Hollywood's disgusting underbelly: ROTLD actor Brian Peck

Foreword:  I wrote this post back in JUNE of 2016 and because I'd much rather focus on people making a positive impact with my publication, and I didn't want to seem like I was writing this on the defensive, I chose not to post it.  Now with things surfacing about the Jeepers Creepers director, as well, I thought I'd post my thoughts on one of Hollywoods vile creatures:  Brian Peck.  I've never wanted to do journalism in this manner, but I feel my mind needs to be cleared and if it helps any of you out in the horror community avoid this individual, then I'm happy.

One of my favorite movies of all time, and hand's down the best zombie movie I've ever seen, is without a doubt Return of the Living Dead.  When it came time to come up with a theme for our next issue ROTLD was definitely at the top of the list.  I had just done an interview with Linnea Quigley (the red headed grave stone dancing punk rocker Trash in ROTLD), and I had a talk with William Stout who did all of the zombie and set concept art.  So it all just made sense to do a 30th anniversary Return of the Living Dead issue right?  So I started to gather the "ingredients" for the issue.  Looked into who from the cast and crew we would want to interview.  Linnea and Mr. Stout were in and I talked to Allan Trautman who plays Tarman, and he was in.

The issue was starting to look amazing.  There was no shortage of artwork out there for the movie.  From actual artwork for the posters and multiple DVD and Bluray versions of the movie, to fan art that is literally everywhere you can see.  Putting this issue together was so much fun as I was dealing with a movie that I had a ton of love for.  Now in the middle of putting it together my partner in Gore Noir, Taylor, was away at a horror convention in Los Angeles, which just so happened to feature a few Return of the Living Dead actors signing autographs.  Taylor was able to secure an interview with one of the actors Brian Peck and she texted me to let me know about the interview and I was pretty stoked.  Mr. Peck played the punk with the mohawk named "Scuz" in ROTLD.  So Taylor does the interview and snaps some pictures of Brian with the magazine and all is well and done.

Until I get an email..  From a person that is very accusatory..  Very vicious..  They go on to question our publication for helping to promote Brian Peck, who they say is a convicted pedophile.  Mind you, we had no idea of Mr. Peck's background and if we had, we wouldn't have even done the interview.  At this time I'm on the defensive.  I'm not quite sure of what my next action is.  Do we include this interview that has nothing to do with this person and only has to do with his on screen persona in a movie that I love?  Or do we drop the interview because this person is a vile human being that shouldn't be allowed to do conventions or any of the things he's allowed to do these days?  We chose to drop the interview because I couldn't print it with a clear conscious.  I couldn't help promote this person and further their career anymore than it already is.

One of my thoughts was to include a "foreword" with the information about his conviction.  But one thing I wanted to do when creating this magazine was to help promote good people and never buy into the politics of the genre.  I never wanted to get into gossip or anything of that nature.  I wanted to keep things fun and light hearted and this would just be completely against what I set out to do with the magazine.  I decided to just forget the whole thing even happened and focus on the good people and artists that we had lined up for the magazine and push forward.

This was all up until I see a link posted online about Brian Peck and I shook my head.  This guy..  So I clicked on it and low and behold..  The article is by Daily Mail and has photos of Brian on the day of the interview with our magazine.  I'm reading through it and my stomach is wrenching.  The things they are saying about him and his ability to still continue on and work with kids is crazy.  Then I come across the name of our magazine mentioned in the article itself!  Thankfully it was sandwiched in between a lot of thoughts on how he is a horror convention fixture and how no one in the scene realizes what he is and what his past was.  There wasn't the same accusatory tone as what came across in the email.  I'm assuming the email was from someone that was close to the writer of this article.  This all stoked that fire in me and I couldn't just let it rest.  I needed to let my side be known.  This person who still works in Hollywood and does conventions was not the person who we thought he was.  He was not an honored actor in one of my favorite zombie movies.  He was a convicted pedophile and didn't deserve to hold my magazine, be interviewed by my magazine, or be mentioned in the same breath or article as my magazine.

So if you see Brian Peck at a convention, are thinking of interviewing him for your podcast/blog, or anything that you might be considering at all.  Please consider first the vile things he's convicted for doing in the past.  I feel like this should be known by everyone in the horror scene.  We want our kids to feel safe, we want to feel safe, and we don't want anything tarnishing this wonderful community we have.

