Behind the Scenes at the Fangoria & Starlog Turmoil

James Zahn, former director of new media development for Fangoria and its sister brand Starlog, has issued a statement outlining his reasons for leaving the company last month. He posted his long explanation on his Facebook page, so you can't read it unless you're his Facebook pal -- thus there's no point in my including a link to it here. (In other words, if you're in the fold, you already have read it.)

He has said that he doesn't like airing dirty laundry. I think we should respect that. But there are some items in his statement that I'm afraid are all too common in businesses, and so at the risk of spreading some dirty laundry, I want to look at some of it.

There's no way I can do proper justice to his heartfelt posting in a few words here, so I'll just pass along the major gist of the piece, at least as it affects the brands and their customers. Briefly, he contends that the company is being hobbled by unchecked egos, unprofessional behavior (conflicts of interest), unpaid writers, and cluelessness about adapting to changing media markets. I have no inside knowledge of how the Fango/Starlog offices function (or disfunction); my one visit there was a decade ago, in sunnier economic times and under a different company ownership. They seemed happy then, but even then the company was seriously missing the boat on the online business revolution.

My suggestions and complaints about the company in recent years have mostly revolved around the Starlog brand, which for the one-time "magazine of the future" has seriously missed the boat on the opportunities presented by the web, e-mail, online audio and video, and much more. Naturally, science fiction has always been of more interest to me than horror, so I did focus on Starlog rather than Fango. But Zahn's portrait of the company today suggests a company that is still out of digital touch, and that has let some editors who fear change and who have definite control issues warp its content and strategy, he alleges. A magazine badly in need of a design revamp goes along basically unchanged (except for a cover redesign) for more than a decade. Pals of the editors allegedly get too much coverage in the magazine, web site, and radio show. And so on.

The personal side of Zahn's explanation of his experience applies to far too many people in this country: overwork, unfulfilled plans, resistance to new ideas, backstabbing. Again, I don't know what daily life was like at the company, but I'm not surprised to hear a veteran say that it's poorly run.

Perhaps we'll hear the other side from insiders still with Fangoria and Starlog, or perhaps they'll prefer not to address it. It's their choice. But for a company that seems to have lurched from crisis to near-death experience to rebirth to crisis redux for the past decade, it would be nice to see some stability and wise management rule the day. As a magazine and new-media professional, I see a lot of value in those two brands. But as someone over the age of 12, I am not wide-eyed enough to expect that it will necessarily be brought out.

Starlog Web Site Lives ... Again

Just a follow-up to my recent post about the web sites for Starlog and Fangoria being dead for more than a week: Starlog.com is back up (image below is from five minutes ago, as I write this). The Fango site is still not up, but I think we can assume they're now working on bringing that back up, too. In the meantime, check out the Fangoria editors' blog.

Also, this week Fango's online media guru, James Zahn, confirmed via Twitter that he left the Fango fold earlier this month. Methinks they need someone to fix their web sites ASAP.

Batman and Robin and Joker, Redux

Ahem. Okay, so I recently printed a correction on this blog after I incorrectly identified the Batman film that was represented in a life-sized costume displayed in downtown San Francisco's Bloomingdales. In that same post, I added a couple other pictures from the display, and identified the movies they were from.

And when I say "identified," I mean "misidentified." Seriously, you should expect that from me by now.

Fangoria.com's James Zahn wrote in to kindly point out that the Joker costume was indeed from the new Batman film, not the Tim Burton-era series. He writes, "The Bloomingdales displays are from a mix of films, but if you'll notice -- the logo plates in each display properly represent the film from which the costumes came. The Tommy Lee Jones piece clearly has the BATMAN FOREVER logo behind it, while the Bat & Joker suits have THE DARK KNIGHT logo behind them."

Er, "the logo plates in each display properly represent the film"? You didn't expect me to actually look at the photos before I posted them, did you? What do you think I am, Der Spiegel? Oh, well. On the bright side, I got at least one out of three movie ID's correct. That'd be a good percentage in baseball.

If you're still curious about the Bloomie's displays, Zahn points us to a press release that explains the movie costume promotions.

So a big (albeit sheepish) thanks to James Zahn -- who, BTW, is also creator of the nifty Fangoria Graphix comic Death Walks the Streets.

And I'll end this with the final store display photo ever on this blog. Today, while catching lunch in San Francisco's Clement Street area (if you're in this city and wondering where to escape the tourists but still have authentic Chinese food, leave Chinatown and take a cab to Clement Street), I caught site of this fellow in a model shop's front display window.

