Roll on 2008

Well I've just got back from an extremely wonderful Christmas in Joburg.
One of the only downsides of living in CT is that most of my childhood friends and family are still up in Joburg, though I am trying to get them to move down here.
Trips to Joburg are usually insanely busy running around trying to squeeze in hundreds of meetings and business related crap - but this time around there was nothing at all to do except chil and hang out with family and friends.
The most seriously chilled 8 days I've had in a long time.

Of course the second I got back the panic hit - stories to read, acceptance/rejection letters to send out, artists to contact.... no rest for the wicked, hee hee.

But for today - repack magazine shelf, read some more of Alastair Reynold's Redemption Ark and probably do a little bit of Wicked admin.

Thanks again to all of you who have supported us through the last year - it has been amazing, and hard, and educational and fun.
2008 is gonna bring some changes the concept and distribution of Something Wicked - finances have finally necessitated serious action - and action there will be.
But for now, it's business as usual and I'd better get back to work.

I'll leave you with a picture of a disgruntled Sam, or Samta Claws :o)


Till later...
Joe

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Having missed last year's HorrorFest Finale of Terminatryx and Lark's original, live soundtrack to Nosferatu, I made damn sure I didn't miss this year's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. I'd only ever seen snippets of the film on YouTube and, like all 70+ year old black and white silent movies it looks cheesy, corny and quite silly. But all that changed on the 31st of Oct 2007. Watching a classic like Caligari in a darkened theatre with a live 21st Century soundtrack suddenly brings back the scale of this picture.

What a fucking masterpiece - instead of giggling at the screen I found myself suddenly entranced. Hanging on every (written) word. The score, composed and performed by Paul and Sonja from Terminatryx, Sean and Fuzzy from Lark and The Crackpot Realists was beautifully pieced together, altogether haunting and kickass with a combination of acoustic and electronic sounds with vocal contortions supplied by Sonja and one of the Crackpot Realists. What they manage to achieve is to completely revitalise this classic.

For the first time I found myself completely enthralled by a silent movie - marvelling at the stylistic approach to the film making, finding the obvious inspirations of such great genre directors as Tim Burton and Sam Raimi.
With their soundtrack they managed to make classic breathe again, resurrecting it for a new generation of film-makers to marvel at the magic of silver screen.
Rumour has it they might be doing Metropolis next year - I can't wait.

Check below for some clips from the night.
The First clip has been synced up with the actual video of Caligari.
Apologies for audio this was recorded on my phone :)

To Do List

For the week ending 18 Nov 2007

1. Fix/Upgrade and move Forum
2. Follow-up on writers who haven't replied to editorial questions
3. Pay Artists and Writers for Issue 5 content
4. Chase-up outstanding invoices for Issue 4 Ads that have not yet been paid
5. Work on story edits
6. Update website with Issue 5 Writers and Artists and Issue 4 Artists
7. Start reading Issue 6 Stories

... needless to say, there will be more later.

Keep It Coming

Well busy-ness seems to be the theme for now.
We've had an incredible 12 days since finishing off the mag.
Started by heading straight into the HorrorFest and watching waaaay many horror films and meeting up with fans and stuff.
The Halloween night live music performance to Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was spectacular - check back soon I'll upload some short clips from that.

But in the meantime came across this on my recent web-travels and just had to put it up.
This is Lark's Heroin Mary - one of my favourite songs of theirs. Enjoy the video.
Vianne and I were actually at this concert and it was foooking spectacular.
Enjoy the vid.

At The HorrorFest

Check it out, the guys from zoopy.com did a quick interview with me at the HorrorFest.

The Death of a Legend

I know this is a bit of a detachment from the regular crap on this blog, but bear with me.

I read this morning that Patrick Mynhardt died early yesterday.
The man was a living legend. An actor through and through and one of the best this country has ever seen. I did not know him personally, though I had the honour of reading opposite him for an audition a few months ago.

Many of you might know him better as Oom Schalk Lourens in theatre shows such as A Sip of Jerepigo, More Jerepigo, Just Jerepigo, Cold Stone Jug and Another Sip of Jerepigo all based upon Herman Charles Bosman's short stories. Others might remember from Vyfster or even Suburban Bliss.
Patrick was the Laurence Olivier of the SA stage. The man was a fucking legend.

And as all legends must go, Patrick died this morning in London where he was performing his Boy From Bethulie one-man-show.
As someone said, "he died with his boots on."

After studying at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, he joined the National Theatre Organisation in 1953 as an actor and started touring the country, according to his website, PatrickMynhardt.com. In 1954, he left for London where he trained at the Central School of Drama.

Performing on stage and for the BBC in Britain, he worked with such luminaries as Peter Sellers, Burt Lancaster, Anthony Quinn, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole, Michael Caine and Judi Dench. At the end of 1960 he returned to South Africa.

