Rigor Mortis Magazine Review

RIGOR MORTIS is a zine about zombies (with a bit of other horror culture thrown in). Just in case you don’t know what a “zine” is, this is what Wikipedia defines it as:

A zine (/ˈziːn/ zeen; an abbreviation of fanzine, or magazine) is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier.

It’s basically a small-time, self-published magazine, made on your own home computer or local Kinkos machine. They’re cheaply priced, cheaply produced, and are usually nothing more than an outlet for the publisher(s) to express themselves. Like a no-budget zombie movie, there’s little money put into them, but you can tell there was obvious love that went into making it, and that love is infectious. They’re fun. RIGOR MORTIS encompasses all of this, and plenty more.

There is an obnoxiously empty hole when it comes to zombie magazines, and RIGOR MORTIS unknowingly fills that space. RIGOR MORTIS is, in my opinion, all things a zine should be: original, clever, creative, personal, cheaply priced, funny, and smart. In my fairly limited experience with zines – I could count the number I’ve read on both hands – it seems that RIGOR MORTIS sets the bar pretty high. From the original artwork, to the in-depth reviews, to the obvious love of the genre, it seems to ooze quality.

There’s four issues out so far, from these dates: 01/09, 10/09, 09/10, and 04/11. As you can see, there’s quite a gap in-between each volume, but I’m sure that’s because quality doesn’t happen overnight. There’s four main creative minds behind RIGOR MORTIS, being Dread Sockett, Deadvida, Grim Pickens, and artist Bojan. This is a side project for them, while still having real life jobs and real life problems, as we all do. I will gladly take the lengthy time between volumes, rather than reading a smaller, less-researched, less-refined issue. I mean, I haven’t even come across typos in this thing yet. It’s actually somewhat inspiring to know that some everyday people, because of their love of the undead, have accomplished such a feat, and they care enough to produce quality work.

I know I keep using that word “quality”.. but my inner thesaurus is lacking at the moment. So, what “quality” is exactly found in RIGOR MORTIS? Well, we have all the usual fare here: reviews, articles, website URLs, and, as I have mentioned, all original artwork. 90% of the images in RIGOR MORTIS is done by artist Bojan (Bojanthu Prual). There’s lots, and lots, of words in the zine, and Bojan’s art (which it is) accompanies the text nicely. In volume 1, there’s a Tom Savini comic biography (it seems Bojan is a great letterer as well), and in volume 3 there’s a Tony Todd comic biography, each at three pages long. The first two volumes feature black-and-white cover art – volume 1 is my favorite of the four – and the latter two covers are in full color. Bojan’s original art really does elevate RIGOR MORTIS into a nearly untouchable zine. From collages of Nazi zombies, to Nosferatu, to gore-filled intestine eating, Bojan is a perfect match for the three writers.

And oooh boy, do the writers write. That might be my only complaint of RIGOR MORTIS, that the writers – again, Dead socket, Deadvida, and Grim Pickens – are a little long-winded for my taste. In fact, it’s a little intimidating writing this, because they’re all obviously much better with the written word than I am. Articles you’ll find within the pages include zombies before Romero, 1968 NOTLD vs. 1990 NOTLD, lots and lots and lots of zombie book reviews (with a few comic and movie reviews), sexiest monsters of filmland, the FEAST trilogy, “almost zombies,” and Mario Bava. One can tell there isn’t an overall editor for the articles, and I found myself skipping over sentences here and there to speed up the reading. These guys (and gal) love to write, and they’re good at it, but it’s my humble opinion that they could hold back a little here and there.

You’ll notice that some of those articles aren’t exactly zombie-centric. The first volume is the only one with 100% zombie content. The other volumes, I would say, are roughly 65% zombie content, 35% other horror. Still enough to satiate this reader’s thirst for living dead goodness. Would I prefer it were 100% zombie, all the time? Well sure, but it’s ultimately up to the writers, and not me, what goes into their zine.

Each volume is $3.00 – $3.50 (alternately, you can get the first and second volume for one MRE [Meal, Ready to Eat] apiece if you want to go that route). The first volume is the smallest, at 54 pages, and the fourth volume is the largest, at 72 pages. Each issue is printed on, as far as I can tell, domestic printing paper, with one numbered page being half a sheet of paper (so, in a 72 page volume, there’s 36 actual pieces of paper). This makes the zine about half the size, in dimensions, of a regular magazine (not that I think it matters). You can obviously see my unadulterated praise for this publication, and I give it 10 out of 10 nervous breakdowns.

You can pick up RIGOR MORITS at http://www.leekinginc.com/rigormortis/index.htm, and I hope you do.