Bare Dem Bones!

In May 2020, David J. Schow was kind enough to appear on my podcast to discuss---- in deliriously delightful detail (try saying that fast three times)--- the storied history behind Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine. DJS was represented many times in its pages, contributing both short stories and a multi-part overview of The Outer Limits (which he would later expand into The Outer Limits Companion). It was a great chat which, if you haven’t heard it before, can be found here:

You’ll need to carve out two-and-a-half hours to hear it all… but in truth, that’s nowhere near all of it. The raw, unedited conversation ran a bit over five hours, only half of which pertained to the subject at hand. But damn, there was so much other good stuff (including some Outer Limits crumbs)… so another two hours comprised my very next episode:

A few weeks later, Cimarron Street Books launched the first title in their David J. Schow Library, an ongoing campaign to bring all of his books back into print in definitive editions, augmented with new or relevant content. One of these titles, Seeing Red, was slated to appear (okay, reappear) in May 2021, and would include a transcript of our Twilight Zone Magazine conversation… titled, of all things, Between Light and Shadow!

Pretty cool, right? The idea that one could flip open a David J. Schow book and see not just my name, but an extended conversation between the two of us… it just blows my mind. It’s right there on my shelf, and yet I still don’t quite believe it sometimes. Get your own copy here.

Cimarron Street also publishes bare•bones, a quarterly mélange of deep-dive articles about books, films, television… plus R&D, a column by none other than DJS (a continuation of his legendary Raving & Drooling column for Fangoria). bare•bones seemed like the perfect home for a deep-dive article I’d been contemplating for quite a while, so I proposed it to them… and to my surprise and  delight, they went for it.

I Am Controlling Transmission: Collecting The Outer Limits on Home Video (with Apologies to Robert Duvall) was published in the spring 2021 issue of bare•bones (it actually streeted a couple of weeks before Seeing Red, so needless to say May 2021 was a good month for me; incidentally, Schow’s column in that particular issue is about Twilight Zone Magazine. See? Synergy, kids. Everything is connected).

My article covers the earliest VHS releases, the brilliant Via Vision Blu-ray release from 2020, and everything in between. But it isn’t just a dry checklist-type rundown---- it’s an autobiographical chronicle of my obsessive collecting (and recollecting) of the show. If you possess even a passing interest in the history of The Outer Limits on home video, I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy it. But hey, don’t take my word for it. Here’s an excerpt from the sole Amazon review of this particular issue:

For me, the standout feature of BARE-BONES #6 was Craig Beam's often-hilarious account of his passionate (but bittersweet) pursuit of THE OUTER LIMITS on home video. Spanning as many years and formats as it did, his obsessive journey is almost Homeric!

And before you ask--- no, I didn’t write that. And if you’re expecting me to explain the Robert Duvall name-drop in the article’s title… well, tough toenails, mate. You’ll have to shell out ten bucks and snag your own copy to find out.

Next Time: Alternate Timelines and Rubber Monsters Galore!