Sowerbutt's second movie and second turn at a Horror / Thriller flick, so the lad has got a bright future before him. Normally this kind of news would be too mundane for Horror Movies, but any actor who would insist on keeping their real name of Sowerbutt, instead of some stage name, is clearly a person to be admired!

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NOVEMBER 1

THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE
Guillermo del Toro, director of CRONOS and MIMIC, is releasing a new Horror movie through Sony Pictures this year.

THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE takes place during the Spanish Civil War. A ten year old child, Carlos (Fernando Tielve), is taken in by a school that shelters orphans of the Republican militia and politicians. While there he gradually discovers the secret of the school's ghost.

The story within the school acts as an allegory for the war outside of its walls.

Guillermo recently wrapped up production on the hotly anticipated BLADE 2. THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE will be his fourth Horror movie and will open first in New York on November 21st and then later throughout the rest of the U.S.

Because the movie is released under the "Sony Classics" banner, THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE will be shown in original Spanish with English subtitles. I know that the majority of us Horror fans without artistic affectations prefer a decent voice dubbed track, but there you have it.

del Toro is also working on a fifth Horror movie, HELLBOY and has been recognized both by CNN and Time Magazine as one of the fifty young leaders for the coming millennium.

So way to go G'! Make us proud!

LETS BURN THAT FATTY PAST WITH EXORCISE!
Liam Neeson (DARKMAN), who nearly quit showbiz after making back to back crap with Steven Spielberg's THE HAUNTING and George Lucas STAR WARS I, is back in the saddle and back to Horror. Liam inked a deal with Warner Bros. to star as a younger Father Merrin in the upcoming, but untitled, Exorcist movie. This one is a prequel, focusing on Father Merrin as a young lad, or at least as young as Liam Neeson can be in the role made famous by Max Von Sydow.

Liam will be 50 years old when he plays the role, making him six years older than Max was when he hit the screens with The Exorcist in 1973. Then again, Sydow was "aged" with excellent award-winning make-up by Dick Smith.

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