After a hefty delay, 1997 finally delivered issue seven of Cyber-Psychos, and now the zine is almost double the length of the previous issue. Oh man, so much wild shit to feed my eyes with. You get over 130 pages of non-stop underground weirdness, horror, and punk attitude. The two big features here are renowned author Brian Hodge (Nightlife, dark Advent) doing a deep dive into the Cold Meat Industry label and catalog, with examination of some of the imprint's key artists like Brighter Death Now, MZ. 412, Mortiis; the other being an interview with cyberpunk pioneer / horror visionary John Shirley (who, as an aside, is my favorite author of all time). There's a talk with underground musician / performer / personality Little Fyodor and his companion/co-conspirator Babushka. Swedish avant-black metal legends Tiamat get into their interests in both black metal and psychedelic / prog rock. Amy Mazurek talks culture and performance with didgeridoo musician Stephen Kent, and moving the ancient instrument into new fields of experimental sound. Sailing offers a heartfelt memorial essay on John Graves III, Denver underground luminary and member of the campy new-wave inspired horror-punk band Dark Shadowz. A heavy-duty convo with acclaimed cyberpunk / "avant-pop" thinker and writer Larry McCaffery that branches off into all kinds of odd directions, a great read. Another fave writer of mine, Paul M. Sammon, is Q&A'd by Alex Johnson about his work in horror publishing, his Splatterpunks anthology series, film work on Xtro 3: Watch The Skies, and beyond. S. Darnbrook Colson chats with avant-garde/sci-fi/porno writer Jaci Marsh. Bruce Young interviews subversive underground comics figure Carol Lay.

Fiction-wise, Shirley drops a nightmarish short titled "Preach", worth the purchase of this issue alone. Bill Eakin's "A Threat Of Vegetarianism on Mati-Syra-Zemlya" is trippy satirical science fiction. There's a healthy helping of grisly horror from Jeffrey Thomas' "Family Matter", P.J. Roberts' "The 13th Dimension", Dave Mariah's "Those Who Doubt", and Steven Shrewsbury's "All Cranked Up And Nowhere To Go". A one-page play "Scenario" by Jennifer Swift that slips into Lynchian territory. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross goes disturbingly weird with "My Thirst". The intimate ghostly experience of C.S. Fuqua's "Undertaker II: Drowning". An amazing entry is Charlee Jacob's "Senseless Slaughter", which wraps hideous horror in the shape of a set of extensive board game instructions - really inspired, and really disturbing. On the non-fiction end, Don Webb's "The Silver Screen And The Darkness Within" makes a compelling connection between cinematic story structure, myth, and the occult. H.E. Fassl combines nightmare photomontage and warped writing in his "Suicidal Angels" portfolio. Paul Riddell's "MUtiny In The Toy Store" is an essay on the state of action figures (and is eerily prescient). Lovecraftian visual poetry by Thomas Wiloch. Vivid and dark poetics from John Kerper, Tom Hamill, John Everson, Sallee, and Scott Holstad. Surreal flash fiction from Bruce Boston, K.K. Ormond, Scott Urban, and weird-punk icon W.H. Pugmire.

Sailing's "Editorial Babble" is double the length this time, and is followed by a piece on the zine's forthcoming use of the internet to spread its virus. She also has a couple of pages of info on the first "Death Equinox" convention sponsored by Cyber-Psychos - holy shit, I would have loved to have attended these things. The latest in their "Self-Publishing Band Profiles" is noteworthy for getting deep into the background of Hungarian psychedelic rockers VHK, who immediately signed with Alternative Tentacles at time of printing, plus electronic sculptors Pounce International. "CyberCents" gets into "Street Tech: Raising Hell With Kitchen Chemistry", another in the columns long tradition of teaching people how to completely fuck over authority and institutions using ad hoc chemical "devices". "Personal Realities" again gets some intriguing essays on astral travel and AIDS, and realizing human extinction. Colson looks into the American justice system to suss out more horrific concepts in his latest "Bad Boy's View". "2-Headed TV Casualty" looks at more crucial midnight cinema with reviews of 1988's Centipede Horror, 1957's Fiend Without A Face, 1963's At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul Away amongst others. And then the reviews: a lengthy rundown on Harlan Ellison's Mephisto In Onyx, albums across the extreme underground spectrum from Huun-Huur-Tu, Brutal Truth, Crash Worship, and Scorn, to Old Lady Drivers (OLD), Laibach, and Zeni Geva (I just noticed that old pal Paul Lemos of Controlled Bleeding / Skin Chamber fame penned a bunch of these!). Awesome. In addition, live reviews of John Cale, underground videocassettes, "new" fiction from John Shirley, Brian Hodge, Paul di Fillipo, and an army of other, non-fic from Robert Anton Wilson, Loren Rhoads, Anton LaVey, and a number of occult texts and Feral House necessities; more zines and underground mags and underground comics, small press horror fic zines, graphic novels, jesus sweet Christ there's so much stuff from this era that I have never heard of but which looks killer. And to top this issue off, you get the latest pages of skuzzy comics from N.TRO.P's Schism and Cooper's Nymph. There's at least a days worth of reading here, and yet again, my hunting list of obscure fringe media has swollen like a bloated whale carcass. Oh yeah, and ads for Mark V. Seising Books, Art Ware, Permeable Press, Shade Rupe's Funeral Party (!), for added nostalgia.

Can you tell I'm addicted to this zine yet?