If you want to read the article that Daily Mail did on Brian Peck click below:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3115792/Pedophile-X-Men-actor-convicted-sexually-abusing-Nickelodeon-child-star-working-underage-kids.html

Patreon, Digital VS Print Magazines, Independent Horror

Ally Boobior & Vyrus McDisco Blood Wrestling Photo By Brian Nixon

Hello there ghouls!  Welcome to another blog post from yours truly!  In this addition of Gore Noir Magazine blogs sometimes, we are going to go into Patreon and how it's helping independent artists and media.  At first I was skeptical of the format.  It didn't seem like a good way to reach the masses.  That was until I saw a few friends and artists on Patreon bringing people into their everyday process and in some cases bringing in more that $1k a month to boot.

The way I reasoned with myself to start our own Patreon was this..  Sometimes friends, family, and fans want a way to be involved and updated and they also want to be able to donate towards your dreams.  Why not just buy product you say?  Well what if they already have most of what you're making?  Or what if the art is too expensive to buy a piece every month?  Them donating $5 a month is easier than keeping up on buying product from you on a regular basis.  It's also easy for them as it just comes out of their account without them having to fuss over anything.

So I had sold myself on the idea and now we are a good 4 months in with out Patreon.  You set goals for yourself and your Patrons to help move the whole thing forward and motivate all involved.  I set my first goal at 66 and we quickly hit that..  My second goal, which I now realize was a bit too lofty of a second goal, was $666.  I know I was being cute..  But hey it could happen?  We currently sit at $83 a month which helps us pay some of our processing fees and helps go towards new products.

Issue 15

It's an uphill battle these days creating an independent magazine..  Let alone an independent horror magazine.  Add on top of that, that we are a PRINT magazine and you can see what we are dealing with.  My goal was always to move slow and not get too big for our own britches.  You can see some magazines like Fangoria having a problem with this very issue.  It would be far too easy to go full digital magazine every month but I think print is something that I'll never give up on.  What magazine can put out a coffin shaped issue if it's just digital?  Every magazine right?  But can you see it at stores and happen upon it at a friends house on their coffee table or by their toilet?  Didn't think so..

Am I silly to want to keep Gore Noir Magazine a print magazine?  Probably..  It's an uphill battle..  Right now we are in limbo with our 15th issue, which is almost done and ready to go, but we have yet to raise the money for printing costs.   We usually do a pre-order for each issue to help offset print costs and foot the bill.  As we have done with this one and I thank everyone who's helped by sharing the link to get this issue printed.  I promise that we won't be like Fangoria and go digital only and promise a print issue for over a year only to not come through.

February Patreon Giveaway Package

One of the things we've done with our Patreon is to do monthly giveaways to help give back to the fans.  It's a community effort to get something like this rolling so we're able to get lots of stickers, artworks, toys, posters, pins, buttons, hats, shirts, and everything else under the sun from awesome people like you and put together a package and send it to one lucky Patreon Patron that's pledged $5 or more.  Our first giveaway WAS TREMENDOUS!  We hope to bring more and more product into the fold and you can skip to the bottom to find our address to send product to.  We will snap a photo of the products for social media posting (advertising for you!) and time permitting we do a video of all the awesome stuff we have for our Patreon giveaway and thank all those who sent in the items.

I'm always trying to think of new ways to keep in touch with our fan base and if you message us through Facebook or Instagram, or any media to be honest, I try to respond and give you all the attention that is needed.  I feel this is lacking with most magazines.  I try to go on all of the podcasts, the local TV shows, to answer the interview questions, and talk with all of the people that come by our vending booth at conventions and gigs.  I love hearing the feedback and it helps keep the train moving down the track.  It's our motivation.

Lastly I'd just like to thank all of the people that have supported us either directly, by purchasing products, coming to our events, and becoming a patron, or indirectly, by sharing our posts, telling your friends about us and giving us words of encouragement.  We are a small independent horror magazine that loves being a part of the horror culture and making it as bloody as possible!

LetGo app horror VHS found gold!

Hello there Ghouls!  This here article is a little tale of how I came across, what is apparently, the 4th most expensive VHS horror tape from the US according to VHSCollector.com!  In preparation for our 15th issue (preorder here) and my own personal move to Dallas Texas, I had started to sell off some of my excess collection.  While talking to my friend about the toys, records and oddities that I was selling off they suggested and app I had never heard of called LetGo.  I downloaded it just to check it out and I quickly got hooked.  Not to sell mind you, but to get free stuff and find MORE things to add to my collection and to resell.  VHS has been a recent (read 5 years) addition to my collection repertoire and I usually stick to the movies that I can't live without or random cheap movies that I haven't seen yet.