This, of course, was the costume worn by Lauren Bacall in the Tokyo-crushing scene of the 1944 Howard Hawkes film To Have and Have Not.

Or maybe not.

Honest Scrap -- Honest!

My despair over being rejected for an Emmy Award (again!) has been lightened by the news that Fangoria blogger and head of new media James Zahn has bestowed an Honest Scrap Award on this lowly blog.

You ask, What's an Honest Scrap Award? And is it supposed to be a pun on "honest crap"? No one seems to know; when I did a Google search on the award, I just found other recipients who began their announcements with something along the lines of, "I've never heard of the Honest Scrap Awards, but I've just been awarded one ..."

Anyway, there are rules to being an HS recipient: write 10 honest things about yourself; bestow the award on seven other bloggers.

So, second things first, I'm proud to bestow this mysterious-but-esteemed award on the following bloggers:

Paul Soglin's Waxing America: Soglin is a former mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, where I attended the UW. Soglin was a student radical who became mayor, left to work in the business world, returned in the late 1980s to become mayor again (while I was in school), and was a darn good mayor. There are lots of political blogs on the Left from people with more anger and attitude than brains. Soglin has brains, experience, and guts, so when he pulls no punches in a critique of something or someone, it means something.

Aaron Barnhart's TVBarn: Barnhart's an original internet success story. I still remember walking along a downtown Chicago street one lunch hour with him more than 15 years ago while he talked about "the well" and toyed with his Apple handheld. Later, while working in a real estate firm, he started Late Show News, an e-newsletter about the Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Jay Leno, etc. programs. That grew into a wider television e-newsletter, for which I wrote a weekly science fiction TV column for a couple years. Aaron eventually became the Kansas City Star's TV critic, a role he has now held for many years.

Tony Palmeri's Talk to Tony: Palmeri is an Oshkosh, Wisconsin, academic and local government official who has been a local fixture there for longer than I know. Outspoken, intelligent, and a good sense of humor -- he's one of the good guys. (Oh, and he keeps saying nice things in [online] print about my political-cartoonist stepfather, Lyle Lahey, so the world is, indeed, small.)

Howard Cruse's Loose Cruse: Cruse is an icon in the cartooning industry (his work has appeared everywhere from Gay Comix to Playboy to Fangoria to The Advocate to -- I'm pleased to say -- the cover of the magazine I edit). Underground or overground, his art is instantly recognizable, and you get nice dollops of it in his blog.

Samir Husni's Mr. Magazine: Husni is a magazine-industry legend, and he probably knows more about magazine publishing, ideas, mistakes, secrets, and possibilities than any other 100 magazine professionals put together. His blog shows his deep involvement in the debates of the industry; it's intelligent and full of good ideas for publishing geeks like me.

Andy Warner's Andysaurus: Warner's a hugely talented artist and cartoonist, and I was lucky enough to have him design my magazine for a couple years before he jumped ship to be able to do more freelance cartooning. His blog has lots of works-in-progress, as well as examples of his sharp humor.

Matthew Rettenmund's Boy Culture: The blog's title comes from the novel Rettenmund wrote some years back, and I enjoyed reading the book's descriptions of Chicago scenes. I also enjoyed the story. Rettenmund, now a pop magazine editor in New York City, writes a blog on politics, gay issues, music, and more -- including lots about Madonna, the subject of another book he once wrote.

Second, 10 honest things about me:

1. After interviewing Alphaville lead singer Marian Gold one winter day in 2001, we returned to his SUV only to find a parking ticket. He gave it to me.

2. I kept the parking ticket taped to my desk in my Internet World cubicle in New York for several months before deciding there really wasn't anything all that special about it.

3. Dan Quayle once complimented my tie.

4. I've shaken the hands of two former U.S. presidents: Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

5. In high school, a fundamentalist teacher accused me of being a Marxist after I criticized evangelist Jerry Falwell in my student newspaper column.

6. One of my high points as a 'tweener was realizing I could read an entire novel in one day. That's when I confirmed how much I loved books.

7. I nearly flunked economics my first year at university. I passed, but just barely -- and swore that whatever I do with my life, it won't be math-centric.

8. I have, at one point or another in my life, wanted to be a tv newscaster, the president, a novelist, fireman, magazine editor, magazine publisher, pastor, scientist, or soccer player.

9. I can read German fairly well, but when I take on the occasional German-language novel, it takes me weeks to finish.

10. I once argued with then-Senator William Proxmire in the letters page of the Green Bay News-Chronicle about the U.S. space program. I was (and am) for it; him -- not so much.