A LITTLE TALK OF HORRORS (PART 2)

We continue now with the MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD interview with Richard Klemensen, Editor and Publisher of LITTLE SHOPPE OF HORRORS.

MONSTER MOVIE WORLD: What is your role as editor and publisher? Do you “roll up your sleeves” and write, or do you act mainly as “producer”?

DICK KLEMENSEN: My role as editor is to find the right people for a particular subject. My main guideline to writers (and my writers are particularly skilled) is “NO SYNOPSIS”. We aren’t in the filmbook school anymore, and it is unlikely our readers wouldn’t know the basic story of, say, THE VAMPIRE LOVERS. I edit very little because I am firm up front what we are looking for in the article and features. And as most of my contributors have been doing it for a long time, we have is scoped out before hand so there are few shocks when I get the articles or interviews.

 I seldom write except the fanzine/book review and my own editorial. Most of the nuts-and-bolts of publishing and distributing falls on my shoulders so if I had to also write very much, you would see an issue about once a decade (I hold down a full-time job in sales that can run 5/6 days a week, so I mainly work on the magazine on weekends while my wife is working as a surgical nurse at a local hospital).

 What also helps is my sister, Kristine Mraz, is a skilled designer who gets better and better each issue. She works for the print company that has done LSoH since 1980 and is able to translate my roughs into what I think is a very stylishly designed magazine, working with a LOT of text and visuals and still making it look good. We aren’t RUE MORGUE or VIDEO WATCHDOG or MONSTERS FROM THE VAULT, but the mag looks great, and reads well. And that is my goal now.

 MMW: How many hours would you say goes into each issue of LSofH?

 KLEMENSEN: Hard to say how many hours, as I’ll be juggling two/three issues ahead while working on the current one. I’m getting #24 mailed out now, while readying materials for Halloween’s #25, and next years’ HANDS OF THE RIPPER in the spring and FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS/DANCE OF THE VAMPIRE for Halloween 2011. It’s in the hundreds of hours for each issue. Last Saturday, I spent almost 16 hours doing paperwork and preparing mailings for #24 (which is also that we have reintroduced all our previously out-of-print issues through a print-on-demand company, and my sister has restored those ancient issues to programs so that they can now be reprinted. The reaction and demand has been good).

 MMW: Who designs the magazine and what type of technologies do you use in its production (computer, software, pre-press, etc.)?

 KLEMENSEN: I do the design in very basic roughs, with the scans of the photos, artwork, etc. Then I turn it over to my sister, Kris, and using InDesign, she composes it on her laptop. She has been doing this since #10/11 in 1990 (and worked on the old cut-and-paste issues with me, going back to 1979. I’ve got a great sister. Don’t pay her what she is worth!) The magazine is then printed (at least the interior) by Allen Printing of Clarion, Iowa. The covers, because we use very good color cover artwork (by such talents as Steve Karchin, Jeff Preston, Bruce Timm, Mark Maddox, Frank Dietz, Norman Bryn, Mike Schneider, Adrian Salmon, Neil Vokes, etc), is printed by a specialty company, U.S. Press of Valdosta, Georgia.

 MMW: Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee?

 KLEMENSEN: Peter Cushing for his fantastic acting ability; Christopher Lee for his amazing presence. You aren’t getting me to fall into THAT trap!!

(To be continued . . . )

Yvonne Monlaur and Dick Klemensen, Bray Studios 1999

Julie Ege (CREATURES THE WORLD FORGOT, LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES) and Dick Klemensen, Bray Studios 1999

With Judy Geeson (FEAR IN THE NIGHT) Dick Klemensen and actress Terence O'Connor (wife of Hammer star, Christopher Neame - DRACULA A.D. 1972)

Dick Klemensen, Andree Melly (BRIDES OF DRACULA) and her husband, Oscar Quitak (REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN), Bray Studios 1999

Dick Klemensen alongside the Bray Studios sign, 1999

Cover mock-up

Finished cover

Pre-press cover

Cover mock-up