Ink And Horror: Building Magazines In A Digital Age

Horror deserves ink you can hold. We sit down with art director and publisher Brian Stewart to chart a wild journey from the first death of Fangoria to launching Phantasm Media and steering Delirium with a fresh design voice. Brian shares how a single-subject magazine strategy—think George Romero, Sid Haig, Italian cinema, Linnea Quigley—creates depth you can’t get from quick-hit feeds, and why making paper in a digital world is more rebellion than nostalgia.

The conversation rocks into music, where KISS served as Brian’s early compass and later creative canvas. From official poster books to tour guitar picks, he shows how rock theatrics and horror imagery fuel each other. We trade Detroit Rock City memories, swap favorite shots, and celebrate that charged moment when a bootleg screening turns a kid into a lifer. Then we map the roots of heavy metal—crowning Black Sabbath, tracing Alice Cooper’s reinventions, and tipping a hat to Rob Zombie’s showmanship—revealing the shared DNA that binds riffs, latex, and late-night double features.

Center stage is a love letter to 1985. We connect the dots across Day of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead, Lifeforce, Back to the Future, Rocky IV, and Weird Science; then jump to comics with Crisis on Infinite Earths and toys with the second wave of G.I. Joe; and round it out with music sparks from S.O.D. to Dead Milkmen and Samhain’s shift toward Danzig. It’s a curated atlas of a year that rewired genre culture, the kind of deep dive only print can stitch together without losing the thread. We close with Phantasm trivia, Angus Scrimm’s towering illusion, and where to find Delirium and Phantasm’s latest work.

If you love horror, metal, and the smell of fresh ink, hit play, subscribe, and share this with a friend who still files their favorites on a shelf. Leave a review to help more fans find the show and keep print’s pulse strong.

Chapters

• 0:00 Banter And Setup
• 0:34 Origins At Fangoria
• 1:05 Founding Phantasm Media
• 1:55 Taking Over Delirium Design
• 2:38 First Conventions And Community
• 3:16 KISS Influence And Fangoria Work
• 4:05 Designing For KISS And Beyond
• 5:13 Detroit Rock City Memories
• 6:09 Heavy Metal Roots: Sabbath To Alice
• 7:35 The Magic Of 1985 In Film
• 8:29 1985 In Comics And Music
• 9:33 Phantasm Name And Tall Man Trivia
• 11:59 Plugs And Where To Buy

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:01

Brian Stewart on the festival.

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Well thank you welcome to you as well, although it's your thing. I've already wrote it. Should we do a take test?

SPEAKER_01: 0:10

No, no. Perfect.

SPEAKER_00: 0:11

This is great. So just expect it to be downhill from here.

SPEAKER_01: 0:14

Right. Okay. No, no, uh swim it upstream.

SPEAKER_00: 0:19

Not a chance for me.

SPEAKER_01: 0:22

Awesome. Thank you for taking the time to swim in the bowl with me.

SPEAKER_00: 0:26

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01: 0:27

Absolutely, absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about Delirium, the other magazines you have.

SPEAKER_00: 0:34

Yeah. Well, um, I can tell you how I got there. If that's okay, we'll swim around and land there. Exactly. So a few years ago, well, quite a few years ago now, I was at Fangoria, and I was there until it basically Fangoria passed away the first time.

SPEAKER_01: 0:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 0:51

And at that time, Warzone was still a thing as well. So I was working on both magazines. And when Fangoria ended, Chris Alexander and Bill Mahalley and myself wanted to keep making paper in a digital world. Is make paper when everybody wants digital. So we did that. So we launched our company, Phantasm Media, and we launched with the uh George Romero issue, and George actually helped us get started. He was like, hey, make the first magazine about me, my films, and every one of those magazines are single subject. So like when we do any issue, it's not a it's not a you know a random thing. It's like the Cid Hag issue, only stuff we did one about Italian cinema, only Italian cinema. You know, so things like that. We've got Linnae Quigley, other things like that. Chris and Bill moved on from this company, and so my wife and I still run Phantasm. And then Bill actually retired from Delirium. You know, if you guys aren't familiar, Bill Mahalley was an amazing designer. He you know worked on Creepy and Eerie and some of those amazing Warren magazines and designed Fangoria for years and was designing Delirium, and Bill retired, and Chris called me and he's like, hey, so come on, we need to keep making magazines.

SPEAKER_01: 2:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 2:05

And so I became the art director at Delirium and I believe issue 32 forward. So now I'm over at Delirium, and you know, I I tried to honor Bill by making my transition something going forward, so Bill had his thing, and I wasn't just sort of like cannibalizing Bill's design. Right. I tried to make it something different, not for any reason other than to let his moment be his and mine be mine.

