ted vaak

from the archives of Essex Terror: The Augmented Old Man

[Notes: This interview was conducted during the summer of 2013]

***

The Call From The House Of Ted

I was on my way home from work at the Maldon salt mines when I received a phone call telling me that Ted Vaak had requested my presence and wished to be interviewed. I gasped in shock, and yet as strange as this news was (and it is is strange, as usually he only ever consents to our requests when his lawyer can no longer afford to try and argue Ted’s way out of it), it is not the strangest occurrence of the evening. For this turned out to be one of the most baffling encounters of my entire life.

The House Of Ted

Although technically Ted’s whereabouts are unknown, I have been here several times before. It is a short walk from my house, largely through a tangled bramble wood which leads eventually to a clearing, at the centre of which stands the house.

Ted often claims that the house has always stood here, and that he has always lived here, and that, cut off from the outerlands by the bramble bushes, time has no dominion over him. This latter claim is, as I have proven countless times by the simple expedient of observing that the movement of atoms and light still occurs within his house, not true, but as for the others I do not know.

The Garden Of The House Of Ted

Ted’s garden, which extends all the way to the bramble bushes in every direction, is usually choked with dead yellow grass. Today, the grass has been covered extensively in rubbish, all of it mechanical or technological in nature. Old typewriters, rotary phones, several speak and spells, a battery powered pencil sharpener, legless pinball machines, record players, television screens removed from their cases, video tapes unspooling in the wind.

Ted, it appears, has been to the tip. And discovered at last technology.

Inside The House Of Ted

The house was dark, darker than perhaps it should be. Bare wires trailed from the walls towards the living room. Above everything the faint hum of electricity and the whirring of gears. I moved towards the living room, towards the origin of the sounds.

Ted

And in there, at the centre, all the wires leading to him, stood Ted. He saw me, and began to talk.

“It began with a simple idea – if a cassette box can be the same size as the cassette it contains, why not a cassette player the same size too. All you would need is a magnet, a couple of cogs, an input for wires. I worked hard, many years, and eventually I had a working prototype. I called it The Ted Vaak Portable Tape Explicator, later streamlined to The Portex.

“This was three months ago. It has yet to reach the market. What I am telling you here is confidential. But I must tell someone. Must show you. It is transformative. The first time I listened to something through the headphones, but outside, untethered from the large scale high fidelity stereo units stacked ominously in the living room, it changed my perception of everything. I lay there in the garden, looking up at the sky, accompanied by the stirring speeches of Margaret Thatcher. Things seemed to coalesce in my mind. The universe was ours, if only we could grasp it.

“Two days later she was dead.

“From there things accelerated. First came the Doublex, a multiphasic Portex, allowing for two inputs, two outputs, merging them together, creating something new. Tape 1: Prime Minister’s Questions, 27/11/1990. Tape 2: The living gurgles of the draining mud, low tide, the blackwater estuary, date unknown. The output cables intertwined into one, fed into a single pair of headphones, from their to my ears.

“Then the Inverted Doublex, stereo field recordings in the palms of my hands, and then, so I could keep my hands free for more important tasks, embedded within the emptiness of my chest.”

He stepped here into the light. Plastic embedded in the gaps beneath his ribs, wires trailing out like veins to every extremity of his haggard body.

“The possibilities fractalised in my mind. Instant infallible memory is finally available. Never again must I forget. Now I can just replay.

“Look, and listen: “It began with a simple idea – if a cassette box can be the same size as the cassette it contains, why not a cassette player the same size too. All you would need is a magnet, a couple of cogs, an input for wires. I worked hard, many years, and eventually I had a working prototype. I called it The Ted Vaak Portable Tape Explicator, later streamlined to The Portex.”

“The double nature here is important. The second recorder can continue its work while the first replays. Nothing is lost. Once the replayu is stopped, the present can be returned to, recording restarted. Occasional moments may be lost at the changing of the tapes, but nothing important.

