If you had come to me in the summer of 1994 and asked me to rattle off a list of my favorite things in life, somewhere in the top of that list would be Tim Burton. My opinion of him has…ahem, fluxed in the years since, but back in the late 80’s-mid 90’s, he was my jam. While I’m tempted to turn this into a Batman gush-fest, I won’t. Trust me, there will plenty of posts in this blog that will go down that road. For now, I’d like to discuss this this thing:
The premier issue of EVERYONE NEEDS A HOBBY: THE TIM BURTON FANZINE WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR.
I’m going to be honest with you. I have three issues of this and I don’t have the first clue where I got any of them. Much of the ’90’s for me is a blur of high school angst, flannel, and Friends reruns. But somewhere in there, I found this fanzine. Believe me, the irony that I’m writing about a proper fanzine in a medium that pretty much killed the fanzine is not lost on me, but here we are.
Where I was when this thing came out was in high school in a small town, with a bedroom full of Cure CD’s, a Batman obsession, and hard-on for Lydia Deetz.
Let’s turn some pages. I’m not going to go into all of it, but I think we’ll hit some fun highlights. First off is a picture of the guy himself and a brief introduction.
Despite the long, stringy mess of blonde hair I had in high school, you guys have no idea how hard I tried to rock this look. It didn’t work out. I was a lot more Kurt Cobain than Robert Smith.
Further in, we’ve got the “News and Sightings” section, where we find out the latest in Burton news. It goes for 4 pages and has some interesting tidbits. There is one particular paragraph that goes into the fact that Batman Forever is now filming! And MICHAEL KEATON WON’T BE BATMAN. Whaaaaaaat?
But my favorite part was this:
Tim Burton adapting The Fall of the House of Usher? Now we’re talking. And by that, I mean ’90’s Burton, back when he was in his Ed Wood days. But now? Well, the idea of him adapting Dark Shadows sounded like a good idea too. Make no mistake, Batman is and always will be my favorite film of all time, but Old Boy has slipped into unforgivable territory in recent years (*coughaliceinwonderlandcough*). The sad thing is, I think he still has it in him. I just wish he’d get off the idea of adapting other artists’ work and create something new. That’s where he’s always been his strongest, Batman not withstanding. I do have high hopes for Big Eyes. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. As for the prospect of a Catwoman film…hey, we got this…
That was something, right?…. No. That was not something. What that was, was one of only two times in which I nearly got up and walked out of a theater before the movie was over. The second one, by the way, was Batman and Robin.
Which brings us to my favorite part of this issue. The Vincent Price Filmography!
This was an incredible resource for Teenage Horror Nerd Me back in the days when the internet was taking its first baby steps. You kids have no idea how easy you have it.
Lastly, I’m going to leave you with the title of a poem near the back of the zine:
“Body Piercings, Hairdye, Scars, and Speed”
Not kidding. That’s what it’s called. Oh come on. Like the Tim Burton zine that was published in the mid-90’s, geared toward mopey teenage goths, wasn’t going to have a damn poetry section.
UPDATE!
It seems a few folks were dying to read the literary tour de force that is “Body Piercings, Hairdye, Scars, and Speed”. Well, never let it be said that I don’t deliver.
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