Terror Australis: the Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine was Australia's first mass markethorror magazine. It succeeded the Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine edited by Barry Radburn and Stephen Studach. AH&FM was the first semi-professional magazine of its kind in Australia to pay authors. After working on the production crew of AH&FM, when Radburn eventually suspended publication, Leigh Blackmore took over the subscription base and with co-editors Chris G.C. Sequeira and Bryce J. Stevens founded Terror Australis. Kevin Dillon, a longtime Australian sf fan who had belonged to the Australian Futurians had the role of 'Special Consultant' for financial support and proofreading work on the magazine. "Australia has never produced a straight fantasy magazine, though in 1970 Sword and Sorcery, a putative companion to Ronald E Graham's Vision of Tomorrow, reached dummy stage before a poor financial deal killed it. Void, an sf magazine, published occasional fantasy. Not until The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine did a specialist publication emerge in the small-press field, though it concentrated mostly on horror, in imitation of Weird Tales. The same applied to Terror Australis, which emphasized graphic visceral horror." "Terror Australis was launched in autumn 1988 and was more ambitious than AH&FM. The first issue, printed in Sydney, was a mammoth 170 pages and its fiction content was almost entirely Australian. The second issue, printed privately on a printing press owned by artist Kurt Stone, followed about July 1990, almost two years after the first, and despite its less than satisfactory physical appearance, was well received. Issue 2 was the only issue distributed to newsagents, via Wrapaway Distribution. The third issue, published in February 1992, Issue 3 was themed as a Jack the Ripper special and contained stories of 'Ripperiana' together with media guides and non-fiction bibliographies around Ripper-based material. . Issue 3 overcame all the production problems evident with the earlier issues. It was professionally typeset by a Queensland printer, printed on quality paper and perfect bound with a glossy cover. It was also the final issue. While Terror Australis was primarily a horror magazine, it published a number of well-regarded dark fantasy stories, including work by Rick Kennett, Frances Burke, Graeme Parsons and Steven Paulsen."
Content
In addition to fiction, some of which was by writers best known for their mainstream work, each issue featured non-fiction columns including "The Black Stump" ; "In the Bad Books" and 'Carl Uda' ; "Out of Space and Time" ; "Views from Emerald City" ; "Dark Enchantments" ; "Post-Mortem" and "The Chaos Club". Author Maurice Xanthos was the only author to have a story selected for each of the three issues. The column "Personal Terrors" by Christopher Sequeira appeared only in Issue 1, and that by Bryce Stevens, "Every Time the Candle Burns", in Issues 1 and 3 only. Mark Morrison's "Keeping Time" appeared only in Issues 1 and 3. for the Horror on the Oriental Express gaming module for the 5th edition of Call of Cthulhu ). Keith Curtis 's column "Bibliocide" appeared only in Issue 1. The magazine also featured interviews with several international writers such as Clive Barker and Whitley Strieber, and stories by such international writers as Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley and Nicholas Royle. A wide range of Australian genre artists also featured in its pages. These included Gavin O'Keefe, Steve 'Carnage' Carter, Tony Baron, Karen Ravenlore, Brad Ellis, Mike McGann, Rama Mithiran, Physch, David Richardson, Jon Sequeira, Bryce J. Stevens, Kurt Stone, Catherine Waters, Phillip Cornell, Igor Spajic, Neil Walpole, Kerry Kennedy and Bodine Amerikah. Ravenlore and Mithiran had previously had artwork featured in Terror Australis' predecessor, The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine.
Influence
Although its circulation was comparatively small, the magazine had a significant impact on the horror scene in Australia in the late eighties and early nineties. Issue 3 was reviewed outside Australia by Don D'Ammassa. The success of terror Australis magazine led directly to the publication of the mass-market horror anthology , a companion volume to Terry Dowling and Van Ikin's Mortal Fire: Best Australian SF. Author Robert Bloch said Terror Australis: Best Aust Australian Horror was 'a landmark venture - a testament to the advancement of the genre'. Author Leanne Frahm's story "Catalyst" from the volume won the Ditmar Award for Best Australian Short Fiction, 1993. Russell Blackford, Van Ikin & Sean McMullen. Although the Australian magazines Eidolon and Aurealis frequently published horror stories along with their sf and fantasy contents, Terror Australis remained Australia's only professional all-horror magazine until the advent of the Australian Horror Writers Association magazine Midnight Echo in the 21st century.