“More portablised technology follows. Clocks, miniaturised and embedded in my wrists. A spirit level in each thumb. My skull shaved clean, an electric blanket repurposed as a heated wig.

“Most useful was the leg mounted typewriter. The keyboard separated, half on each thigh. Legs pushed together, sat in my most comfortable chair, the paper held by clips on each knee.

“But why only portability? Why not the reverse? Why not allow the control of the environment around you – around me – while I am at home, as I usually am. Why not allow myself control of light itself!”

At this the lights in the house faded up from nothingness to antiseptic factory style brightness. Ted’s hand erotically rotating a dial at his throat.

“The house plugged into my body. Wires from every system – the lights, the heating, the doorbell, the phone, everything electrical you can imagine. No longer must I get up to switch the kettle on. Now I can do it from the comfort of the centre of my own house, equidistant from every extremity of the house to minimise on wiring and subsequent loss of signal.

“The rotary dial of the phone on the palm of one hand, the speaker in the other. A thermostatic filament threaded through my forehead. Teeth became light switches. Fingernails fuses.

“Even my tongue painted metallic, allowing for insertion of a lightbulb when a torch might be necessary. There is not a single thing I cannot do. No system cannot be upgraded, that will not be upgraded.

“I am the future of humanity and there is nothing you can do to stop me.”

The lights switch off one by one with several flicks of his tongues. From nowhere a lightbulb appears and is pushed whole into his mouth. I back away then, the light shining directly into my eyes for a few seconds before finally Ted closes his mouth. I stare briefly at the red glow of his cheeks, before turning to flee screaming into the brambles that thankfully separate our world from his.

__________

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Thank you!

from the archives of Essex Terror: Instructional Guidelines For Appropriate School Trip Behaviour

[Notes: This article, from march 8th, 2014, is reproduced entirely as written, spelling mistakes included. I make no apology for this.]

***

In 1946, while Ted Vaaak was attending the Bristlewood School (since disbanded) in what is now Salcott-cum-Virley, the school was selected to take part in the first ever Essex school trip to London, where they were invited to see a performance of Pericles, Prince Of Tyre at the Lewisham Hippodrome. A set of instructions were provided by the County Elders to ensure good behaviour, as it was thought that any trouble caused might negatively impact the reintegration of the county into the United Kingdom after the war. As can be seen in the image accompanying this article, an intact copy of these instructions were discovered in the personal effects of Ted Vaaaak during the recent recovery of the assets of his estate by the parish council of Mundon.

“Instructional Guidelines For Appropriate School Trip Behaviour

If you do not understand or are not enjoying the play, please remain quietly seated until it ends rather than shouting out your disgust and fury towards the stage.

The eating of food, especially eels, during the performance is forbidden. Please ensure you eat your eels in the foyer before the play begins or during the intermission.

If you are sitting next to someone who you do not know, please do not touch or push them.

London is a large city, and to find your way it is often necessary to use maps. If you do not know how to read maps, it is best to attempt to find someone who does, rather than trying to find your way by the usual methods of divination such as church bells, the crying of children, or the crying of livestock. It is likely that these will prove ineffective here.

It is considered good manners to pay for goods before opening them in the shops of these lands.

There are no woods here, but toilet facilities shoudl be availabe at the venue.

Part of the transport network of London is under the ground. For the duration of this trip, we shall not consider this blasphemous or profane. You will not need to pray, it is okay.

Please no violence not this time.

The sun shall set at 7 minutes past the seventh hour. The retunr journey should begin before this time.

Thank you and good luck.”

It is not known if a similar set of instructions were issued to the children on this trip.

