After seeing just one issue, City Slab Magazine has quickly become one of my favorite small press magazines. It has a professional, polished look with full color covers as well as a color section in the interior and combines some outstanding short fiction with a number of interesting and eclectic articles. The production values, layout, art, and photography are all first-rate. These guys really take a lot of care in putting out their product and it shows.
Jack Ketchum’s “The Turning” leads off issue #8 and is inspired by a true experience of Ketchum’s on the streets of New York. Like many of the stories in this issue it hits hard at our social awareness of our surroundings and offers a subtle warning of what can happen if we forget the downtrodden of the world.
A similar theme is played out in Scott Standridge’s “The Skeleton Club” as we meet Gerald, a man who goes through life oblivious to what’s around him. He doesn’t even know the name of the woman who sits in the cubicle next to him even though she’s been there for six months. But Gerald soon begins to suffer a mysterious and horrific ailment that will drastically change his perspective on life.
Standridge then returns to conduct an interview with Jack Ketchum. Ketchum relates the true story that inspired “The Turning”. Jack also discusses his early writing career when men’s magazines like Genesis, Cavalier, Penthouse, and High Society proved to be lucrative markets for him. Jack also pulls no punches with his views on religion and politics.
Lisa Agnew pens an article on the continuing mystery of Jack the Ripper and submits evidence that perhaps the killer could have been a woman…perhaps a midwife or an abortionist, which aided in her ability to escape notice as the authorities were focused on a male suspect.
James Reilly takes a look at the career of famed Italian horror filmmaker Dario Argento with reviews of Argento’s most noted films such as “Suspira” and “Trauma”. Jason Sizemore takes readers through the history of the Resident Evil video game franchise from the first in 1996 through 2005’s Resident Evil 4.
Reilly also has a wonderful short story in this issue, “Midnight at the Quick N’ Save” as a group of late night convenience store shoppers find their fates intertwined.
There is additional fiction by Patricia Russo, James Payne, Jonathan Azul, and John S. Walsh. In all, 80 pages of fiction and articles. If you haven’t checked out City Slab yet, then now is the time!
– Tim Janson
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
