The third and final book in the trilogy of volumes dedicated to Grim Humour fanzine, which ran between 1983 and 1993 and lasted a total of eighteen editions. Following on from the first two, published respectively in 2020 and 2022, this book continues the same approach through its mixing reprinted original pages with rewritten features, some insightful reflections on many of them and additional material by both editor/publisher Richard Johnson and various other contributors. Writers involved with the ‘zine during this final period included Alan Rider (Adventures in Reality/Dance Naked), Stefan Jaworzyn, Gerald Houghton, Mark Stevens, Andrea Johnson, Andrew Clare (I’m Being Good), Ian of Meantime Records, Jonathan Davies, Paul Harrison, John Everall, JR Bruun, Rick Baylor and many others.

With over 350 A4 pages, this softcover book is similar to the second book in its bigger than the first volume simply because the original fanzines themselves had generally high page counts. Features include Tad, Bitch Magnet, Skullflower, Hotalacio, Clive Barker’s Hell on Earth, JFK, horror movies, Fire Party, Political Asylum, Richard Kern, Tom Vague, John Waters, Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising, Lydia Lunch, Cindytalk, Pigface, Ramleh, Front Line Assembly, Controlled Bleeding, The God Machine, Nick Zedd, Casandra Stark, Peter Greenaway, Jon Savage, Cop Shoot Cop, Daniel P. Mannix, Derek Jarman, Nick Bougas Rake, Con Demek, a Whitehouse discography and, as the magazines themselves each proclaimed, hundreds of music, book, comic and film reviews.

Everything once again adds up to a massive document of how things were for those concerned as the 1990s began to unfold if still interested in where the ripples of post-punk and post-industrial music were continuing to permeate. The interest in certain film directors, horror fare, writers and so on likewise became more and more pronounced during this period, too. Coupled to a semi-professional way of presenting the material, it could be argued that Grim Humour had developed beyond the more amateurish nature of the early issues, but the sensibilities remained broadly the same. While it could perhaps quite comfortably nestle alongside US titles such as Your Flesh, Chemical Imbalance, Forced Exposure at the time, the ‘zine still owed much to the inspiration found in Tone Death, Vague, KYPP, Panache and so on besides contemporary horror ‘zines.

This book should be ready to ship in March/April 2024 and can be pre-ordered now.

The same as the other book titles now published by Fourth Dimension, Puppy38 is responsible for the incredible assembling of the material and design.

Please also note that the books are sent from Poland by air mail (the same as everything else on Fourth Dimension and the related labels) and that nothing can be done to make the postage cheaper. It is out of our hands and, once again, this is a hefty affair. Also, postage would be far higher if FD was based in the UK! The book, again, is bigger than the first, hence the fact it costs a little more.

RRP will be around 30 GBP minimum once stocked by shops and mail order outlets, so ordering direct is still the most affordable way of securing a copy.

Other titles coming from Fourth Dimension in the future include Alan Rider’s book on Gary Levermore/Third Mind Records and another on Giancarlo Toniutti. In the meantime, the new book on Alternative TV/Mark Perry is just out and shipping now.

Copies of the first volume of the Grim Humour book have sold out here now, but the second volume is still just about available (see shop for details).

Fourth Dimension has now published a few books. They are all distributed by Cargo (UK) and Forced Exposure (USA), although great outlets such as Soundohm (Italy) and Scream and Writhe (Canada) have also stocked a number of them.