LORE Publications – Magazine Issues & Archive

In 1995, three enthusiasts of horror and fantastic fiction — Rod Heather, Sean O’Leary and Joe Martucci — began publishing a new independent magazine from New Jersey.

They called it LORE.

What began as a small independent publication developed into an award-winning magazine featuring established authors alongside emerging voices, striking fantastic artwork and fiction that moved freely between horror, fantasy, science fiction and the weird.

During its original run, LORE published work associated with writers and artists including Harlan Ellison, Brian Lumley, Brian McNaughton, Jeffrey Thomas and Richard Corben.

Nine issues appeared before publication ceased around the turn of the millennium.

But LORE was not finished.

The Original LORE Magazine

The first incarnation of LORE began in 1995.

In a later interview, editor and publisher Rod Heather remembered the beginnings of the magazine with striking simplicity: three people who loved horror fiction decided to create the sort of publication they themselves wanted to read.

The original team consisted of Heather, Sean O’Leary and Joe Martucci. As the magazine developed, its circle expanded and eventually included figures such as Jeffrey Thomas, Brian McNaughton and John Picinich.

The result was an independent magazine with an increasingly recognizable identity: strange fiction, strong visual presentation and an enthusiasm for material that did not always fit comfortably within conventional genre boundaries.

Writers and Artists of LORE

One of the most remarkable aspects of LORE’s history is the range of people who appeared in or became associated with the magazine.

Among the names connected with its pages were:

• Harlan Ellison
• Brian Lumley
• Brian McNaughton
• Jeffrey Thomas
• Tom Piccirilli
• Elizabeth Massie
• Richard Corben

LORE’s fiction also accumulated recognition beyond the magazine itself. Contemporary descriptions of the publication note that stories appearing in LORE went on to receive major awards and honorable mentions in influential year’s-best collections.

That history is important because LORE existed in a particularly fertile period for independent horror and weird-fiction publishing.

Small magazines could provide a home for fiction that was too unusual, too dark or simply too difficult to classify for more conventional markets.

LORE Goes Silent

Independent magazines are difficult things to keep alive.

LORE’s first disappearance was not caused by a lack of enthusiasm for the material. Heather later explained that producing the magazine required both money and enormous amounts of time. As professional and personal responsibilities increased, maintaining the standard the editors expected became increasingly difficult.

Rather than allow the quality to deteriorate, publication stopped.

For more than a decade, the original issues remained artifacts of an earlier era of independent horror publishing.

Then the dead began to stir.

LORE: A Quaint and Curious Volume of Selected Stories

Before the first completely new issue appeared, LORE returned to its own history.

In November 2011, LORE: A Quaint and Curious Volume of Selected Stories collected notable fiction from the magazine’s original run.

The anthology contained fourteen stories plus a collaborative round-robin tale and brought together work by authors including Harlan Ellison, Brian McNaughton, Brian Lumley and Elizabeth Massie.

The Challenge From Below

Among the anthology’s particularly interesting contents was the Lovecraftian collaborative story “The Challenge From Below”, featuring contributions by Robert M. Price, Peter Cannon, Donald R. Burleson and Brian McNaughton.

For the modern LORE archive, this story is especially relevant because it connects the magazine directly with the continuing literary tradition surrounding H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.

That tradition remains one of the central subjects of LORE Online today.

LORE Volume 2, Number 1 – April 2012

The full resurrection arrived in April 2012.

LORE Volume 2, Number 1 — often shortened to LORE 2.1 — was the first collection of completely new LORE fiction in more than a decade.

It was more than a nostalgic revival.

The new incarnation introduced improved production values, perfect binding and a full-color wraparound cover by legendary fantasy and horror artist Richard Corben.

Inside LORE 2.1

The revived issue presented nine works of horror, science fiction, fantasy and strange fiction:

Tangent Online reviewed the issue shortly after publication and described the revived LORE as an award-winning magazine returning after a hiatus of more than a decade. Its reviewer particularly noted the issue’s preference for strange worlds and fiction with a poetic sensibility.

The Deposition of Leodiel Fand

The final work in LORE 2.1 had an extraordinary history.

Brian McNaughton, author of the World Fantasy Award-winning The Throne of Bones, had been closely connected with the original LORE.

In 2004, McNaughton sent the editors an unfinished work titled “The Deposition of Leodiel Fand.”

It returned to the grotesque world of Seelura, familiar from The Throne of Bones.

McNaughton died before completing it.

The surviving manuscript was substantial — Rod Heather later estimated it at more than 16,000 words — and LORE preserved it for years.

When the magazine finally returned, Heather and O’Leary chose McNaughton’s unfinished story for the first new issue.

LORE and Richard Corben

Richard Corben’s contribution to LORE went much deeper than a single revival cover.

Heather recalled beginning correspondence with Corben during the mid-1990s. Corben supported the young magazine and eventually supplied covers for several issues of the original run.

He was also featured as an artist within LORE and produced an illustration for John Glasby’s Return to Y’Ha-Nthlei.

The relationship was particularly appropriate for a magazine with deep roots in weird and Lovecraftian fiction. Corben’s grotesque, muscular and immediately recognizable artwork had long been associated with fantasy, horror and adaptations of writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft.

What Kind of Magazine Was LORE?

LORE resisted an overly narrow definition.

The revived magazine described itself as publishing interstitial speculative fiction. Horror remained fundamental to its identity, but the second incarnation explicitly expanded its scope to include science fiction and fantasy.

That philosophy explains why the contents could move from dark fantasy to cosmic horror, strange cities, speculative concepts and grotesque worlds without appearing out of place.

The connecting element was imagination.

And frequently, strangeness.

LORE’s Place in Independent Horror Publishing

The importance of publications such as LORE is easier to understand when viewed in the context of the pre-social-media literary world.

Independent magazines acted as meeting places.

Editors discovered writers. Writers encountered artists. Readers found authors they might never have encountered through mainstream publishing. Stories moved from magazines into anthologies, award lists and larger collections.

LORE belonged to that ecosystem.

Its history also overlaps directly with the modern weird-fiction revival and with writers, critics and artists associated with Lovecraft studies.

That makes its surviving publication history valuable beyond simple nostalgia.

From the LORE Store to the LORE Archive

Earlier versions of this website maintained a dedicated LORE Store.

The historical address was:

/index.php/store

The store offered LORE publications directly to readers. In 2012, contemporary sources listed LORE 2.1 at $10.95 plus shipping and LORE: A Collection of Quaint & Curious Selected Stories at $14.95 plus shipping.

That store no longer exists.

Instead of allowing its URL and history to disappear, the old store address now leads here — to the permanent LORE Publications Archive.

Remarkably, Tangent Online’s historical directory of bi-annual magazines still records the old LORE Store URL as the magazine’s website. The surviving external link is one of the reasons this page has been restored.

Explore the Recovered LORE Archive

The Publications Archive is part of a larger effort to recover significant material from previous versions of LORE Online.

The Archive Is Still Growing

This page is not intended to be the final word on LORE’s publishing history.

It is the beginning of a reconstructed catalogue.

As reliable information, cover artwork, tables of contents and surviving records of individual issues are recovered, they can be added here and eventually expanded into dedicated pages for each publication.

The long-term goal is to document the nine original LORE issues, the 2011 retrospective collection, the revived magazine and the writers and artists who passed through its pages.

Part of the LORE Online Recovery Project — preserving the magazine, interviews, criticism and weird-fiction history of earlier incarnations of LORE.