As the team continues to work towards the launch of the FANGORIA Compendium in July, we wanted to give backers a sneak peek at some of the work that's already underway. The following update comes with some behind-the-scenes treasures that the Fango team found during a recent dip into the Vault, including content that will be featured in the Compendium project when it drops later this year…
I imagine more of you would like a glimpse behind the scenes of the FANGORIA Compendium project. Assembling the book has far more moving parts than it might appear on the surface, and part of that is because Meredith Borders makes it looks so effortless, and the rest is because we’ve been too busy figuring out how to cover 47 years of the world’s greatest horror magazine in one book. It’s a daunting task that comes with lofty standards we are all committed to upholding, because we love the history of this beloved entity and we know you do, too.
Many of our subscribers will recognize me as the brand’s community and content manager who moderates our private Discord and Facebook groups, but I also oversee our socials, serve as an assistant to our marketing director Sabrina Sieck, partner with Angel Melanson on our website strategy, and sometimes they even let me out on good behavior to write for the magazine. Our Editor-in-Chief Phil Nobile Jr. called me “the high priestess of horror” on my birthday post last year, and while Nobile is generous with a compliment to his friends (I mean, I just like saying it), I take it very seriously that my nerdy obsession with the genre is given any recognition at all.
That’s why I’m here to tell you about the Fango Vault – that legendary place where nearly 50 years of press kits, studio correspondences, and various candid set photos are tucked away for safe-keeping. Last month, our publishers let Phil, our Creative Director Jason Kauzlarich, and me loose inside the walls to find our readers the best of what the vault has to offer. I don’t think any of us anticipated the labor ahead of us, but we made the best of it – and we’re bringing it to you, not just for the Compendium, but for our socials, our newsletter The Terror Teletype, and for future magazine issues to come.
The vault currently resides in Atlanta, GA, but it’s gotten around. It once lived in Jersey City, meandered its way southwest to Dallas, TX, and now finally rests in Atlanta. It doesn’t just house FANGORIA history – STARLOG and GOREZONE live there, too. While the majority of the space is taken up by the massive back catalog of STARLOG and its extensive archives, FANGORIA’s relics are filed and indexed through 65 separate containers of press kits and other memorabilia. (Did you know boxes of media are extremely heavy? I do! Ask me how I know.) Jason, Phil, our publisher Abhi Goel, and I set out organizing, processing, and digitally archiving over 1000 titles across 65 boxes – after we safely set aside STARLOG in an accessible manner.
The one thing you know as a fan of the genre is that the lore will entice you. You’d get me into an unmarked van with a box that said “behind the scenes of Jack Hill’s Spider Baby” on it in Sharpie. The files of my favorite films called to me while I was hustling through the projects at hand. The Gate. Popcorn. Return of the Living Dead III. Near Dark. I didn’t have to suffer long as part of my job that week was to bring these things back to you as much as I could. You know that casino game where you stand in a booth full of fans and try to grab as many dollars as you can? That’s how it felt trying to figure out what to look at first. I wanted to give our Compendium backers a first look at the loot and give you a taste of where we’re going with the visual side of things.
Jason, Phil, and I spent nine days curating key spreads of the book as well as pulling some rare, and possibly never-before-seen images that just never made it to the pages of the mag. It feels like discovering a new dinosaur to say “I found this photo of Angus Scrimm and a dog from the set of Phantasm III,” but the coolest thing is having a whole crowd of people to be excited about my Caninus Angusscrimmosaurus and that, dear readers, makes all the difference.
