Kane Gilmour

International Bestselling Author of The Crypt of Dracula

Month: September 2019

Return of the Weird

Weird Tales #363 Cover

And the mail just keeps coming. I’m not complaining, mind you. I ordered this one back in July, and finally, it arrived. I have three things to say about this magazine so far.

1: It looks fabulous. Nicely laid out, good graphics, good chunk of reading at 80 pages, and even the ads are cool looking. I’ve started the Victor LaValle story in it, and I’m enjoying that, and all five of the poems throughout by Stephanie M. Wytovich are cool and creepy. I expect the rest of the stories will be great.

Here’s the actual Table of Contents, if you were curious.

2: The magazine that never dies is now edited by Jonathan Maberry (and this issue includes a story from him as well), so you know the content will be really good. This issue’s content was all curated, but at some point in the future, they will be accepting subs.

3: Their customer service is straight up lousy. That’s not to be a poor reflection on Jon, either. He’s in charge of content only. But literally everyone else involved with the magazine, from the publisher to the copy editors, to the webmaster, needs the sack. When I ordered a copy of this magazine in July, I received an automated email thanking me for my order. I also got one of those “You need to verify your account” things from a guy named Troy. The link Troy sent? Did not work. When I replied to Troy? No response. When I replied to Troy a few weeks later again? Nothing. When I checked the webpage for where I would enter my login details–if I could even get my account verified? No place to log in at all.

Speaking of that website, it has a cool motion graphic of a creature crawling on the ceiling, but it was missing crucial information like, oh, I don’t know–how to contact them! Or the table of contents for the sole issue of the magazine they have for sale so far. Or the dimensions of the magazine (it’s standard magazine size at 8×10.5, you’re welcome). Or how long shipping would take. There was no further communication. No “You issue has shipped” automated e-mail. Just stony silence.

Digging a little deeper, I did find not one, but two contact e-mail addresses, where I attempted to contact them and inquire about the magazine I ordered, which had not shipped. No reply. They have a phone number, too, if you’re very determined and you dig really deep. I’m sure you can see where this is going. No one answers it. And yes, once I received the issue, I found multiple typos in just the first few pages alone. So everyone, Publisher down through editors and web monkey? They all suck. Their designer deserves some top-notch credit, and so does Jon for curating what looks to be an outstanding selection of material. But the rest of the company needs to learn quite a bit about dealing with their customers.

13 bucks plus 5 for shipping gets you a copy of the magazine that never dies, but if you click here, you can count on the fact that the customer service is already dead.

Neutral Ground

Continental Hotel T-Shirt and 'Baba Yaga' Patch

I’ve got mail again. This time from my good friend and soon-to-be audio narrator for some of my books, Dan Delgado. Dan was kind enough to send me, unrequested and as a surprise, the following T-shirt, which I’ll wear the hell out of, and the very cool iron-on/sew-on embroidered “Baba Yaga” patch in the corner of the logo. Thank you, Dan! While I don’t really have anything I can put that patch on, it’ll live nicely next to some of my other souvenirs from having attended the John Wick 3 premiere in New York, this past May (seen below). Yes, that coin is real.

John Wick 3 Premiere Ticket and Souvenir Gold Coin

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