What Other Planet Features This?
Steve in 2000 with one of his creations (the hand lettering is his); click to enlarge.
Steve Fiorilla
January 12, 1961—July 29, 2009
The last time I heard from Steve Fiorilla was over a year ago. One of his usual packages was crammed into my mailbox, bulging and packed to the gills with stuff: magazine and newspaper clippings, movie reviews, weird crime reports, articles about drifters and subversives, movie stills, schedules for Eastman House, movie poster postcards, copies of one or two of his latest illustrations, and the manuscript.
He never regarded himself a writer, but he loved scribbling down thoughts in longhand on a legal pad. Although it was often a series of capsule movie reviews, the manuscript could branch off into any direction. He’d go on about family gatherings, observations on mainstream obsessions, rants over the state of fandom, or, if a film was boring, a detailed critique of the theatre he saw it in.
But by that point, I’d had enough. Not with the content of the manuscript, nor with his writing. It was the job of typing that got to me. Steve adamantly refused to get a computer, and turned a deaf ear when I suggested he use the one at the public library. The manuscript in that package was very, very long; after an hour, I’d typed just three pages with another twenty left to go.
I hastily put it in an envelope with a note, asking if he’d go to the library, open a Yahoo email account on one of their computers, type his work himself, cut and paste it into an email and send it to me. At which point, I explained, I could cut and paste it into a text document, do some minor editing and simply put the thing online. He never replied and we never exchanged letters again.
Over the years there were similar (but less final) gaps in our correspondence, a van Gogh/Gauguin association, Steve undoubtedly Kirk Douglas to my Anthony Quinn. We first made contact in the late 1970s, but never met in person, and I spoke with him only once on the phone. Throughout the years we’d establish a bond and trust, getting to know one another in letters that ran on into the night.
Magick Theatre #7
Our love of movies as well as for the monster magazines that littered the newsstands during the 60s brought us together. Steve was an amazing artist and humorist, and began sending samples of his work as I was publishing Magick Theatre, a movie fanzine. The influence of Steve’s humor began to show in issue #7, starting with his enigmatic cover blurb, “Only three out of ten can hack it.” I had no idea what it meant, but it was just funny. That issue rolled off the press twenty-four years ago, and the line still cracks me up.
My inability to juggle marriage, work, home and hobby caused Magick Theatre to end with issue #8. There were plans for #9, for which Steve had envisioned a special section or newsprint insert called Inside Fandom, made to resemble the National Inquirer. He conducted a riotous interview with a verbose movie fanatic he discovered in the Boston area, and we accumulated several articles about obsessive fans and bizarre illustrations that were as comical as anything you’d find in National Lampoon.
A lot of the material was typeset and pasted up, but the issue unfortunately died in mid-production. (A few of Steve’s pages were later used in Rick Partridge’s fanzine, Fantasy Pie.) Our last print collaboration was a one-shot comic zine titled Eegah. Published in 1987, the unique cover border was a photograph of a clay sculpture Steve made specially for the mag. He was always experimenting and combining mediums; I can’t think of another artist whose work looks at all similar.
Above left: Steve’s cover for the unpublished Inside Fandom. Right: The first page of a letter he wrote in 1995 (after I’d sent him a copy of Theodore Roszak’s novel, Flicker) on our snazzy Magick Theatre letterhead. On some occasions he’d end a letter with “This has been a Filmways presentation, dahling.” Click images to enlarge.
Illustrator, painter, sculptor, animator, graphic designer… Steve ignored boundaries. His influences were varied. In animation, he seemed to have a soft spot for Ralph Bakshi, Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass. Puppets, too: he went on a Sid and Marty Krofft jag not long ago. Very well read, he loved pulp and noir authors, as well as Kerouac and the Beats. (We once worked on an unfinished article titled ‘What Other Planet Features This?’, based on a line in Kerouac’s Dr. Sax.) In keeping with the mood, Steve loved bebop and cool jazz. He had a limited tolerance for rock, though he took a shine to Eric Burdon’s “Spill the Wine” (bongos, bass and flute) and flipped when I turned him on to Leonard Cohen. (He ID’d with manic depressives.)