In a 2002 interview with SouthAfrica.info he said he had no plans to retire. "Retire? What would I do? I can do nothing but talk shit," he said.

He added: "I just wanted to be a wonderful actor. Forget about regrets. If you've achieved your great desire in life, what else matters?"

- Mail & Guardian Online

I salute you sir, it was an honour to have known your work.
All hail the king.

The Coming Horror

So the HorrorFest starts tomorrow and I must admit I am really looking forward to it. Paul's managed to organised some awesome movies this year.
Particularly I'm looking forward to watching Alien on the big screen for the first time ever.
Many of us have seen the Ridley Scott classic so many times but most of us grew up with it on video. This will be my first time on the big screen.
I can't wait.

Of course the really exciting thing will be doing our first ever Cover Signing sessions on Saturday when our Issue 4 & 5 cover artists, Jesca and Vincent join us at the festival.
Issue 5 actually arrived today from the printers and it is really beautiful.
We were a little worried because we've completely re-designed the layout of the mag and I had no idea what it would look like printed. So huge relief all round. It really does look great.
If you haven't seen them already check out these sneak-peeks of the interior:

Bone Fire by Evan Morris with illustrations by Vincent Sammy

Hungry Whispers by David de Beer with illustrations by Kobus Faber

Auburn House by Stewart Langdon with illustrations by Nicolas Rix

Anyway... absolutely exhausted so I gotta go get some reading done and then sleep.
More tomorrow

Issue 5 - The Infinite Deadline

Wow...
Issue 5 is done and was signed off this morning.
It was, without a doubt, the hardest deadline we've pulled to date. A combination of dozens of stories to go through, awesome art to commission and a complete overhaul of the design and layout pushed this one a lot longer than we expected.

We were hoping to finish it off by Monday or maybe Tuesday at the latest... I finally delivered the pdfs to the printer at 11am on Thursday morning, having done 23 hours straight.

It kinda turned into the never-ending deadline.
We're used to pulling all-nighters on the final night of deadline - what we weren't expecting was the final night to go on for four days.

As a result I've got myself completely sick. My head hurts, my nose is blocked and for some strange reason I can't actually hear out of my right ear - which is infuriating and makes me feel like a tool whenever I'm talking to people.
And V has a week's worth of deadlines to catch up on for the other 3 publications she writes for, so she hasn't actually stopped working - she just put down her pen from Something Wicked and went straight into the 6-odd articles she was supposed to submit this week.... sheesh.

But... Was it worth it?
I think so. I did the ritualistic hanging up of the new cover on the wall next to the other 4 and it looks good. The new layout, I think, looks absolutely gorgeous. The logo, too, looks good and we've got some beautiful art and fiction - so...hopefully it was worth it.

We launch it next week Saturday at the HorrorFest and hopefully people will turn up. It's always a little petrifying doing an event like this 'cause you just don't know if anyone will show up.
I've invited some of the artists and writers of Issue 5 to join us and sign some copies so it should be a fun day.
Afterwards we'll stick around and watch some Horror Movies at the fest.

I was thinking of getting some Champagne or something - I don't know - it is our one year anniversary, we really should do something special but I don't know how well Champagne will go down in 30 degree Cape Town heat... any suggestions?

Meanwhile, here's a little pic our good friend and Something Wicked alumni, Digby C Young took of V and I on the first night of the four-night deadline.
The reason I'm on the couch is because my incredibly comfortable 500 buck office chair was beginning to screw up my back so I moved down there for the last few days. (I'm back at my desk now, in case you're wondering).

rAge - Gaming Convention 2007

Wow...it's been an insane couple of weeks.
I seem to always start these blogs with those lines...
Anyway.

We've been travelling again, this time just up to Joburg for 12 days for rAge, the biggest gaming convention in SA, which was held from the 28th to the 30th of September.

We had an absolute blast there, though it was utterly exhausting. So many people, so little time.
Thanks to our friends at Comic Worx and AnimeWorx we managed to obtain a last minute table from which to plug our wares. And plug we did.

We sold a ton of our new T-Shirts and sold-out of all the Issue 1 stock we took with us, (we have less than 20 left so buy yours now!!!)

We'd also like to thank all the subscribers, fans and artists who popped down to say hello - we always love meeting our fans and artists.

Artist Joe Doe popped in and surprised both Vianne and I by offering us two of her original artworks.
Wow, what an amazing gift - we were completely blown away.

Artist Joe Doe and Vianne at rAge



For those of you who couldn't make it, remember we'll be at the HorrorFest at Labia on Orange from the 26th of October with a brand new Issue 5 - Our One Year Anniversary Issue . And to commemorate the even we've asked Issue 1 cover artist Vincent Sammy to do our Issue 5 cover.

Wait till you see it!!!

Meanwhile enjoy some more of our pics from rAge:Lauren from Mephisto

Robyn - proud owner of an Issue 4 T-Shirt by Jesca Marisa

Short Story Competition

To celebrate our One-Year Anniversary we're holding another Short Story Competition.

