it was back in 2004 or so when i checked out this "news" stand on south lamar. now, for those of you who live outside of texas, there are a whole bunch of these "news" shops around austin. before actually looking inside one i had assumed (correctly as it turns out) that these businesses were largely venues for porno and XXX DVD rental. but as it turned out, they actually contain news. and regular magazines. they even had a sci-fi magazine section with more than the usual suspects of analog and asimov’s and whatever TV show companion rag is currently popular.
so i bought a copy of WEIRD TALES and, because i thought the title was hilarious, CTHULHU SEX MAGAZINE.
then i put the magazines on my shelf and completely forgot about them.
fast forward to a month ago. i was browsing through the "adult section" of ralan.com for the first time, and i noticed a listing for CTHULHU SEX, which surprised me, because i couldn’t imagine that a magazine with such a bizarre title could have lasted this long.
it took me a little while, but i was able to find that three-year-old issue of CTHULHU SEX on my shelf that i have mentally categorized as "stuff i’m going to eventually get around to reading." CTHULHU SEX knocked my socks off. it was filled with a surprising amount of artwork by people who want to be HRgiger, some of it actually good.
it had a photo from the HRgiger museum bar.
goddamn, i want to go there, and i want to get drunk out of my fucking mind!
the magazine also had little tidbits like gag ads for http://www.vampiresagainstwar.com .
and CTHULHU SEX had a lot of fiction. one story was pretty excretal. most were very good. the standout story was "the house on cutter lane" by arthur cullipher. it was about 2am when i got to that one. it inspired in me all the visceral dread and horrific disgust that lovecraft would have inspired if lovecraft had been comfortable with writing about a character with the accurately descriptive name of "pussyface." i could feel the muscles of my eyelids strain as my face clenched my eyeballs as open and as round as humanly possible. when i had to turn the pages i turned them so fast they were hardly visible as they fluttered across my panicked vision. i can’t remember the last time a story made me feel like that.
i gave my copy of CTHULHU SEX to my coworker johnny motard and he was also enthralled. he said it would be awesome to get a subscription to it and get CTHULHU SEX in the mail every couple of months.
but it’s gone now.
i saw the dead market listing on ralan, and the magazine’s website announced the closure at the end of june. there’s one more issue coming out, available at http://www.cthulhusex.com/ and then it’s all over.
sigh.
the world has become a little less horrific.