__________

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Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

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Thank you!

from the archives of Essex Terror: Tales From Dimension Essex #1: The Terrifying Transformations Of Tephany Pellow

[Notes: This is a reprint of a transcription of a radio play that was based upon an overheard conversation recounting an urban myth about unreliable narrators, from February 2014]

***

In 2013 , the first (and so far only) episode of Tales From Dimension Essex aired across the county. Performed live and entirely improvised, The Terrifying Transformations Of Tephany Pellow was veteran playwright Ted Vaaak’s first new work in some time. Unfortunately, due to a rights’ dispute with BBC Radio Essex, the play was transmitted unannounced on a largely inaudible frequency.

Although fog across the estuaries bent the radiowaves back into receivable wavelengths in a number of Essex’s coastal towns, huts and scientific research outposts, it was still only heard by an estimated seven people, none of whom had the presence of mind to record it. However, one of those seven listeners was Jennifer Mudchute, a compulsive stenographer from Tollesbury, and her notes have proved invaluable in allowing us to create a transcript of this work of monumental art.

Tales From Dimension Essex #1: The Terrifying Transformations Of Tephany Pellow

Cast

The Narrator – an introducer of tales
Radio Announcer – a filler of silence
Doctor George Slime – a professional of medicine
Alan Pellow – a man of Essex
Tephany Pellow – a woman transformed
Martha Slime – a wife of a man

Location – This entire play takes place within the confines of the house and home of Doctor George Slime, a noted physician who lives in Essex.

Narrator: Everyone always says that marriage changes everything, but for poor Alan Pellow it changes even more than most. What follows here is a shocking, some may even say sickening, story that could only ever be a… TALE FROM DIMENSION ESSEX!

Title Sequence: The Tales From Dimension Essex Theme Tune plays

Narrator: Tales From Dimension Essex, Episode 4635 – The Terrifying Transformations Of Tephany Pellow, by Ted Vaak.

There is a moment of silence, followed by the sound of footsteps across a creaky wooden floor. Then the noise of a radio being switched on and tuned through static, until some light music plays for ten seconds, before fading out beneath the sound of the radio announcer’s voice.

Radio Announcer: Welcome to BBC Radio Essex, home of uninterrupted hypnotherapeutical music from 6pm to 6am, every single day of the week. As our slogan says “The working day may be stressful, but the evenings never should be!” That was The Sleep Orchestra with The Sensational Sound Of Snoring, and this right now is Toby Vok with his brand new track, The Infinite Undulating Note.

The Infinite Undulating Note begins to play. Throughout the rest of the radioplay it continues on in the background – except where expressly noted – getting more and more dissonant and horrifying as the play progresses, until the transcendent finale in which it transforms into the most beautiful sound a human being could ever possibly hear.

Doctor George Slime (talking to himself): Ah, Friday evenings! Is there any finer time. Work is over, dear Martha is upstairs washing her hair, and now a good two hours to relax, with nothing to distract me. What a marvellous feeling it is to be alone. No patients coughing across the desk at me. No Martha scolding me for my unfeeling remarks. Just me, my books and my whisky. Ah, to be alive like this, even if only for a few hours a week!

The noise of a bottle being opened, whisky being poured, the self satisfaction of a big strong gulp. And then a doorbell rings, and then rings some more.

Doctor George Slime: Drat and bother and drat once more! Who could that be, on a Friday for goodness sake? Oh well, I’ll just leave it to Martha. It’s bound to be for her.

The doorbell rings again, and then again, and then again and again, more and more urgently each time.

Doctor George Slime: Where’s Martha? God, that woman can never hear anything above the sound of her blasted hairdryer! I suppose I’ll just have to damn well answer it myself then.

Doctor George Slime places his glass back down on the table, rises from his comfortable leather chair and walks across the wooden floorboards of his study, down the hall (the sound of the radio fading away behind him as he walks away from it) and then opens the door. As he opens the door the doorbell rings furiously several more times.

Doctor George Slime: Yes! Yes! This had better be important. All this racket is giving me a headache!

Alan Pellow: Doctor Slime, it’s me, Alan Pellow, from across the road. Let me in. I need your help right now!

