I recently received my contributor’s copy of Murky Depths # 5, and all I can say is that this is the format genre print magazines need to aspire to emulate. Forget the boring old monochrome newsprint digest format that nobody can see in the rack, and don’t be fooled by the glossy full-sized mags with their stapled spines and floppy, impossible to read pages that feel as disposable as Newsweek, Murky Depths has a look and feel that finally brings short fiction into the twenty-first century. Perfect bound with a readable spine that looks great on a book shelf, with dimensions a little over 10 x 6 (graphic novel sized, or the size of another magazine that ‘gets it,’ Black Gate) that make it possible to hold comfortably and read without the page wilting in your hand, and — most impressively — possessing a slick layout and stunning variety of interior art that should appeal to today’s more visually-oriented and media-savvy fan of spec fic, Murky Depths is what the future of print media will look like.
And it has some great dark fiction too, ranging from the historical to science-fictional, alien snowfalls, the old west, strange planets, shadowy cities, vampires and angels and virtual reality nightmares . . . a great selection not tied to any one genre or way of crafting dark fiction. Murky Depths is also bridging the gap between textual and graphical story telling with several fine comic strips, all with divergent and engaging art styles. Here is a magazine that has real rack appeal, and positively demands to be collected, and will satisfy fans of comics and text alike. Paging through my issue, I can’t help but wonder what the state of genre short fiction would look like now if just one of the bigger SF magazines had had the vision to move to a format like Murky Depths ten years ago. I’m just glad somebody has finally done it, and done it so well, and I’m hoping to see big things from this magazine in the future.
Oh yea, and I’ve got a piece in Murky Depths # 5 as well, a gruesome little bit of flash called ‘A Gland Enterprise’ that I’m pleased to say has found a very good home.
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I savour my copies of Murky Depths too and will likely dip into my pocket and buy more at FantasyCon next month.
Don’t overlook our mag, Bill, Escape Velocity – it meets all your criterion except it doesn’t have your stories in there, yet.
Cheers
Thanks for posting Geoff, I’m intrigued to hear that Escape Velocity has a similar aesthetic — I’ll definitely have to check it out!
Gareth Jones’ review says that Escape Velocity is A4 (which is odd for an American mag). But then Murky Depths has been reviewed as a Digest size mag which we know it isn’t. So what size is EV, Geoff. And, Bill, that’s a great blog. If everybody in the world, who was interested in specualtive fiction, read your blog we wouldn’t have to worry about the future of Murky Depths, and being an indy publication (small press if your in the UK) that’s always going to be a concern.
Everybody involved in a publication thinks their magazine is the best, but how many are pushing the boundaries like Murky Depths?
I thought MD was a digest-sized mag as well, before I saw it. Wonder how that info gets around?
Thanks for stopping by Terry — as you can tell I was very impressed with MD and, hopefully, the more people that see it the more the word will spread.
Now, how do we go about getting everybody in the world interested in spec fic to read my blog?