Fanzine focus: ‘bare*bones’

I came across a fanzine titled bare*bones, which is devoted to “unearthing vintage, forgotten, and overlooked horror/mystery/sci-fi/western/weird film – paperbacks – comics – pulp fiction – video.” It’s because of their inclusion of pulp fiction that I am covering them here.

For many, there are probably other material included in this zine that will be of interest, but as this blog is focused on pulp, that is what I will also focus on.

bare*bones has an interesting history, as this is a revival of this fanzine. The folks behind it started with The Scream Factory, which focused on all aspects of horror for 20 issues from 1988 to 1997. This was then replaced by the first version of bare*bones with its wider coverage from 1997 to 2001 with five issues (four digests and a double-sized magazine). You can get back issues, as well as a pair of “best of” volumes, for these older mags.

So far there are eight issues, all digest-size. They have color covers and black-and-white interiors, running about 100 pages.

bare*bones #1 (Winter 2020) has a cover focused on the TV adaption of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, which is a “fix-up” “novel” (not really) made up of a variety of short stories. These stories appeared in a variety of magazines, including Thrilling Wonder Stories, Super Science Stories, and Planet Stories. This ties to a great article on this. Pulp-adjacent articles include a look at some crime digests, one of Lin Carter‘s sword-and-sorcery books, and some hard-boiled/noir anthologies.

bare*bones #2 (Spring 2020) kicks off with a cover from The Spider (November 1940). This ties to S. Craig Zahler‘s article on The Spider where he looks at three novels. This will start a regular article by him in each issue, and he is most likely to do one on pulps. There is an article on a series of short stories by Richard Matheson (I Am Legend) called the Fort College series that appeared in pulp magazines. Again, for pulp-adjacent, we get articles on Shock Mystery Tales digest, The Sharpshooter numbered paperback series, and the Mike Shayne Mystery Digest.

bare*bones #3 (Summer 2020) has a Planet of the Apes cover tied to an article on the novelizations of the movies. The only thing pulp here is an interview with Walker Martin who collects pulps, both the magazines and cover artwork. And we get a black-and-white photo of a Rafael DeSoto recreation of a cover of The Spider. There’s more pulp-adjacent stuff on digests.

bare*bones #4 (Fall 2020) is a “Monster-Sized Super Special” focused on a trio of monster movies, Gorgo, Reptilicus, and Konga that were novelized by Monarch Books, part of Charlton Publications, and turned into comics by their Charlton Comics line. Nothing really pulp in this one.

bare*bones #5 (Winter 2021) only has one pulp item this time, an S. Craig Zahler article where he looks at a handful of pulp issues: two Weird Tales, a Terror Tales, and a couple of novels that first appeared in the pulps. Pulp-adjacent may be the article on The Whistler movies, based on the old-time radio show.

bare*bones #6 (Spring 2021) has a cover featuring Web Terror Stories, a 1960s digest that seemed inspired by the shudder pulps. There is an article that delves into its eight issues. The only real pulp item this time is S. Craig Zahler’s article of “quick takes” that includes some pulp: a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stores from Ballantine, The Doom That Came to Sarnath and Other Stories, and J. Allan Dunn‘s Bareheaded Castaways, reprinted by Murania Press. Carl Jacobi‘s Revelations in Black reprints several of his pulp sf and horror works.

bare*bones #7 (Summer 2021) comes under a Gold Key comicbook adaption of King Kong. We have a couple of pulp-related items. One is another of S. Craig Zahler’s articles on pulps. This time he looks at five specific pulp issues from Adventure, Strange Detective Tales, The Skipper, Operator #5, and G-8. And at The Blood ‘n’ Thunder Guide to Pulps. Another article looks at the Stuart Gordon movie adaptions of H.P. Lovecraft stories.

bare*bones #8 (Fall 2021), again, has several good articles, but nothing explicitly pulp. Pulp-adjacent may be the article on Sleuth Mystery Magazine digest.

Understand that I enjoyed all these issues and will most likely do longer reviews on Amazon for each issue. But as this blog is focused on pulp, that is what I have focused on here. Sorry, but despite what some believe, digest magazines and sleazy paperbacks are not pulp.

There are several explicitly pulp-focused articles here, and there are other articles many may enjoy as well. So do check them out and see if there are articles of interest. All these can easily be obtained from Amazon or other retailers, and are not costly. #9 (Winter 2022) is out and I plan on getting it. From the description, there are some pulp-related pieces.  I look forward to it.