Darker (magazine)

Darker Magazine (Russian: Даркер) is a Russian monthly horror webzine.^[1] It covers various sorts of horror media, including slasher, splatter, exploitation films, as well as horror literature, videogames, comic books and dark music. The magazine is in regular publication since April, 2011. It is part of Russian Horror Web. It publishes articles, interviews, reviews and short stories by Russian and foreign authors.^[2][3] The zine also helds an annual literary contest "The Devil's Dozen", which is the largest among horror stories in Russian. Darker Magazine is a cult outlet in Russian Internet horror segment, and its mission is support of horror in Russia. It is published on the initiative and with the assistance of The Horror Authors Association and Horror Web media network. The zine is funded by its subscribers.

DARKER

#7, July, 2020 Theme: Confined spaces. If you don't have claustrophobia, it doesn't mean that you have nothing to fear.
Editor	Bayazid Rzayev
Categories	horror fiction, popular culture
Frequency	12 per year
Publisher	Mikhail Parfenov
First issue	April 21, 2011; 14 years ago (2011-04-21)
Country	Russian Federation
Based in	Russian Federation
Website	darkermagazine.ru
ISSN	2222-9116

History

Darker was founded in 2011 succeeding another webzine The Darkness (Russian: Тьма).^[4] Darkness' editor Mikhail Parfenov ran the new project that soon became even more successful than its predecessor. The first issue of Darker Magazine was released on April 21, 2011 and since then has been published every month on 20th. Since that time Darker released a lot of reviews of books and movies and also interviews with notable creators in the horror genre.

Notable authors

DARKER has been first in Russia to translate some short stories by such horror authors as H.P. Lovecraft,^[5] Clive Barker, Tomas Ligotti,^[6] Jeff Vandermeer, Graham Masterton,^[7] Christopher Golden, Joe Lansdale,^[8] Ramsey Campbell, Robert McCammon, Adam Nevill,^[9] Ken Liu, Gwendolyn Kiste,^[10] Matthew Stokoe^[11] S.T. Joshi^[5] and more.^[12] Also publish for the first time some short stories of the famous Russian writers as Mariya Galina, Svyatoslav Loginov, Anna Starobinets.^[13] The zine also publishes interviews with notable horror figures, and among them are Mike Flanagan, Lin Shaye, Chris Walas, Brian Lumley, Ryuhei Kitamura, Mick Garris, André Øvredal.

Critics

Famous British author Graham Masterton notes the educational role of Darker Magazine:

[…] to make horror popular and to bring together a community of people who find horror exciting, frightening, wildly imaginative and highly creative. DARKER does the same for Russia. There is a wonderful tradition of dark and disturbing literature in Russia. […] DARKER is helping to breathe life back into that tradition and I admire your courage and determination in doing that.^[14]

Notable contributors

• Mikhail Parfenov — creator of the webzine
• Svyatoslav Loginov — veteran of Russian science fiction
• Mariya Galina — Russian horror writer and translator

Awards

Award	Year	Category	Outcome
Eurocon	2013	Spirit of Dedication Award. Best Fanzine	Nominated
Eurocon	2014	Spirit of Dedication Award. Best Fanzine	Won[15]
Masters of Horror	2018	Best periodical/fanzine	Won[16]
Masters of Horror	2020	Best project	Won[17]

Literature

1. Nesterik, Ella, Kazbekova, Maiya, Supernatural Horror in English Literature and Means of it Realization, European Researcher (2014)
2. Ksenia Olkusz, Zombie w kulturze, Ośrodek Badawczy Facta Ficta (2015)
3. Ksenia Olkusz, Krzysztof M. Maj, Narracje fantastyczne, Ośrodek Badawczy Facta Ficta (2018)
4. Nosachev, Pavel, The Influences of Western Esoterecism on Russian Rock Poetry of the Turn if the Century, Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade (2018)