Doctor George Slime: Alan, it’s Friday evening. I’ve been drinking. I can’t help you. I could lose my licence.

Alan Pellow: I don’t care about that! It’s about my wife! LET ME IN!

Doctor George Slime: Okay, okay. Come in, then, come in. And shut the door behind you, will you?

The door slams shut and we hear them walk back down the hall and into George’s study, the radio rising back to its previous volume in the background. Toby is still playing his undulating note, which is by now slightly more unsettling than before.

Alan Pellow: Doc, look at this!

Alan Pellow clatters an animal cage down onto Doctor George Slime’s mahogany desk. There is the sudden sound of deranged gibbonesque howling.

Doctor George Slime: Good God, Alan! I’m a doctor not a vet! I thought you were worried about your wife? Did this… thing attack her?

Alan Pellow: No, Doc. You don’t understand.

Doctor George Slime: What is it, anyway? It looks like a baboon, but its face… It looks almost…

Alan Pellow: Sir, this isn’t a baboon, and it didn’t attack my wife. It IS my wife!

There is a demented shrieking from the ape, and the energetic rattling of bars.

Doctor George Slime: Tephany? But… wasn’t it only last week the two of you were married?

Alan Pellow: Yes. But ever since we got back from our honeymoon on Monday things changed. Doc, I don’t know what to do!

Doctor George Slime: Ah, sit down, son, sit down. Here, have a drink. You need to calm down as best you can and tell me everything that’s happened. And call me George.

Doctor George Slime pours a drink of whisky for Alan Pellow.

Alan Pellow: Thanks, Do- George. Everything about the wedding was wonderful. So wonderful it felt like a dream. And then our honeymoon – a weekend in Walton On The Naze – it was beyond imagination. Tephany – she was so beautiful. So perfect. The perfect wife in every way you could want. But then, once we got back home, she changed. At first she just wanted to talk, but then… George, she started wanting things. Demanding things. I didn’t know what to do.

Doctor George Slime: What sort of things?

The undulating note of Toby’s get’s increasingly fraught and disconcerting throughout the following outbursts from Alan Pellow.

Alan Pellow: Oh you know. Little things at first. “Alan, Alan,” [He puts on a french accent for the quoted parts] – she’s French – “Alan, I think I should get a job” and “Alan, I’m going to borrow the car for a bit.” What does a woman need with a job? Where would she be going in the car? I ignored her at first, sort of laughed along with her as if I knew it was a joke, but it wasn’t a joke. Then yesterday she said “I ordered a shed off the internet today for the garden.” A shed? For her “tools”. It’s madness. What sort of tools, I asked? She started talking about gardening, how nice it was going to be once we’d returfed the lawn and planted some flowers in the borders. Well, I just said “NO!” I admit I said it louder than I meant to, but the look on her face… It was as if I had slapped her. “You knew I was going to concrete the garden,” I said to her. So that I can park my van and the BMW out there side by side. She knew. She knew. It’s what I’ve always said. What I’ve always wanted. She knew this. I’d told her. We wouldn’t have to pay the council for that bloody permit anymore. She knew the money we would have saved. And it was the principle, more than the money. We already pay our council tax. Why should we have to pay another hundred and fifty quid to bloody park our van on the street?

Doctor George Slime: Then what happened?

Alan Pellow: She started shouting at me. About how awful I was, how I didn’t even see her as a woman anymore. It was absurd. I told her that I only see her as a woman. That’s what she is. I thought that would calm her down but it didn’t. Then she started screaming in French, like her fury couldn’t even be contained in our bloody language. Reverting to something more primal. And then that degenerated too, into something guttural that sounded more like growling than words. Probably German. Or Dutch. And then her posture began to change, her back bending oddly, her head thrusting forward. She went down on all fours and began howling and howling and then suddenly she just lunged at me and it took me by such surprise she knocked me to the floor. She started biting at my neck, snapping away, all demented. It was terrifying. I held her away from me as best I could but I could not get her off and we struggled away on the floor for a while, grappling and rolling around on the new carpet we just got fitted in the lounge. Her blouse ripped a bit in the tussle and I noticed how hairy she’d become. And then I glanced at her hands and by now they were paws. I knew I had to do something before her slowly forming claws were sharp enough to rip me to shreds, and so with one final push of strength I staggered to my feet and pushed her back into the hall. She made another lunge for me and I tripped her so she fell into the cage we leave the dog in overnight so he won’t ruin all the furniture. I quickly locked her in and then I collapsed in exhaustion to the floor.