We're giving away a R1000 cash prize to 1st place as well as great prizes to 2nd and 3rd place.

Rules:

• Stories must be under 2500 words in length and can be about anything as long as they are Science-Fiction and scary, suspenseful, supernatural... etc.
• Only Email entries will be accepted and all entries should be attached as a Word Doc and emailed to scaryscifi@somethingwicked.co.zaThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it - with SHORT STORY COMPETITION in the subject line - the usual Submission Guidelines apply.
• Please include your name and contact details with your entry. We will be unable to process stories without contact information.
• Deadline is Midnight (GMT) on the 1st of December 2007
• Entrants must be resident in South Africa
  
• Judges Decisions will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Start Writing Now!!!

A Month and a Half in The Life... Part 1 - Icon

Where to begin...
It's been awhile since I last wrote in here, but rest assured there are good reasons.

I guess we should start where we left off.
After the book fair we got down to emergency stations to try and get Issue 4 ready on deadline - which we failed, but on the up-side we did get a whole bunch of flyers, business cards and T-Shirts printed up and launched headlong into Icon Role Playing Convention where Outer Limits kindly allowed us to set-up shop for three days.

It was a hell of a weekend as I hadn't been up in Joburg in over 6 months and Vianne and I arrived with less than 24 hours to set up our stand.
So throughout the weekend I had friends and relatives dropping by to say hello and welcome me back to Gauteng.
We also had a few visits from contributors. Amongst those to drop by were Miranda Sherry (writer of Bad Boy Blues - Issue 3), Domenico Pisanti (writer of She Wrote at Night - Issue 1), C Hellisen (writer of The Subtle Thief - Issue 4) and Digby C. Young, (writer of On The Road Again - Issue2).
We also got Digby to autograph his story for Zoobeans from Comicworx, who is a huge fan and was thrilled to meet him.
Another surprise visitor to our stand was DaRC from Otaku who bought a copy of every issue.

All in all it was an absolute blast and wonderful to meet so many of our contributors and fans and to have new fans buy Issue 1 on the Friday and come back to buy the others on the Saturday 'cause they'd finished it already.
The T-Shirts were a great success and I'll put them up for sale in our Online Store very shortly.Above: Our Official Something Wicked T-Shirts - For Sale Soon.
Left: Some fans pose for us.
Right:Vianne makes a sale.

Cape Town Book Fair - Day 3

Well...Day 3 and for me the last day.

It's been an amazing, and exhausting, experience.
It was lovely to meet so many of our readers and fans and also to discover that the name Something Wicked has been reaching out beyond the obvious circles.

I joined up with the writing team behind the animated tv-series Pax Afrika, Lauren Beukes (author of Exhibitionist - Issue 3), Sarah Lotz and Sam Wilson again to do a talk on Sci-Fi, fantasy and horror to a bunch of school kids, which was wonderful and fun and inspiring.

Made a few more important contacts and hopefully secured the way for some viable alternative distribution channels.

Well that's all from us for now, catch us next at the Icon Games Convention in Joburg on the weekend of the 13th of July.
We'll put up more info soon.
Thanks again to all those who stopped us and said hi, we really do love meeting the fans, and an extra special thanks to the Reader's Den guys who have been flying our flag and gave us somewhere to sell stock at the expo.
Joe


PS Remember Reader's Den will be at the fair for one more day and you can still pick up your isues of Something Wicked at stand G16

Cape Town Book Fair - Day 2

Joe's Book Fair Diary - Day 2, 17 June 2007

My feet...oh god, my feet...

The day started out way too early as I crawled out of bed at 11am, still recovering from yesterday's ordeals - we of the freelancing fraternity don't do well with early mornings.
I rushed down to the Fair to make my 12pm discussion on Pratchett and was quite concerned when at 11:56 I still hadn't spotted my co-speaker, scriptwriter for Pax Afrika, Sam Wilson.
I looked around nervously, thinking that perhaps he had decided to sacrifice me to gods of bad speakers. I was just about to start looking for the nearest hole to exit through when I looked back up at the Science Fiction stand and noticed that he had mysteriously materialised at the stand - with him was Dr. Jesicca Tiffin, lecturer of English at UCT.

The talk went great, now that Sam and I were backed up by someone of real intelligence. We babbled our way through Pratchett's unique brand of comic-fantasy, parosy and post-mordernism, (don't ask me, I have no idea) and the crowd seemed genuiningly interested, with loads of vehement head-nodding as they agreed with everything we said. At one point I was almost mistaken for the man himself as some, not-too-clued-up reporter asked a fan which one of us was Pratchett.

