RS: It’s a really engaging discussion about horror, craft, and criticism. To say that it had an impact on the culture of horror writing would be a tremendous understatement, and that’s before we even get into the topic of edgy discomfort in the film’s subject matter, which the panelists waste no time discussing. It’s easy to forget it now, but The Exorcist was basically the Star Wars of its day: a film that inspired enormous controversy, massive ticket sales, round-the-block lines on premiere day, and 10 Academy Award nominations to boot. ZR: Meanwhile, a bit of background to why this piece is here in the first place. Exactly the kind of thing that made the Marvel comics community! It feels like the natural extension of everything Lee did to make the readers parasocially invested in the Marvel bullpen. I mean, I know I’m biased as a reader returning to it decades later it’s a window into the past, and a window into the lives of the people that shaped Marvel comics.

And yet it’s exactly this off-the-cuff, unfiltered glimpse into the culture and character of the Marvel staff that makes the magazine line so infinitely intriguing to me. A summary of feedback in issue #4 describes reader comments thusly: “One agonizing evening in the lives of ten Marvel writers, their wives, and a cassette recorder.” I have no idea what people were buying Haunt of Horror to see - given that it was canceled with issue #5, I suspect not much - but it apparently wasn’t this. ZR: Alas, not nearly as common as I would wish or hope, if for no other reason than that readers hated it. Zach: I did not know that Marvel used to do podcasts! Is this sort of thing common in the Magazines? RS: Around the time of publication, The Exorcist adaptation had just been released, and so the Marvel bullpen (in this case: Chris Claremont, Gerry Conway, Steve Gerber, Carla Joseph, Don McGregor, Sandy McGregor, Glynis Wein, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, and Michele Wolfman) saw it, got together, got drunk, hit “record” and had a two hours discussion about their experience, transcribed here for our pleasure.

More Than Human by Doug Moench