Ancient Darkness

The introduction to both issues of this gothic/occult, zine/resource guide states: “This zine is not recommended to any fucking jesus dick lickers. This zine will not be held responsible for demonic possession of any kind.” Ancient Darkness is largely contributor-based, and some of the material is very serious about things of the gothic/occult nature, but this introduction alone seems to indicate the editors’ uneducated take on the genre. The content is varied in nature – featuring poetry, erotic stories, ads, music reviews, illustrations and information on various deities of the occult – but the editor seemed to have included everything submitted. The few articles and ads that are well informed are far and few between the amateurish poems; the erotic stories (that are terribly unerotic) and the illustrations objectify women to an intolerable degree. There are ads for black metal bands from around the world, and while I would be the first to say “don’t judge a book by its cover”, black metal has been notorious for racism, among other things, and I feel this issue should have been addressed, especially in the interviews with some of the bands (which I have the sneaking suspicion were taken straight out their bio packs). Sometimes I wondered if the editor had even seriously read or thought about the stuff she included. The zine tried to walk the line between being a resource guide and being a means for expression – but instead it seems to have settled on a poor middle ground. To do a zine in the genre of the gothic/occult (or any other group that, intentionally or not, is met with an immediate bias) without proper editing, educational content and addressing important issues is irresponsible and does an injustice to those parties who take their beliefs seriously. (KJ)

zine, #1-2, Jill Butterworth (editor), $?, 24 Patterson St., Collingwood, ON, L9Y 3N2

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