He resisted technology and the internet. Sometime in the mid-90s he was trying to find a certain recording on audio cassette, but to no avail. “Steve, they don’t make audio cassettes no more,” I said. He was hesitant to buy a CD player, wary about the new format, or of giving in to modernization. (I wonder if he ever read The Magnificent Ambersons?) That Christmas I bought him a beat box through Amazon. When the package arrived at his door, the very thought of receiving something labeled ‘Amazon’ frightened him. “Thank you,” he wrote, “but now I feel tainted.” He was soon listening to probably more music than ever before. I sent mixes and albums burned on the pc. The Cannonball Adderley album Quintet Plus elicited a succinct rave: “Eek-A-Wow-Wow!!!”
Not as responsive to home video, he preferred to see films theatrically. He visited Eastman House regularly, ferreted out university screenings and obscure film clubs, and saw most new mainstream pictures. He’d write me about the films as well as the adventure in seeing them: the drive, the theatre, the patrons. When people began walking around talking into cell phones, he thought he’d landed on another planet. To him, it was just another gadget, a form of slavery. I envied his free spirit.
I’m writing this several hundred miles from where he lived. He had another life I was never privy to, as a volunteer, counselor to the sick and art teacher to cancer patients. He suffered for years from Fabry’s disease, and wrote to me on occasion about problems he had with his kidneys. He helped the homeless at Friends of Night People, and designed the logo art of eyes in the dark. He was selfless and giving, and found art and humor in a world at odds with his health and sensibility.
Above: Magick Theatre bumpersticker designed by Steve
The Buffalo News obituary
The Fourth Wall
Boy on a String (book review)
The Dead Travel Fast (book review)
Living Between Panels and Frames (comic review)
Thursday Afternoon Matinee (Steve writing as Jacques Corédor)
The Jacques Corédor Archive (Steve writing as Jacques Corédor)
Fee Fie Foe… Fiorilla
The Art of Fiorilla
Denizens of the Dark
Steve at MySpace
Steve at Wikipedia
Steve remembered at Potrzebie
Notice at The Comics Reporter
January 12, 1961—July 29, 2009
He never regarded himself a writer, but he loved scribbling down thoughts in longhand on a legal pad. Although it was often a series of capsule movie reviews, the manuscript could branch off into any direction. He’d go on about family gatherings, observations on mainstream obsessions, rants over the state of fandom, or, if a film was boring, a detailed critique of the theatre he saw it in.
But by that point, I’d had enough. Not with the content of the manuscript, nor with his writing. It was the job of typing that got to me. Steve adamantly refused to get a computer, and turned a deaf ear when I suggested he use the one at the public library. The manuscript in that package was very, very long; after an hour, I’d typed just three pages with another twenty left to go.
I hastily put it in an envelope with a note, asking if he’d go to the library, open a Yahoo email account on one of their computers, type his work himself, cut and paste it into an email and send it to me. At which point, I explained, I could cut and paste it into a text document, do some minor editing and simply put the thing online. He never replied and we never exchanged letters again.
Over the years there were similar (but less final) gaps in our correspondence, a van Gogh/Gauguin association, Steve undoubtedly Kirk Douglas to my Anthony Quinn. We first made contact in the late 1970s, but never met in person, and I spoke with him only once on the phone. Throughout the years we’d establish a bond and trust, getting to know one another in letters that ran on into the night.
Magick Theatre #7
Our love of movies as well as for the monster magazines that littered the newsstands during the 60s brought us together. Steve was an amazing artist and humorist, and began sending samples of his work as I was publishing Magick Theatre, a movie fanzine. The influence of Steve’s humor began to show in issue #7, starting with his enigmatic cover blurb, “Only three out of ten can hack it.” I had no idea what it meant, but it was just funny. That issue rolled off the press twenty-four years ago, and the line still cracks me up.