The crowd looks on in disbelief as Sam, Jessica and I, Pratchett on about Terry

After the talk I once again forgot to mention to the large crowd that Something Wicked is for sale at the Reader's Stand and that we are giving away a signed Stephen King book. I decided to punish myself for my lack of foresight by standing outside the Reader's Den stand for the next 45 minutes handing out flyers while announcing the King news loudly - you're right, I have no shame.

After couple of hours of walking around the fair looking for publishers and/or printers to speak to I realised that all the publisher's stalls are simply shops and that there isn't actually anyone there who could answer questions.

With my feet about ready to detach themselves from my ankles and run away to soak themselves in a hot tub, I decided to come home for the day.

I now have ten minutes to get dressed and get back to the Fair for another Sci-Fi, Fantasy talk on Nix, Pullman and, (for some obscure reason) King. Wish me luck.
Check you later.

Greg Hamerton poses with the latest copy of Something Wicked and his new book, The Riddler's Gift

Cape Town Book Fair - Day 1

Joe's Book Fair Diary - Day 1, 16 June 2007

Well having just barely survived day 1 of the Cape Town Book Fair I returned home heart-warmed and overwhelmed at the day's events.

First up I was asked to join a discussion on Fantasy Literature, featuring brand new up-and-coming fantasy author Greg Hamerton, as well as winner of last years Short-Story comp, Sarah Lotz . It turned out to be a huge amount of fun and garnered us some new fans and some face-to-face contact with some of our old fans.

To all the readers who came by and said hello, thank you, it really means a lot to us when we meet the fans. Our job is very quiet and isolated, so these opportunities we have to interact with you guys are always great.

After having spent the day running around and accosting media representatives, chatting to writers, artists and readers we finished up at the official launch of Mamba #5.

Cartoonists Zapiro, Stephen Francis, Rico and others were on hand to congratulate Andy Mason on the fifth issue of his inspiring Mamba. Books were sold, cards were swapped and free booze was inbibed.

Some of the awesome South African Produced Comics, Mags and Graphic Novels featured at the Mamba Launch.

We were also thrilled to bump into Jesca Marisa, the phenomenal artist who illustrated Sarah Lotz 's winning story Perfect Man in Issue 1 . Jesca has also done the coer for Issue 4 of Something Wicked.

Our very own Vianne (left) discusses the finer points of promoting local art and literature to Issue 4 cover artist Jesca Marisa standing on the right. Notice the brand new copy of Something Wicked Issue 3 sticking out of her bag. Trying to look nonchalant is Damon Berry - reader of Evan Morris' The Breeding Season Podcast.

Tomorrow promises to be another insane day, and hopefully I'll see more of you.

I've been asked to join in on a Terry Pratchett discussion at 12 midday at the Science Fiction Stand (L6). After which I will be walking around meeting fans and trying to get new ones. Come on down, it's always great to meet you guys.
Cheers.

Oh So Cold...

Well Winter seems to be here for real.
We've all had temperatures drop like a stone in SA in the last week but, as South Africans, we always hold on to the belief that it's just a "cold snap" and that everything will be back to normal soon enough.
It's a strange quirk of South Africans, we never fully admit that it has gotten cold. Most of us will walk around freezing in T-shirts while refusing to deal with the onset of Winter. We spend weeks saying things like "it'll pass in a few days". We're the most unprepared nation when it comes to cold, though with temperatures dropping to -3 a couple of weeks ago things did get a little too cold.

Joburg Two Weeks Ago

It's not unique to us though, I've seen the Brits do it to, but in reverse. I've spent weeks in London with temperatures soaring into the upper 30's (centigrade) and the moment there is half-an-hour of rain the Brits are hanging their heads and going, "Well, that's it for Summer, another miserable year".

Well thank God the "cold snap" was partly over last week as I had to go up to Joburg for a commercial shoot - a night shoot.
Two nights in a petrol station working from 4pm til 6am. Now that wasn't fun.
Well... I say that wasn't fun but it actually was. As most of you know I am an insomniac so working through the night is no big deal for me, and though it was damn cold, (dropping to about 2 above zero), it is always so much fun to be on a set.

One of the highlights for me was having to drive a car with a camera mounted on the bonnet. I didn't have to go too far, just around the parking lot, but it was tremendously silly and fun.
On the left here is what I had to look through while driving. It was a little daunting but then I figured the Director and Crew wouldn't actually allow me to drive into a wall so I just drove and the second the 1stAD shouted "cut" I would hit the brakes.
Like I said before, it is a very silly job.


Check out what it looks like with the full gear mounted and the car moving.



So that was Wednesday and Thursday night last week.
Back in Cape Town now and it seems the beautiful weather vanished the second I landed, oh well, Winter it is...bring it on.

The Quiet of Grey

A soothing, quiet early winter seems to have encroached on the Cape. My Mountain has been removed completely and the tree outside my window seems to be buzzing with bird life. A wonderful stillness has come over the place.
Am I sounding corny?

