Tuesday, February 03, 2009

DEAD VISIONS

Regrettably, Metal Maniacs magazine is closing shop after the release of their March/April issue. This is terrible news for the U.S. metal community considering Metal Maniacs has been an invaluable vehicle for spreading the glossy gospel for more than 20 years. It's also a grim indication of the economic shitstorm to come. The good news is that I've written two articles about underground art that will appear in their final issues. The plan was that this would be a regular feature called DREAD VISIONS, but they've come to the unexpected and painful realization this week that it is no longer feasible to continue business as usual. My tribute to S. Clay Wilson, one of the greatest living American cartoonists, appears in the February issue that hits newsstands this week! If you read this blog regularly you already know that Wilson had a big impact on me as a kid and he has especially occupied my thoughts in recent months due to a nearly fatal accident in early November. S. Clay Wilson is making a slow but steady recovery at a rehabilitation center for brain damage but now you can learn all about his legacy in the February 2009 issue of Metal Maniacs! Here is a short excerpt to whet your appetite...

SEX & DEATH! Humanity’s oldest and most lucrative businesses are still global bestsellers and no living artist has penetrated the primordial veils of Eros & Thanatos with as much gleeful abandon as underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson. And penetrate ‘em he has! In a career spanning more than 40 years Wilson has sodomized Eros for all she’s worth and slit the throat of Thanatos over his inkwell. He has been banned, censored, threatened, and exiled. “I like the idea,” the artist proclaims, “of keeping the boat rocking.” Indeed. There is more pathos, craftsmanship, and unbridled energy in one of Wilson’s maggot-spewing zombie drawings than an entire museum of modern art. There is more emotive disturbance, swaggering outrage, and terminal shock in Wilson’s historically accurate pirate epics than a moshpit full of serial killers. If the devil is in the details, Wilson will someday be snorting lines of Viagra with Brueghel and Bosch at Old Scratch’s eternal Black Mass! And the 67year old artist’s recent scrape with the pavement had friends and family wondering if that day might come sooner than later...

Read the complete article in the latest issue of Metal Maniacs!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oooohhh man, no more Metal Maniacs? That magazine was responsible for turning me into the metal freak I am today and I have been a loyal reader ever since. Damn it's like a piece of me has died...*sniff*

It always blew my mind that one could pick up a magazine with Darkthorne or Impaled Nazarene on the cover at the local Krogers or Glens.

Anonymous said...

I liked Metal Maniacs at the early stage. I'm hard and lame on the whole metal thing these days. Hail Dennis. Hail True Underground!

Ryan S. said...

Bummer man. That mag was a great way to get kids into the real metal fold...

Way worse considering we were going to be getting a monthly column from you! Well, more stuff for the next Destroying Angels issue, right?