Cirrus@Austlit

Australia's first specialist semi-professional (in that it did not pay authors) magazine in the genres of horror and fantasy, The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine was founded in 1984 by Barry Radburn.

It ran for six issues, including the combined final issue 5/6.

According to Stephen Paulsen,

While it's true to say that earlier Australian magazines sometimes published horror stories, Futuristic Tales (edited by Don Boyd) and The Cygnus Chronicler (edited by Neville Angove) for example, these were primarily science fiction and fantasy magazines. AH&FM was the first Australian publication devoted to the weird and macabre.

Assisted by Stephen Studach and joined later by Leigh Blackmore, Radburn produced six digest-sized (A5) issues averaging forty to sixty pages (the final two being published as a double issue) between early 1984 and October 1986. In total he published some thirty-one original stories and twenty original poems. Of these numbers, about half were contributed by Australian writers.

For the covers Radburn used simple but striking illustrations on coloured stock to good effect. Many of the stories were also illustrated, but the quality of these drawings was uneven, ranging from the amateurish to near professional. As with the prose about half the art pieces published were Australian. AH&FM also included articles, reviews and letters and while no single piece of work stands out, in the main the contents were competent and enjoyable.

Source:

Paulsen, Stephen, 'The State of the Horror Fiction Magazine', Bloodsongs, 1 (1994). Republished by the Australian Horror Writers Association (http://www.australianhorror.com/articles.php?article=9). (Sighted: 24/9/2014)