I don't know, after having lived in the UK for four years I must admit that I am not a huge fan of winter and of being cold, but down here it is just so beautiful. Cape Town seems to have a party pulse that kicks 24 hours a day, so when it covers up with grey you get... a peace and solitude that is often missing.
And more importantly, it's not that cold :o)

In my wanderings through MySpace I recently came across Inge Beckmann's page.
For those of you who don't know, she is the lead singer of the phenomenal band, Lark, and though I'm a huge fan of the band, I had no idea she had a solo project going on the side.
Her ability to manipulate her voice like an instrument stirs up memories of Kate Bush, and though Lark's music tends more towards electro-pop (with a dark Nine Inch Nails influence), her solo stuff makes me think of the haunting sounds of Goldfrapp.
She creates glorious soundscapes of voice and instrument, a blend so seamless that it leaves you in doubt as to where one begins and the other ends.

Moving along, the outstanding and mind-numbing series Heroes starts on SABC3 next week Wednesday (23 May 20:31) .
For all the publicity they've given it one would be forgiven for thinking the SABC has decided to actively hide the fact that they are about to screen one of the best series ever made.
Don't let their ineptitude put you off. This really is the television scoop of the decade for our little National broadcaster.
Do Not Miss This Show!

I'd better stop waffling and get back to publishing a magazine.
Enjoy
Joe

What a fortnight!

Well, Issue 3 has hit the shelves and the first few complimentary emails have started to trickle through.
I was planning to go into a deep hibernation for a couple of weeks post finishing off Issue 3, to de-stress and calm down to a mild panic after the usual hysteria that is deadline week, (week before going to print).
As it turned out, it was not to happen.

A good friend and indie-filmmaker partner, Digby Young, (author of On The Road Again - printed in Issue 2), called me up less than 4 hours after having handed over Issue 3 to the printers, to inform me that he was flying down from Joburg in four days to handle the Cape Town leg of castings for a new 7-part HBO mini-series about the Iraqi war and would I be available to be a reader - help read opposite the actors who are auditioning for the parts.
I of course said "absolutely, no problem".

I spent the weekend putting up the brand-new Something Wicked Movies website and as I finished it he arrived with a pile of scripts for me.
We then spent Thursday-Sunday doing full days of castings for "Marines" and "Iraqis" followed by take-away pizza's and all-night editing, encoding and uploading sessions to send the audition clips through to LA for the Producers and Director to see.
We must've had about 16 hours sleep during that period. We were both delirious by 4am Monday morning.

I had enough time to flop down on my couch and go, "phew!" before I had to start delivering Issue 3 to retailers and posting off copies to subscribers and as soon as I finished that, Digs called me again to tell me the US Casting Director was personally flying to Cape Town to oversee the callbacks and could I be her driver and reader again. For those of you who don't know, a callback audition is basically the 2nd round of casting for the actors who were lucky enough to get through the first round.
So back to the grindstone. 8 am Saturday morning the rental car was delivered and by 9 I was on the road to the airport to pick her up, followed by a quick lunch and back to the casting studio.
I again spent the whole weekend casting followed by 3 am encoding and uploading of audition tapes.

Have I mentioned before how much I love my job? :o)
I really do, exhausted though I am, I have had the most spectacular couple of weeks.
I love reading in auditions and this script is so fucking good that it's a pleasure to be able to play around with the lines and help the actors deliver the best performance possible.
Meeting the Casting Director was also brilliant. It's not every day you get to sit and discuss movies and television with a double-Emmy Award-winning casting director.
In the meantime we bumped into Jason Ritter, (the wheelchair bound brother in Joan of Arcadia and son of the late John Ritter) at the Nelson's Eye.

Seriously though, it was an absolute blast.
I think I might going blind from fatigue, but hey, I'm fucking loving it!

Anyway, now I have to get some sleep because it seems I have used up my two-week holiday between Issues, which means I need to get started on Issue 4. I have about 35 story submissions (the most ever, with the exception of Issue 1's Short Story Competition) and I still don't have a theme for the mag.
I have to start going through movie news and trying to get pics and articles.
And most importantly I need to start developing a strategy to sell a bucket load of ads.

Thanks again to all the fans out there for your tremendous support, both by buying the magazine and by submitting to it. You guys have really kept us going through all the dark times, (and there have been many), I only hope I don't disappoint you.
Joe

Number 3 down.

If you're looking at the time of this post and thinking, "wow, this guys gets up early!", think again.
Due to the insane last minute rush of our print deadline I have become a bit nocturnal over the last few weeks and I've not managed to snap out of it yet.
Yes, we have finally finished Issue 3.
The proofs have been signed off and we should have them in our paws by Wednesday or Thursday this week, which means... you guys should have them in about 10-14 days (unless you're in Cape Town, Outer Limits, Reader's Paradise, Reader's Den and Subterania should, hopefully, have them in by Friday!)

