I Remember Joe

It’s weird, isn’t it, when you find out someone you knew, a lot or a little, has died and you hadn’t heard the news previously. A name randomly popped in my head recently, and I was curious what they were up to. It was someone I had known a very long time ago and had re-connected with in a very shallow manner only a few years back. As I followed them, though, I realized their politics were not just in opposition to my ow,n but it felt like the way they saw the world was alien to how I saw i,t so I let myself drift out of their life. 

I know I wasn’t missed. 

The thing, though is that on learning that Joe Monks had died in 2023, it reminds me of the time in my life when we met and all that came from it. 

I have talked about my fanzine/’zine days a lot in my blog.

I don’t want to belabor any of the things I have already talked about, but will dance on that floor a little. 

When I was a teenager my best friend and I, both lovers of horror, put together a magazine that no one saw but us and another friend. It was called CineGore and was made up of borrowed movie news, reviews, random thoughts, and clipped photos and art my friend did. 

CineGore led to my friend and me doing a new venture with some other friends, this one called Ghoulash. It was a ‘zine in the classic sense and showed how we had evolved in how we did things. It heavily featured teen snark, my friend’s art, and an exasperation for the world that hadn’t quite become mainstream yet. 

One of the friends who wrote something for the ‘zine took it to the MotorCity Comic Con and showed it to comic writer Joe Monks. Joe was famous for the cult comic “Cry for Dawn,” and he loved the name Ghoulash. Joe told our friend to have us reach out to him if we ever needed anything, and he passed along his number. 

We were excited and nervous to have someone that was in the comics industry give a darn about what we were doing, and so we reached out to Joe and he offered to take us under his CFD publishing banner and help us go national.

National. 

We were floored. 

He didn’t ask us to change anything, so we did what we were doing and put together a ‘zine, now magazine, of snark, attitude, and angst. Even though I was involved in its creation, I will still say that there was nothing like it on the market and has probably never been anything to come out like it. We featured a gorgeous cover by an artist who would go on to have a professional career working on cartoons, and the back was a full-page ad for a Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors. 

We were floored. 

I was utterly thrilled. 

I still remember going around and trying to leave issues places and getting into trouble with my girlfriend at the time because I was neglecting her to do magazine distribution stuff. 

Ghoulsh went through Diamond distributors and was carried in comic stores. Locally, it was put behind the counter because of our language and themes. You had to be 18 to buy it, at least there, which is ridiculous, but this was also the mid-1990s. 

After the first issue, Joe said we didn’t do great but did break even. That felt amazing. Especially when we were sold just in comic stores. 

We were able to go to two comic conventions as guests of Joe at his artist’s table. I still remember the first show, when I got into a heated argument with the showrunner of the con and won, probably because I made a scene. It was amazing, though, to be on the other side of the table. We didnt’ have the magazine yet, but we were there. 

We did one other con with him, and those two shows really set the base for me for falling in love with vending and being a creator at conventions. 

After the first issue came out, we began work on the second issue. For the second issue, we were promised the contribution of one of the members of GWAR, told Joe was going to do a piece for it, and one of our friends had interviewed Trey Spruance (the guitarist for Mr. Bungle at the time) just as he was about to join Faith No More. 

During the creation of that second issue, my friend and co-creator disappeared. He had gotten into drugs, our friendship had splintered, and he simply vanished. 

I was left to go on alone. 

I elevated another friend as my co-editor, and we finished the issue and were ready to send it to Joe when he informed us he was dropping the magazine. 

We were devastated. 

There was no market for it. 

I didn’t get it at the time, but do now.

You can’t pour money into a hole. 

Especially as an indie publisher. 

I think we had something unique that, promoted correctly and released in the right places, could have really made some waves. 

It didn’t happen. 

I hated Joe after that. 

I felt betrayed and lied to. 

I carried that hate like a torch to light the night.

Life went on. 

I focused on my writing. 

I did ‘zines with other friends, though just locally. 

My anger over Ghoulash, both the loss of my friend and the loss of the magazine, never changed. 

I had the layout of the magazine and still do, and I keep thinking of putting it together and putting it out, but I am not in touch with anyone who worked on it, so I am not sure of the ethics of it all. 

The years passed, and I didn’t think of Joe other than to do weird, petty things like, I dunno, review bomb something. I forget. The only other contact I had had with Joe was to send a nasty letter to him that didn’t make me feel better but got the anger out and gave it to someone else. 

It was stupid, but I was immature and hurting. 

I finally let the anger go and sought Joe out, and we chatted online and were on good terms again. We were not friends, but we were friendly. He was working on getting a movie off the ground. He had gone blind due to diabetes and was planning a movie that he ended up making called “The Bunker.” He had put out other comics and fiction and was still creative. The shadow of “Cry for Dawn” was still over him, but he had moved on for the most part. 

Joe was very vocal on social media about how he saw the world, and while I strongly disagreed with his views, I admired his refusal to change who he was. He was an outspoken man who bet on himself and often won. Heck, he was a blind man who made a feature film.

I had lost track of Joe over the years, another casualty of a world that had grown too many edges and a personal need to keep clear of them. I am shocked to see he died before he even reached 60. 

I know too many people that have died young, and he’s among them.

What I can say is that he gave me one of the best experiences of my life with the brief life of Ghoulash. He stoked my passion for writing. He gave me my love for doing conventions. I can’t repay those things. 

I wish the world knew about Ghoulash, as it seems to have been forgotten to time, but I still know, and the few of us that worked on it and loved it know (maybe). 

And for one issue, we went national, and it’s thanks to Joe Monks and his love of our name and trust in some angsty kids from Michigan.

Fare well, Joe. 

…c…