Doctor George Slime: But she doesn’t have claws now…?

Alan Pellow: No. When I awoke she had transformed again, or further maybe, from that initial dog beast into this monstrous ape. She was busy ripping the last remnants of her clothes into shreds when I came round. Clothes I had bought her, I’ll have you know, at great goddamn expense. That was when I decided I needed help and came rushing over to your door.

Doctor George Slime: And I’m very glad you did. It is fascinating. Look how she watches us intently from behind her bars. As if there is still intelligence left somehow. I wonder what triggered these changes? Did she get bitten while you were on holiday? By a creature? By a local, even?

Alan Pellow: I don’t think so. I’m sure I would have noticed.

Doctor George Slime: Then I’m flummoxed. It’s as baffling as it is interesting.

Alan Pellow: Can you not change her back? Even how she was before is better than this.

Tephany begins screaming again in her baboonish way.

Alan Pellow: At least sedate her, so that I don’t have to listen to her babbling screams any more.

Doctor George Slime: Sedation may help, but it would be but a temporary solution. To cure her permanently, we must operate… ON HER BRAIN!

Alan Pellow: Her brain?

Doctor George Slime: Her brain! By lobotomising both the Megalithic Lobe and Verin’s Region we should inhibit the production of the transformic and enfuriation hormones, the excess production of which in combination with her unsettling sense of self as an autonomous being beyond your control must have triggered this episode.

Alan Pellow: If this is the only solution then you must do it. Not just for her but for me and for the good of our community. Can you imagine if I have to take this baboon with me to my parents at Christmas? To my work’s New Year’s do? It would be mortifying.

By now Toby’s note is so terrifying the dread is congealing around the listener in ways beyond adequate explanation in words.

Doctor George Slime: Then let me get into my medical robes and we can begin.

There is a knock at the study door.

Alan Pellow (hissed): Who’s that?

Doctor George Slime: Oh don’t worry, it’s just my wife Martha, I expect. She must have heard us talking.

Doctor George Slime walks across the room to the door, and slowly opens it with a creak.

Doctor George Slime: What is it Marth-aaaaaaaargh!

There is a terrifying startled cawing of a huge crow, and the sound of gigantic flapping of wings.

Alan Pellow: Is that… that gigantic crow… Is that your wife?

Doctor George Slime: It is. Look, she’s still wearing her shower cap. And her slippers. Get back, Alan. Let me deal with her. If I can just get to the fire and retrieve the pokeeeeeeeeeeeerrAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGH ARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHH ARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Doctor George Slime’s screams are joined by the terrifying screeching caw of the enraged ultracrow.

Alan Pellow: Oh no, poor George. Pecked to death by your own wife. It’s just not right!

We can hear the ripping of flesh as the crow strips the meat from her husband’s bones.

Alan Pellow (to himself): I must get out of here. But I can’t leave Tephany behond. Oh god no Tephany! Do not change again.

Tephany’s baboon shrieks change to a higher and higher ever escalating pitch.

Alan Pellow: Is she becoming a… an octopus? Tephany no… no! Don’t open that cage Tephany. You’re in there for your own good.

We hear the clicking of a lock, and the creaking open of the cage’s door.