SPEAKER_01: 2:31

Definitely, definitely. I have to just let you know this because talking about Fangoria. My very first convention was a Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in Chicago.

SPEAKER_00: 2:44

How many years ago?

SPEAKER_01: 2:46

It was my high school graduation present, and I'm 36. Yeah. It was my first like convention ever, you know, and it was the first time that like I realized that I wasn't the only crazy, you know, horror fan that was out there, and there were there's so many people that love this stuff that grew up on it, like you know, you and I. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 3:16

You know, speaking of Fangoria, there was an early, like I don't remember the issue number, if I say it on the early. Uh there was a Gene Simmons article. I'm a huge KISS fan. KISS was like uh basically Superman for me growing up.

SPEAKER_01: 3:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 3:31

And so I carried this one particular issue all the time because I was trying to draw the Gene Simmons picture and the and the monsters. And so the first thing I got to do for Fangoria was brand member of KISS back, and that was Ace Frightly. Oh nice. Yeah, yeah. Then eventually, actually, my my wife and I, you know, we went on to do the official KISS poster book with the band for a few years up until COVID sort of ruined it. That was really cool. And since then I I went on to work for the band designing some of like all Stanley guitars, all the guitar picks on this last tour. So I'm I'm I'm kind of all over the place.

SPEAKER_01: 4:08

Awesome. Awesome, awesome. And I'll even say another thing on the subject of Kiss. My first R-rated movie that I snuck into was Detroit Rock City.

SPEAKER_00: 4:17

Well, what isn't that scene at the end when they like they shoot out of the mouth? Right. And that was an insert shot at the very last moment after they left. Yeah. And that's like one of the best shots in the film.

SPEAKER_01: 4:29

Right, right. The whole the whole movie is, I mean, a couple years ago, Edward Furlong and I forget his name, James, I forget his last name. He was the other the one with the long hair was the stoner. Is it the DeMarco or something? Something like that. Okay. Something like that, I will say. I met both of them, and you know, I got to I got to tell James, he was like, I said, I just want both of you to know that the first R-rated movie I snuck into was Detroit Rock City. And I couldn't have been happier with with you know what I saw and the experience I had. And I I remember the the theater closed down you know a bunch a good couple years ago now, and it was a piece of my childhood that you know just like horror, you know, I'm really big in the music. I I interview bands and stuff, and obviously, you know, kiss is up there. Yeah, Black Sabbath led Alice Cooper. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00: 5:32

I'm on that team. I don't think it was Led Zeppelin that started. No, no, no. Zeppelin's great. Right. But Black Sabbath, I believe, is where heavy metal was born.

SPEAKER_01: 5:40

Yes, yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_00: 5:43

Right. That was you know, it was horrible. Right. Something so awesome came from that.

SPEAKER_01: 5:47

Exactly. Yeah. Black Sabbath, I I will agree with you, is the definitive introduction to what heavy metal became. I agree. You could throw Alice Cooper in there too.

SPEAKER_00: 5:58

Yes, I think Alice Cooper Alice Cooper became something as Alice Cooper band, you know, went away and Alice Cooper, the individual, went forward.

SPEAKER_01: 6:10

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00: 6:12

Yes. Exactly timeline there with Alice as well. But yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01: 6:17

I would say from what is it, Goes to Hell. The album that came after that was like pretty much the definitive, like I'm trying to remember the chronology on on camera here.

SPEAKER_00: 6:30

I think you that that sounds about yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:31

Yeah, go Goes to Hell was like the late 70s, and that had what was it? Oh, the song with uh the Flies.

SPEAKER_00: 6:42

Halo Flies?

SPEAKER_01: 6:43

Yeah, yeah. Halo Flies. It had that song on it. And and then if you listen to what came next, like the album after that, I think the I think that was like 77, 78, something like that. And then like the next album that came out was like such like a definitive new sound.

SPEAKER_00: 7:02

Right. Alice has had uh so many moments, you know, like you think about even like the song Clones.

SPEAKER_01: 7:08

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00: 7:09

I think that could have almost been a bowie song.

SPEAKER_01: 7:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:12

You know, in the in the particular bowie phase. Right, right. You know, and I love that about Alice, he's such a chameleon musically.

SPEAKER_01: 7:19

Right, right. And you know, the the only person that's come close to Alice Cooper and and you know, my my age and I guess our age is Rob Zombie. You know. I I think Rob Zombie is pretty much like he does his own thing. And he does his own thing, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 7:36

The randomness of it is the fun.

SPEAKER_01: 7:37

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00: 7:38

Yeah, we do we're actually, you know, with with Kiss is over as far as a book for us, and unfortunately as a band, you know, they sold a pop house.