Wow, man it's been an unbelievably hard issue and three very long, very trying months as for quite some time we really thought we wouldn't make it to print. Finances have all but dried up and only through the help of a benefactor did we managed to go to print at all.
But, having said that, it is a wopper of an issue. We've pretty much filled every square inch of the thing with articles, stories, reviews, interviews and beeeyyooooddiful art.
I think I'm happy with it.
I say I think, because to be honest, I've lived with this magazine for three months and I've only ever seen it on a computer screen (barring the proof but proofs always look like shit) so until Wednesday, when I can actually hold the finished product in my hands, I can't really be sure if I'm happy.
Strange I know, but I'm convinced that even through all the technology and computers that we have learnt to use in the last couple of decades, human beings aren't really capable of experiencing things virtually, we need an actual, tangible product in our hands to make it real.

On our Reader's Survey we asked if people would buy Something Wicked in pdf format if it were considerably cheaper and about 8 of 10 people said they wouldn't.
Makes you think.

Personally I much prefer paper. It was definitely one of the things that influenced me in creating Something Wicked as an actual publication instead of simply online. I feel the magic for me, and I'm sure the writers and artists, is to see your work up there on a magazine rack in a real shop, printed on real paper - I still get a thrill when I walk into a random store and see a copy of the magazine, (though, to be honest, most of the time I have to hunt for it under a pile of FHM's or Cosmo's).

So there you have it.
Go buy your copy now!!!
Thanks :)

Gogol Bordello

Ok so, not, as some of you may have been hoping for, a Something Wicked related post but another arb peek into my life.

I was recently floating around a friends mySpace page and came across a band called Gogol Bordello. A truly multi-national Eastern European band from New York, probably best described by this quote from a review for their album Multi Contra Kulti vs Irony from The London Times.

"Asked to describe Gogol Bordello, the singer Eugene Hutz came up with 'gypsy punk cabaret.' But that's only half the story. Hutz, a Ukranian, is joined on this album by a Russian fiddler, a Jewish guitarist, a Slavic accordionist and an Israeli saxophonist."

They have been around for awhile now and some of you stranger folk out there may snicker at how slow I've been, but wow.
These guys are totally and completely off-the-wall insane and just to prove it I have embedded the video of their song Start Wearing Purple below.

I love it, but hey I've always been weird.
Anyway, it's late and I've been cooped up in front of this computer for over a week now.....

Action!

Okay... since some of you have found out that I am a director of short films I have had a number of requests from people wanting to see some of them.
So I decided to open up a You Tube account and post one of my films up for all to see.
This is Play By Heart, my first film ever.
It was shot at Hartebeestpoort Dam in June of 2004 over 7 days.
A friend's parents own this holiday cottage there and we decided it would be a great location, so we hired it out for a week, cast some brilliant actors, (all of whom worked for food - of which there was little), got some friends to help out both behind the camera and with some dosh and we put this together.

With only 4 cast members and 3 crew we were able to simply move into the house during shooting and lived on set for the full week.

The story is a simple one; two best friends are all that is left of a once-great band. As the story begins they have hired this house by the dam for the weekend in the hope of coming up with some new songs and rehearsing for some gigs.
Unfortunately there has been a double-booking at the house and their peaceful weekend of music and drinking is about to be wrecked by the arrival of two, seriously high-maintenance, sisters.

Due to the constraints of You Tube I've had to split the film up in to 5 parts.
This is part 1, where we meet the gang as they arrive at the house.
Hope you enjoy.

Part 2 will follow when I have some time.

work...work...work

Aaargh...tired.
Been working all day on finalising layout for Issue 3 and my eyes are getting screwy.
Well, I have finally joined the mySpace revolution - if you wanna call it that - and after several hours trying to make the default puke-screen look decent I am finally happy to allow people to have a look at it.

Went away last weekend 'cause my best friend who lives in Joburg was "in the neighbourhood" for the weekend. What I mean is he had hired out a cottage on a farm up by Montagu - so I drove 3 hours to get out there to spend a couple of days with him.
On the Saturday we went down to a town called Arniston, just East of Cape Agulhus, for a dip in the sea. Another 3 hour 250k round trip for a quick lunch, but I think you'll agree the view was worth it.This is the most stupidly beautiful beach I have ever seen, and because it's in the Indian Ocean it is warm, warm, warm... well at least for someone coming from Cape Town it is.

Sunday I drove back and have been slaving over a hot laptop ever since.
Other than that we have been running around shamelessly promoting Something Wicked high and low, including handing out free copies to MyAnna Buring and Craig Conway, two of the cast members of The Descent, and Paul Hyett the make-up special effects designer. They were very happy to receive them, hey, maybe they'll take out subscriptions. I'm still hoping to get some copies to Neil Mashall and his D.P. Sam McCurdy - So you see your stories are travelling the world :)

I must admit I am having a blast being the cameraman on these Fangoria interviews. As an actor I do get to meet a bunch of interesting and famous people, but as part of an interview crew I get to actually interact with them as opposed to just saying "morning" as you walk past during breakfast.
It's also reminding me how much I love to be behind the camera and how much I would love to make a horror movie sometime soon.