Alan Pellow: Tephany, no please don’t, you’re choking me… with… your… tentacles… Tephany… I…

We hear the slump of Alan Pellow’s body to the floor. There follows a moment of silence (except for Toby’s music on the radio) and then there is the slithering of feet and the shuffling of tentacles as Marsha and Tephany cross the floor of the study, open the door, and shuffle fadingly away until the front door opens and then slams close and they are gone. There follows thirty seconds of Toby’s note, now reaching a transcendent climax of pure beauty.

Radio Announcer (over the top of the music): We are sorry to interrupt this broadcast but we’re getting reports, urgent reports, from across the county, from everywhere that men’s wives are… transforming… attacking their husbands. Relentlessly and without mercy. It seems that they… they want to be free. Outside I can see flocks of wives in the sky – and, is that, is that an octopus on one of their backs? I have never seen anything like this before. It is beautiful. So beautiful. The sky is alive. More and more are joining them every minute. They are singing… such singing.. I wish you could hear them sing. I wish you could hear them. It is… I’m crying. I’m crying. There is so much happiness. So much joy. Just sheer untroubled joy. I wish you could hear them. I wish I could join them… I wish…[sobs and then silence]

Toby plays on.

THE END

__________

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from the archives of Essex Terror: The Essex Terror Exhibition And Guidebook

Notes: In the spring months of 2012, a unique exhibition was held in Chelmsford, the historic county town of Essex, detailing the history of the beloved Essex institution that was Essex Terror. This is a recollection of that remembrance, originally published on July 2nd, 2012.

__________

For reasons not yet explained to the public, Essex Terror was recently, and some would say misguidedly, the subject of a fairly well researched historical exhibition, containing, as far as my extensively trained eye could see, only two factual inaccuracies and no libellous assertions. Taking place in the Essex city of Chelmsford, a town so haunted no one there even dares talk of ghosts for fear of being overheard by a nearby ghoul of some kind and possibly causing offence.

An exciting exhibition brochure, containing many of Essex Terror’s finest articles from the years, as well as the brand-new and exclusive HOME OF HELL adventure game book, can be purchased for 10 pounds from here. [please not this book is no longer available for purchase]

Below we have reproduced the restrospective as perfectly as this format allows. All that is missing is the complete version of the Moon Issue, due to the last surviving copy of it being too fragile to be photographed.

***

25 Years Of Horror And Fear Across The County

Essex Terror, possibly the most celebrated Horror (also Science Fiction, Fantasy and Local Interest) magazine this county produced during the 1990s, has had an influence far exceeding anything its short original run or meagre sales ever would have suggested possible. Cited by people as diverse as Neil Gaiman (“[L]argely forgotten…”) and James Herbert (“Their interview with me was the most unsettling experience of my career”), Essex Terror has proven to be as enduring as it was groundbreaking.

This exhibition looks back at its past, the events which lead up to its past, its present day incarnation as essexterror.com and finally its hoped-for futures.

This exhibition would not have been possible without the kind help, assistance, permission and existence of The Ted Vaaak Foundation, Ted Vaak, David N. Guy, Ross Field, Thomas Morton, David N. Guy, David N. Guy, Raz Webster, Albin Stanescu, Jeff Randall, Peter Bradshaw, Jack Chick and, of course, the people of Essex.

***

The Many Faces Of Essex Terror

Over the years, Essex Terror Magazine has gone through three major incarnations, at least in print. The original run of the magazine, and the one most closely associated with editor, proprietor and major storywriter Ted Vaak, lasted for a mere 12 issues over the course of a single year (starting in July 1989 and ending in June 1990). For Ted, this was to be the beginning of the end of his involvement with the traditional print industry, turning his attention occasionally thereafter to the nascent online world, culminating eventually with the creation of the ESSEX TERROR! website in 2009.

