CORRIDOR Magazine Issue #1

DEATH IN THE MOUTH: Original Horror from the Margins
about 1 year ago – Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 03:23:13 PM

Hello CORRIDOR supporters!

There's a Kickstarter campaign running right now for a horror anthology that I think you might be interested in.  They have only three days left in their campaign and need more pledges to get across the finish line. If you liked what we did with CORRIDOR, you might want to check it out!

DEATH IN THE MOUTH: Original Horror from the Margins is the second installment in a horror anthology series showcasing BIPOC and other ethnically marginalized writers and artists from around the world. It will feature 20 stand-alone prose stories spanning from the mythic past to the far future, cross between real and fictive worlds, and explore unique and unsettling manifestations of horror. Each story will also be accompanied by an original black and white illustration by a unique artist.

Some of the creators already invited to this volume include Nadia Bulkin (who you may remember for CORRIDOR volume 1), J.A.W. McCarthy (one of my recent favorites), and Sloane Leong (who is also one of the editors).

And just because I'm obsessed with these designs, I want to show you the t-shirt add-ons you can acquire through the campaign. These land exactly in the middle of the Venn diagram that comprises my interests in horror literature, art, and heavy metal. Maybe they will for you too?

Thanks for your time. I hope this project interests you.

– Christian

Playlist of the Damned
over 1 year ago – Sun, Apr 30, 2023 at 09:12:13 AM

CORRIDOR supporters,

There's a new horror anthology I'd like to bring to your attention, featuring several of my favorite horror writers. 

Playlist of the Damned will be a collection of stories from the place where music meets the macabre featuring such authors as Philip Fracassi, Lisa Morton, Mercedes M. Yardley, V. Castro, Gemma Files, Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito, Craig Gidney, Maxwell Gold, Linda Addison, Tim Waggoner, SP Miskowski, and Sofia Ajram. 

Cover art is being developed by the innovative surrealistic horror artist, Frank Walls, who has done a number of covers for award-winning authors.

The book will be edited by Jessica Landry and Willow Dawn Becker, both of which have been nominated for Bram Stoker Awards® in the category of Excellence in an Anthology. (Landry, Jess. There is No Death, There are No Dead, 2021)(Becker, Willow Dawn. Mother: Tales of Love and Terror, 2022)

Please support the book if you can!

- Christian

P.S. If you still haven't claimed your rewards for the CORRIDOR campaign, now is a good time to reach out to me. I'm about to move and packing up all the rewards for storage. Thanks!

The Foreseeable Future
about 2 years ago – Tue, Nov 22, 2022 at 09:24:06 PM

Dear Corridor supporters,

Above you should see the cover we commissioned from artist Tyler Crook for the second volume of Corridor. Tyler finished this back in September of 2021, so we’ve been sitting on it for almost a year at this point.

We’re sharing Tyler’s cover with you now for a few reasons. Like us, we know you’re always hungry for new, weird horror art.

Secondly, we’ve decided to put Corridor on hiatus for the foreseeable future until the landscape is a little friendlier to projects like ours. Hopefully in a few months, there will be more stable, alternative options on the table.

Our reasoning for stepping back falls into a few buckets: media landscape, resources, and fulfillment.

It has been an uphill battle with this project, ever since we launched in 2020. While at times this felt personal, it is really because we’re living through a period of immense destabilization right now.

The media landscape is bleak. Crowdfunding isn’t the same as it was when I started back in 2010, and there is no viable alternative experience for our minimum budget of $21,000. Similarly, between Twitter’s Elon Musk fiasco and Facebook’s navel-gazing into the metaverse, we can’t rely on social media channels to promote our campaigns either. So while we have looked at other options, none seem to be a good fit for Corridor given our funding goals and overall mission.

On August 30, 2022, we hoped that grant funding would be an alternative funding avenue but after some research, we realized it would be even more work that we don’t have the resources to make happen. Given that Corridor is a three-member team, it became a capacity issue that was unsustainable for our families and careers.

Finally, but just as importantly, fulfillment remains unstable and issues abound. How many times have you heard the phrase “supply chain issues” lately? It’s because the economics of freight transportation are completely upended. (While I thought we were the only ones dealing with this, Christopher Sahlén’s November 2, 2022 update for the immensely popular Cy_Borg and Mörk Borg roleplaying games reported on their own fulfillment nightmare which is eerily similar to issues we have faced.)

Rather than continue to bang our heads against the wall that is capitalist disruption, we’re going to step back and take a breath. Then in about 6 months, we will check out the landscape and see how we can plot and scheme the best way to get more weird horror from your eyeballs into your brains.

In the meantime, look with awe at the cover Tyler Crook created and wonder: What stories might spin out of the prompts he provided us here?

– Christian, Mary and Ron

Update re: CORRIDOR # 2
over 2 years ago – Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 04:17:49 AM

Hello CORRIDOR supporters,

I have some news and updates about the second issue of CORRIDOR magazine that I want to share with you. We recently realized that we would not be able to partner with the crowdfunding and fulfillment company we engaged back in March. The conflict was between balancing their day jobs while managing projects like ours.

Our team (myself, Mary, and Ron) met to try to brainstorm other possibilities. At the end of our conversation, unfortunately, it became clear that we can no longer commit to running a fundraising campaign in October. 

We still very much want to produce a second issue. But in order to do that, we need to lock in a viable solution for our editorial costs. For transparency, to pay what we feel is a fair wage to all of our creators, it will cost around $10,000. This aligns to our editorial mission and we will not deviate from it. Printing and fulfillment are estimated to be another $11,000. 

We’ve met a systemic breakdown of resources for over a year now.  For now we're going to pause the campaign and production while we look for alternatives. We plan to explore grant funding as an option, as well as building out and exploring our digital presence to promote the publication when it's ready.

Thanks,

Christian Sager

SPECTRAL: A Showcase of Fear
over 2 years ago – Fri, Jun 24, 2022 at 04:02:34 PM

While you are all waiting to hear more from us about the campaign for the second issue of Corridor, we've got another project to draw your attention to during this Hot Horror Summer!  

Corridor supporter and ally David Accampo is currently running a campaign for SPECTRAL: A Showcase of Fear, a 112-page volume collection of spooky, weird comics he did with artist Chris Anderson.  Their campaign includes the book, plus lots of interesting rewards... including puppets that tie into the story. Thomas Ligotti probably scooped up the first two puppets, but as of this writing there are still two left. 

Consider checking out their campaign to support independent horror!