SPEAKER_01: 7:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 7:46

We're still you know actively doing a lot of stuff. It's mute we tie music and you know film together in what the w how we were able to with print. Like we're currently working on an issue that's all about the splendor that is 1985. You know how many awesome things happen in '85. Oh yeah. I mean, it was one of those, you know, online that have those weird like top nine things, the blah blah blah. Right. And I just happened to randomly read one of those stupid articles one day, and I was like, holy crap, all those movies hit in '85. And I started digging, and there were so many more. I mean, Day of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead. You know, it was like, okay, wow. Life Force, you keep digging. Right. Outside of horror, there's Back to the Future. Right. Mando. Right. It's insane. Rocky Four.

SPEAKER_01: 8:32

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00: 8:33

Weird Science.

SPEAKER_01: 8:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 8:34

Vacation 2. I mean, you know, it just keeps annoying. Yeah. And then I got to looking a little deeper outside of film. And I was like, wow. So second wave of G.I. Joe action figures. That was Crisis on Infinite Earth if you were reading comics. It was just crazy. And then we were looking even deeper, and then we started looking at music. That was the year anthrax side project SOD happened from Virg. Yeah, yeah. That was also what was Among the Living came out that year. Right. First Dead Milkman record. If you're if you're a weirdo punk. Definitely. Um Sam Hain was really, you know, getting ready to become something else and begin to morph what eventually became Danzig.

SPEAKER_01: 9:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 9:17

So you know there was a lot of stuff happening. Flute.

SPEAKER_01: 9:21

Yeah. Flute? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 9:22

Yeah. So much awesome stuff. So we're doing a 1985 issue and all the stuff I just mentioned in it. See how I was able to wrap that around yet still promote myself.

SPEAKER_01: 9:32

Definitely, definitely. And I'll promote myself here real quick on the topic of Anthrax. I'm supposed to do an interview with Anthrax on their new album.

SPEAKER_00: 9:41

Really?

SPEAKER_01: 9:42

Yes. Awesome. Yeah, I a couple still Citicons ago, that's our big like Comic-Con here. Frank Bellow came and then Scott Ian came to the next one. I basically got in touch with their publicist who represents some other major heavy metal bands. They're great guys. Yeah. They said, you know, check back when the new album is coming out and they'll do it.

SPEAKER_00: 10:06

So around the campfires, they're actively working on it.

SPEAKER_01: 10:09

Yeah, yeah. I think they're fine on Charlie. Oh, awesome. Awesome. I think they might have actually released a single from it. I'm not 100% sure.

SPEAKER_00: 10:18

I know of, but I don't have my finger on the pulse of everything lately.

SPEAKER_01: 10:23

Yeah. I might be wrong about that. I I I thought I said something on Spotify. I could be wrong, but if if not, everybody who's Anthrax fans, keep your your ears open. It's coming out. Yeah. But yeah, also I have to say I love the name Phantasm. Thanks. Obviously, I'm Don Coscarelli and all that. And I just want to share a short story. A couple years ago, Reggie Bannister was at a different convention that I covered, and I got to interview him. And one of the great interview, great guy. One of the things that I wish I had captured on audio when it happened was when I stood up, he said, Man, you're like the spawn of the tall man or something.

SPEAKER_00: 11:12

That's great. So you're basically Angus Screw Jr.

SPEAKER_01: 11:16

Right. Well, actually, he said uh he told a little little trivia for uh Phantasm fans. The tall man really wasn't that tall.

SPEAKER_00: 11:25

No, Angus wasn't a very tall guy.

SPEAKER_01: 11:27

Yeah, that he said they actually had to give him platform shoes to wear in Phantasm to make them look. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 11:34

But he wasn't, I mean, I I I met him and he wasn't small. Right, right. He wasn't, you know, like ginormous. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01: 11:41

And I I I also am proud to say that I have the NECA tall man Phantasm action figure.

SPEAKER_00: 11:48

Cool.

unknown: 11:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:49

Yeah. Awesome. Well, Brian, it's been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you. Anything else to promote or anything before we uh I'm always a big fan of plugs.

SPEAKER_00: 11:59

You can always grab Delirium Magazine online. It's you know it's out there, it's available, it's easy to find. And our Phantasm Presents stuff is at Phantasmmedia.com. It's Phantasm with an F, F-A-N-T-A-S-N, M-E-D-I-A.com. Or you can throw a dash between. We have both of them. But yeah, feel free to grab tons of paper because we all need more stuff in our house. Yeah. Definitely make stuff to clutter your house.

SPEAKER_01: 12:28

Definitely, definitely. Awesome. Well, Brian, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00: 12:32

Thanks, guys.

SPEAKER_01: 12:33

I hope the time of sure was just right.

SPEAKER_00: 12:35

We fixed.

SPEAKER_01: 12:37

Awesome. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00: 12:38

Thank you.