I actually started writing a script about a year ago, I think I am about 58 pages in, but it kind of lost the impetus and has since been dumped on the need-to-fix-later pile along with a bunch of other things.
Hey maybe we should have a horror short-film screenplay competition in Something Wicked. What do you guys think?
Best 10 minutes script gets made.
I'll crack the crew out of storage an we'll dust off our cameras and get busy rolling some tape.
Sounds brilliant to me :)

Anyway, I guess I'd better stop talking crap and get back to working on finishing Issue 3, since it needs to be at the printers by Monday morning.

Goodnight for now, folks.
Joe

Yes I am still reading The Unquiet... and yes I do have to write a review on it before Monday.
I think I'll spend tomorrow in bed and polish off that book.
So far though - damn good :)

On-Set Visitations

Just got back from an on-set visit to director Neil Marshall's (Dog Soldiers, The Descent) new movie Doomsday.
A friend is doing some interviews for Fangoria Magazine and took me along to work the camera.
You can probably guess from the time this post was made that it was a night shoot, in fact the cast and crew's final night-shoot after 5 weeks straight.

What a blast, and I do mean blast, my ears are still ringing from the explosions and gun fire. I can't tell you much but I can tell you it looks great and so does Boston Legal's Rhona Mitra.

I asked Rhona if she was enjoying her stay in Cape Town, "I've been here since November so I practically live here." She grinned.
"I've been to many beautiful places, but no matter how beautiful the place is, you always miss home. But not here. I live in L.A. so I have the view and the weather but there's just something about Cape Town. I have the sea here, I have the view, I have my dog so it's very tempting to stay," and was then called back to set.

We even got to meet Sean Pertwee (Event Horizon, Dog Soldiers), son of classic Doctor Who, Jon Pertwee. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any pictures and were sworn to secrecy, but here is a snippet from totalfilm.com

... a futuristic tale of a country ravaged by a deadly virus known as the Reaper. The infection was so severe and the devastation so total that the entire country was walled off to protect the rest of the world. But when a strain of the killer bug arrives in a neighbouring territory, a crack team (led by Mitra) is dispatched to the original outbreak site to try and track down a cure. Naturally, the mission does not go well and we can expect plenty of blood and gore.

Marshall likes to stick with his cast and crew from film to film and most of the principal cast have worked with him before which contributes to a wonderfully familial environment on set.
And there is always something wonderfully endearing about grown men getting excited about blood and gore.

All in all it looks like a hell of a fun movie. Explosions, screaming hordes, unbelievably loud gunfire, (and tons of it too), Doomsday is set to thrill fans of Marshall's work and hopefully garner some new ones too.

Well, it's off to bed for me, I have a magazine to finish.

Shortlistings & Stuff

So I just received news that the Something Wicked presents... podcast has been short-listed for Best SA Independent Podcast for 2007. That is pretty cool, no?

So what can you do it about it?
Click on the Vote For Me Button on the right or you can hop on over to http://2007.sablogawards.com/ and vote for us.
Just scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and look for our podcast, make sure the radio button is ticked, and submit.

In other news the final bits and bobs of content is still coming in for Issue 3 and we've broken all records with the submissions for Issue 4 - with 23 short stories received so far. Man, we have a lot of reading ahead of us!
But first we have to finish Issue 3 - Autumn 2007.
I guess it's only fair to let you all know that there is a bit of a delay with Issue 3, due to finances. We will publish it, but we may come in a little late - eek, not to worry, somehow we will pull it off, promise.

We have applied for funding from the NAC and hopefully will hear from them soon.
Trust me when I say this is as frustrating for you, the readers, as it is for us, Issue 3 is an awesome issue. We have a ton of brilliant, brilliant stories, including the first slightly sci-fi flavoured tales.
Awesome art, as usual, plus, interviews with Stephen King, an autographed copy of Lisey's Story and 3 copies of the brand new Illustrated Salem's Lot.
We're also trying to wangle some copies of Marvel's new Gunslinger: Born comic book.
It really is the best issue ever.
So keep holding thumbs and we'll get through this rough spot, promise.

Thanks again for all the support.

On Joe's Bedside Table:
The Black Angel by John Connolly
The Unquiet - Proof Copy by John Connolly
The Black Widower's Mysteries - Isaac Asimov

My Other Life

For those of you who don't know, I have another, secret, life.
When I am not publishing and editing magazines I am an actor and director.
I'll tell you more about the directing some other time, for today we're talking acting.

I just spent the last two days on set for a UK commercial for a fence sprayer (hey I never said it was glamorous). Below is the previous commercial I shot for this product two years ago. Press play and have a laugh.


