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The Harrow Press’ first book, Midnight Lullabies, will be out this month.

Greeeaaaat. Because, you know, some of the scariest movies I’ve watched have had so many boobs flashing on screen — Barker’s Hellraiser and Verbinski’s The Ring (which, I admit, I did think was scarier than Ringu, probably for cultural-context reasons). For that matter, Scott’s Alien haunted my nightmares for years, too. True, Hellraiser and Alien had gore, and that was part of the horror. But what was scary about The Ring and Alien was the suspense. And what I liked most about Hellraiser and The Ring was the sense of creepiness, of worlds right next to ours that might break through at any moment — through a puzzle box or the idiot box.

Blood and boobs. That must explain literary horror, too. All those boobs … on paper. In classics like Dracula or Frankenstein. Poe’s stories. Lovecraft’s. King’s. Koontz’s. Barker’s.

The answer’s so simple. Let’s just forget the role of liminality, abjection, Othering, regression, taboos, the Shadow-Self, and so forth, in horror. No doubt that’s all a bunch of academic psychobabble. It’s all about blood and boobs.

Which doesn’t explain why women, who deal with spilled blood on a monthly basis for a significant amount of their life, and boobs for most of it (barring mastectomies, a little horror story of its own) might be horror fans.

Yeesh. I can’t believe the reporter quoted the owner of Brain Damage films instead of any one of a number of other producers, directors, writers, or even stars who have taken the time to study and understand the genre. No wonder horror continues to be a denigrated genre.

On the other hand, I may now have an editorial topic for June’s Harrow.

Dru–

[...] We rely mainly on reader donations, although two-thirds of our budget is still coming from a very small number of private donors. [...]

Verily, in Anno Domini 2/19/07 12:53 PM, the most estimable MRC, fiction editor of The Harrow, quoth:

Wow, that sounds totally sinister.

How does one acquire shadowy millionaire patrons, anyways? (Without, you know, opening Gates of Evil or becoming a satanic sacrifice or whatever?)

Regards,
Mike.

Verily, in Anno Domini 2/19/07 1:25 PM, the most estimable Dru Pagliassotti, editor of The Harrow, quoth:

Well, satanic sacrifices for the purpose of obtaining development funds aren’t entirely out of the question. We could add an extra line in our contracts, under Terms of Agreement, that gives The Harrow first world-wide rights to barter the Author’s soul. Would that still be binding if an author “e-signs,” Kfir, or is blood absolutely necessary?

– Dru

Verily, in Anno Domini 2/19/07 2:36 PM, the most estimable Kfir Luzzatto, anthology editor & legal adviser for The Harrow, quoth:

I’m afraid that blood must be involved.

Kfir