Enter the LetGo app!  While searching I found that lot's of people were selling VHS on the app but not many had any decent horror.  This all changed with a post I had seen on the app selling VHS for $1 a pop and just from the photos I saw a few horror titles that caught my eye.  There is a way to message straight through the app so I messaged the seller and told him I was really only interested in horror and by the end of the next day he had messaged back saying he had 39 horror total and there was a list of titles.  I'd say about 9 of them were ones that I could honestly say I really wanted with a few being duplicates that I could resell.  I messaged him back and advised that I could take them all for a deal if he wanted to work one or just buy the 9 outright.  He messaged back "Honestly at this point I'd let all 39 of them go for $20".  That works out to a little over 50 cents a tape, right on par with Goodwill so I couldn't pass it up!

We met up at a gas station, the thirty nine tapes were divided up into two HEB bags (if you're not from the south/Texas this is an awesome grocery store check it out when you're around) which I loaded into my car.  The same car that was already packed with all my belongings headed up to Dallas later that day.  I took a couple minutes to dig through the bags with my girlfriend and some of the tapes were awesome and some were pretty off the wall and obscure.  The ones I really liked were Motel Hell and this alternate cover of Return of the Living Dead that I hadn't seen.  I was pretty happy with my purchase and started researching some of the tapes online.  Which lead me to eBay and trying to find out how much they were worth.  A search for one of the more obscure tapes, Mama's Home (AKA Captives), lead me to NO eBay results.  I had to turn to the Google.  Below are some links to what I found in my Google search.

First was a listing on VHScollector.com for the tape which listed three people as wanting it and ZERO collections on the site that had the tape.  Which tipped me off that this tape might be rare!

http://vhscollector.com/movie/mamas-home

There was also a blog post about it that, unfortunately, I can't find again about people never seeing a copy of the VHS and only seeing it on a video on YouTube in a serious collectors stash.

Which lead me to this YouTube video:

The reviewer makes many references to the tape being rare, and just about never seeing any on eBay ever.  This is all confirmed by the comments saying that they had seen one or two show up on eBay but they went from $355-$650 and they hadn't seen any go up in years.  Which I found the next link to confirm.

http://vhscollector.com/articles/vhscollectorcoms-top-16-most-valuable-us-horror-vhs-part-2

Apparently it's listed on VHScollector.com as the 4th highest priced US horror VHS.  Not bad for a random horror lot pick up?  I'll list some photos of the tape here.  Also I really had no use for the tape and would much rather invest any proceeds towards more magazine merchandise for you guys!  I made some posts on Facebook and had 3 different people offer me from $400-$500 but I decided to roll the dice and see what eBay could get me.  Currently the tape is at $415 on eBay and you can check on it here!

www.ebay.com/itm/172585965083

Patreon, Giveaway, Horror Shopping Network, Issue 15

Helloooooooo!!  We have so much to talk about!  First off I'd like to tell you all about our Patreon and your chance to see awesome stuff, GET AWESOME STUFF IN GIVEAWAYS, and get products that NO ONE else can!  Head on over to www.patreon.com/gorenoir and donate at least $5 to be entered into monthly giveaways!  Our first giveaway will be HUGE!  And each additional giveaway will likely be even larger as we start the snowball effect and steamroll through the horror scene!

One of the things we just finished today is Horror Shopping Network!  My good friend Fernie and I got in front of a camera and babbled for a solid 16 minutes about the magazine in a hilarious Home Shopping Network parody!  This was episode I and we had so much fun we are going to keep it going.  You'll likely see us give other products and things and stuff the Horror Shopping Network treatment.  Want to be involved?  Email:  gorenoirmag@gmail.com you can also find Fernie's awesome patreon at:  www.patreon.com/ocularofferings

Last but not least!  Issue 15 is on it's way and is available for preorder!  We delve into artwork from Lou Rusconi, Matt Peppler, Jef Overn, and Chris Labrenz. We pick the brain of Circus of the Dead (cover) director Billy Pon. We get to know Morgue the extreme performance artist from AMC's Freakshow. We dig deep into the depths of The House of Masks. Not to mention that you will get to feast your eyes on bloody amazing images from Le Mew Photography and Lady MaCallan. Providing punctuation is an article from Brennan Richie taking a nice dip into all things freakshow and sideshow related. All this plus our regular musings that you'll find in all of our issues! You see now why we're absolutely sure this will sell out!  www.gorenoirmagazine.bigcartel.com