A year ago I did this ad for Bavaria. (I'm the guy with the meat!!)

I cannot begin to tell you how hard this commercial was to shoot. 5 days with only 9 and 1/2 hours of sleep, covered in mud or dirt, or just soaked, carrying raw meat in 35 degree heat and pretending to love every second of it.
Like I said, glamorous it ain't.

What it is, is an obscene amount of work and pain like you have never felt before, pushing your body and mind to unbelievable extremes followed by hours in the shower to wash all the muck off.
And a ton of fun.

I've being doing this as my primary profession for over 17 years now and I have been treated like shit one week and like a star the week after. It all depends on the set and on the crew and, most importantly, on the director.

I call them the Holy Triumvirate (no-offence meant), they are the director, the 1st AD, and the D.O.P. - They are the people that will make your life on set an absolute pleasure, or a fucking nightmare.
On a good shoot, you have a calm, prepared director who knows exactly what he wants, and how to get it done, quickly, and efficiently and most importantly manages to maintain total rationality during all the inevitable crises.
The 1st assistant director is equally important as he or she is your point of contact. The 1st AD pretty much controls the set and tells everyone what to do. He takes orders from one person, the director. It is the 1st AD's job to make sure the director gets exactly what he wants, and if it is not possible then it is his job to tell the director that. He is on the side of the cast and crew when talking to the director and on the side of the director when talking to the cast and crew.
On a film set the 1st AD is God.
The D.O.P. or Director of Photography (cinematographer) controls the lighting and the cameras. From an actor's point of view this is the person who is going to make you look good.

Forgive me if you already know all of the above, I don't mean to patronise.


Anyway, the point of this discourse is that I love my job.
It is without a doubt the best job on earth.
I may not sleep for a week on a shoot, or be washing sand out of my ears for two hours after wrap, or be peeling spirit gum off my face with cold cream for just as long. I may be dancing with a hose-pipe at 7am on a winter's morning in a public park, or running fully-clothed through a river, or waking up at 2:52 am (when I got to sleep at 11:30pm the night before) or smashing through a plate glass window with a piece of raw meat dangling from my teeth.
But I still love my job.

Anyway, back to Editing Issue 3...
goodnight y'all

Moving Right Along

Okay so here we are; one week closer to deadline and nowhere near finished.
Have no fear. This is normal.

Meanwhile I thought I would show you guys what the office looks like, (or at least my desk).
If you look carefully you may actually see the covers for the next two issues.

It often amazes me about this process how every three months it gets to this point in the process and we are always miles away from being ready to go to print, but somehow we always make it.
Well to be honest it usually involves a few through-nights for my sub and I as we go through final checks - a film-set term meaning it's the last chance for the make-up and costume departments to faff over their assigned actors before the cameras start rolling.
This basically involves going through every single page of the magazine and checking that the issue date is correct, that the correct fonts have been used, that all the images are the correct resolution, that all the author's and artist's names have been correctly spelt and that the contents page actually points to the correct corresponding page numbers.
Let me tell you, it ain't fun.

Of course we are actually nowhere near final checks yet.
At this stage we are still receiving last minute articles, working out page-length and looking for advertising.
We still got a long way to go yet, but the good news is Issue 3 is looking fantastic, we have got some awesome articles, interviews prizes and of course a bunch of really great stories and art.
I'll keep you posted.

For now I'm sinking my teeth into the new John Connolly book The Unquiet which I picked up yesterday from the publisher. It's looking damn good so far.
We've also got the new Garth Nix which my sub is taking a chunk out of. (we'll swap over later)
Anyway keep writing and check back soon for the Issue 3 cover!
See ya Later.

The Something Wicked Palaver

So new year, new headaches.
For those of you unaware the above is the name of the quarterly horror fiction magazine I publish.
It's been running for 8 months now (2 Issues) has been garnering a great response from the South African creative community.

Unfortunately there seems to be little or no financing available for it so the last 8 months have been a constant headache and siphoning of my bank account just to keep the thing afloat.

So as I sit here two weeks before the print-deadline of Issue 3 I'm feeling a little disheartened.
We have managed to get the most awesome Issue together, our Stephen King Issue, including signed giveaways and other great prizes.

The wonderful John Connolly has donated an interview with King himself and things are looking phenomenal, with that one annoying exception.
no cash.
no print-run.

bugger.
Anyway, I'm sure something will come up, it always does, somehow :o)

In other, more positive news, I recently came across an old magazine called Skeleton Crew which I had completely forgotten about and yet somehow it had burnt a hole into my subconscious because, visually at least, I had modelled Something Wicked on its design.
Strange.
So I went ahead and bought 4 back issues from milehighcomics and they finally arrived today. So I'm looking forward to an evening of good old periodical reading.

check you later.

Don't forget to check out our brand new podcast, Something Wicked presents... check the links on the right.