the 27th pan book of horror stories selected by clarence paget- release date: (?) 1986

ARTIST: STUART BODEK

CHRIS BARNHAM: ON THE FISHERMAN'S PATH

HARRY E. TURNER: Ms RITA AND THE PROFESSOR

SAMANTHA LEE: MEDIUM RARE

BUZZ DIXON: SPIDERS

JOHNNY YEN: A WEIRD DAY FOR AGGRO

ALAN TEMPERLEY: PEBBLEDENE

NORMAN P KAUFMAN: DEAD OR ALIVE

STEPHEN KING: I KNOW WHAT YOU NEED

RAY ASKEY: RED RECIPE

B. SESHRADI: JOINT FAMILY

JONATHAN CRUISE: THE HOUSE THAT REMEMBERED

JAY WILDE: ROTHSCHILD'S REVENGE

I first became aware of the Pan Book of Horror Stories series when I attended Expo 67 in Montreal with my family (I was about 14 at the time). I found a volume at the UK pavillion's bookstore and bought it. Over the following years, as my interest in science fiction and fantasy grew, I picked up the occasional stray volume at sci-fi conventions.

In the late 70s I had finished a 6 year tour in the US Army and had come to Los Angeles to break into show biz. I ended up getting writing jobs on various animated shows at that time, but as you can imagine it wasn't very satisfying creatively. I had started writing short stories when in high school and had continued writing through my days in the Army, but I had never sold anything to a magazine.

I kept writing short stories while working on various animated shows and eventually placed a few in semi-pro magazines and lower end digests like MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE (Charles E. Fritch was the editor at the time).

As you might guess, "Spiders" is based on a mild phobia I have of spiders. I trace this back to an incident in my childhood, recounted in the story, in which I ran into a spider web and ended up with the spider trapped between the web and my face. The story is very personal insofar as it probably creeped me out the most while writing it; all the ideas and imagery in it is based on my deepest fear of spiders.

"Spiders" made the rounds of American digests and wound up being published in MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINES in the August 1984 issue. By that time MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE had gone from pure crime/hardboiled detective stories to include weird, horror, and borderline supernatural stories. It was one of three stories I sold to them in the 1980s.

As I recall, "Spiders" got a couple of negative comments from readers who didn't like the mild make-out scene in the story. These letters prompted a response or two in return, the closest thing to a controversy MIKE SHAYNE had in those latter days (they ceased publication in 1985).

A short while after that, I read in either LOCUS or a small press newsletter than the Pan Book iof Horror Stories series was looking for material and I sent them two of my published stories, one of which was "Spiders" (I can't recall the second one that they passed on).

"Spiders" was one of my last short stories published. By that time I was story editing for G.I. JOE and working on other animated series such as TRANSFORMERS, THE INHUMANOIDS, and MY LITTLE PONY (how's that for range?) and had no time to craft and polish short stories. The magazine market was already starting to collapse and animation and comic book writing paid far better, so I concentrated more of my efforts there.