My inability to juggle marriage, work, home and hobby caused Magick Theatre to end with issue #8. There were plans for #9, for which Steve had envisioned a special section or newsprint insert called Inside Fandom, made to resemble the National Inquirer. He conducted a riotous interview with a verbose movie fanatic he discovered in the Boston area, and we accumulated several articles about obsessive fans and bizarre illustrations that were as comical as anything you’d find in National Lampoon.
A lot of the material was typeset and pasted up, but the issue unfortunately died in mid-production. (A few of Steve’s pages were later used in Rick Partridge’s fanzine, Fantasy Pie.) Our last print collaboration was a one-shot comic zine titled Eegah. Published in 1987, the unique cover border was a photograph of a clay sculpture Steve made specially for the mag. He was always experimenting and combining mediums; I can’t think of another artist whose work looks at all similar.
Above left: Steve’s cover for the unpublished Inside Fandom. Right: The first page of a letter he wrote in 1995 (after I’d sent him a copy of Theodore Roszak’s novel, Flicker) on our snazzy Magick Theatre letterhead. On some occasions he’d end a letter with “This has been a Filmways presentation, dahling.” Click images to enlarge.
Illustrator, painter, sculptor, animator, graphic designer… Steve ignored boundaries. His influences were varied. In animation, he seemed to have a soft spot for Ralph Bakshi, Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass. Puppets, too: he went on a Sid and Marty Krofft jag not long ago. Very well read, he loved pulp and noir authors, as well as Kerouac and the Beats. (We once worked on an unfinished article titled ‘What Other Planet Features This?’, based on a line in Kerouac’s Dr. Sax.) In keeping with the mood, Steve loved bebop and cool jazz. He had a limited tolerance for rock, though he took a shine to Eric Burdon’s “Spill the Wine” (bongos, bass and flute) and flipped when I turned him on to Leonard Cohen. (He ID’d with manic depressives.)
He resisted technology and the internet. Sometime in the mid-90s he was trying to find a certain recording on audio cassette, but to no avail. “Steve, they don’t make audio cassettes no more,” I said. He was hesitant to buy a CD player, wary about the new format, or of giving in to modernization. (I wonder if he ever read The Magnificent Ambersons?) That Christmas I bought him a beat box through Amazon. When the package arrived at his door, the very thought of receiving something labeled ‘Amazon’ frightened him. “Thank you,” he wrote, “but now I feel tainted.” He was soon listening to probably more music than ever before. I sent mixes and albums burned on the pc. The Cannonball Adderley album Quintet Plus elicited a succinct rave: “Eek-A-Wow-Wow!!!”
Not as responsive to home video, he preferred to see films theatrically. He visited Eastman House regularly, ferreted out university screenings and obscure film clubs, and saw most new mainstream pictures. He’d write me about the films as well as the adventure in seeing them: the drive, the theatre, the patrons. When people began walking around talking into cell phones, he thought he’d landed on another planet. To him, it was just another gadget, a form of slavery. I envied his free spirit.
I’m writing this several hundred miles from where he lived. He had another life I was never privy to, as a volunteer, counselor to the sick and art teacher to cancer patients. He suffered for years from Fabry’s disease, and wrote to me on occasion about problems he had with his kidneys. He helped the homeless at Friends of Night People, and designed the logo art of eyes in the dark. He was selfless and giving, and found art and humor in a world at odds with his health and sensibility.
Above: Magick Theatre bumpersticker designed by Steve
Steve @ Flickhead:
Steve’s art online:
Also:
Labels: Magick Theatre, Steve Fiorilla, Une affaire de Flickhead
posted by Ray Young at
12:08 PM
3 Comments:
An eloquent and heartfelt eulogy - I had seen his work around, and read some of his pieces here - a remarkable fellow, and you were lucky to know him so well. He'll be missed.
I second Vanwall's sentiments. He looks to have been a great artist and an even greater person.
Thank you, both!
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