Trail of Indiscretion #9

I picked up Trail of Indiscretion #9 on a whim during a fast wander around the dealer's room at Darkovercon last November, but it only just surfaced in my to-read pile.  I'd never heard of most of the names in the table of contents, or even the publisher (Fortress Publishing), though it seems to have a small track record of comics and magazines published over the past two years.  But the table-minding editor was amusing and wrote me a haiku on the spot, which was a clever way to get me to hang around the table long enough to want something to read.  I picked up an issue at random and was intrigued by the artwork.  I've no idea how they make these smaller-than-small press things work financially, but it's so nice to see people trying to make a go of genre fiction periodicals that I figured I could spare the $5 (minus a five-cent credit for what I paid for the haiku) for 48 pages of content and a full-color cover.

This seems to be the first full-size (up from digest) issue of the magazine, and the first with graphic (format not content) stories added in.  I found those two stories the highlight of the magazine, though they are only the first installments of longer tales and consist more of setup than anything else.  Both were written by the publishers/editors/officers of Fortress, Chris Pisano and Brian Koscienski, working with artists Dirk Frearer on "The Necromancer" and Leonardo Freites on "Valhalla Burning."  I liked Frearer's art better but found that story's start (creepy overlord demands tithes from poor village while another creepy guy (same person?) wanders through tombs) less intriguing than the second tale's aging warrior in search of a heroic death who finds himself abruptly assigned by an angelic being to guard a mysterious young woman from, presumably, the demonic being the angel-guy was just fighting and his chums.

Artwise, I should also note that cover artist Axel Medellin seems to be trying to channel Bob Eggleton, with a pair of gigantic monsters (saurian and, um, rocklike/robotic) fighting and a style more painterly than photorealistic.  The cover doesn't relate to any of the contents.  Interestingly, Medellin is from Mexico and Freites from Argentina; Fortress is certainly setting an example of reaching out geographically.

I wasn't as impressed by the non-graphic stories.  They weren't awful, and were written competently enough grammar-wise, but I found most of them not very memorable and more than a bit predictable plotwise, though acceptable enough (partly because they were quite short) in a publication which I suspect pays only with a free copy or two.  The most interesting to me was Dallas writer Steven Patrick's "The Motel at Mile Marker 256," which, happily, did NOT end the way I expected it to.  I'm not sure it was a brilliant ending, but at least it wasn't obvious.  I read this story aloud to my local Storyreading group, where it was well received.  I got a giggle out of the Patrick's depiction of a frantic writer:

He sat at the breakfast table writing on any blank paper he could find: any spare section of the newspaper, several scraps of advertisements, a faded menu and two rolls of toilet paper.

I should also say a word or two about the movie reviews, which are definitely unique in format.  I was particularly fond of the one for Nim's Island:

It's unusual
to see Jodi Foster not
be mad at the world

I've never even heard of the movie and am not especially inspired to see it, but I love the review.

I'm probably curious enough about the two graphic stories (a term I hate, since it suggests a different meaning of "graphic" to me, but it seems to be what we're stuck with) to get another issue or two to see if they continue to interest me, and I certainly wish Fortress well with their publications.

Aspiring writers not yet graduated to paying markets take note: they're looking for short story subs in the SF/F/horror/action/adventure genres, under 5K words, no profanity or graphic sex/violence; submission info from Ralan here.

Comments

[Marilee J. Layman]

Hmmm, probably not what I'd want, but I can see where it might sell to others.

[Serge]

I'm always willing to give people a chance so I went to their site and bought issues 9-10-11-12. At least I think I did. I selected PayPal and clicked on "submit", which took me to 'page not found'. Their order page did say soomething about a different proceudre for PayPal. Well, if I don't hear back soon, I'll know that something went awry.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Wow, you're faster off the mark than I am! Let me know if you think the graphic stories are worth following.