After the initial high profile success of Essex Terror in south-east England, opportunities arose for an offshoot magazine in America. Despite his refusal to enter their country, the publication and editorship of the first issue of The American Essex Terror was overseen with an iron fist and an even more iron stare by Ted Vaaaak himself. His demands even extended to insisting the price on the cover was printed with a £ rather than a $, reputedly because he was still furious at the country for once selling him a typewriter without a pound sign while he was there as a junior reporter for the Southend Echo in 1946. This he considered his revenge.

Ted’s work with The American Essex Terror ended soon after the first edition hit the shelves in 1991, and in subsequent editions, after its poor sales were blamed on confusion among customers in the US over the price, the pound sign was replaced with the more familiar dollar sign. Around this time, the words Essex and Terror were also dropped from the title, and The American replaced most of its horror and science fiction content with patriotic war cartoons and heartwarming stories of xenophobia and well-founded distrust.

In 2007, after a 16-year break that had seen most of its original readership achieve adulthood, Essex Terror returned once more to the newsagents. The relaunched ESSEX TERROR! could not reach an agreement with the rights owners of the original Essex Terror, however, so an exclamation mark was added and a switch to capital letters was made to distinguish the titles. Because of this, and the ongoing litigation that has since arisen, the new magazine, the current website, and even Ted Vaaaak himself are considered unofficial and “non-canon” by longtime purists.

Although the ESSEX TERROR! magazine itself was not a great success, the accompanying website was considered cheap enough to continue publishing, and since then over 60 articles have been published at a rate of almost one a month.

T(op): The cover of the very first Essex Terror, design: Ted Vaak (1989)
M(iddle): The cover of the first edition of The American Essex Terror, design: Raz Webster (1991)
B(ottom): The cover of the only ever print edition of the relaunched Essex Terror!, design: Ross Field (2007)

***

The Moon Issue and its Consequences

The controversial Moon Issue (Essex Terror #4, published in October 1989), was to prove disastrous for both Essex Terror and Ted Vaaaaak. The issue, heavily advertised – sources once close to Ted claim he spent over £5,000 in Witham alone – and eagerly anticipated across the county, was to prove an astonishing disappointment once it actually arrived. Readers were aghast at its meagre 16 pages, each one containing an identical illustration of the moon and a single line of text. The text, telling a particularly incomprehensible and shoddy story of interest to no-one, was seen by many to be the gravest insult, ruining as it did each perfectly good picture of the moon.

In the wake of this disaster, readership and sponsorship fell, Essex Terror’s budget was slashed by its publishers, and the magazine’s eventual demise was assured. Ted Vaaak was forced to resign, and although replacement editor David N. Guy and senior writer David N. Guy (no relation) did their best to hide the decline in budget (including colouring each issue by hand as the budget no longer stretched to cover the cost of colour printing), the magazine limped to a close just 8 issues later. Issue #12 (published in June 1990) was to be the last anyone heard of Essex Terror for almost 15 years.

T: The cover of the controversial Moon Issue, illustration: Albin Stanescu (1989)
M and B: Hand coloured pages from Issue #7, text and illustration: Ted Vaaaaak (1990), colouring: David N. Guy

[The only known copy of the Moon Issue, an illegal photocopy, made by an unnamed monk minutes before the lighting of one of the many purge fires organised around the county in response to the outcry (1989), was originally displayed during the exhibtion, but was sadly lost sometime during the first seventeen minutes of admittance to the public]

***

Ted Vaaak

Ted Vaak (born Terald Cirencester Vaaak in 1928) was a writer, film-maker, editor and magazine proprietor, based primarily in Essex, England, most famous for his work on science fiction and horror title Essex Terror (1989-1990).

His early work was mostly confined to the magazine market, where he worked on an ever-changing roster of local interest and genre fiction magazines, both as a freelance writer and, often, as editor, publisher and advertiser. Between 1946 and 1969, Ted Vaaak worked on, edited, owned, or was otherwise involved in, an astonishing 287 different titles, ranging from such tepid fare as Mundon Parish News and Steeplejack!, to more exciting publications like Truly Criminal, Bloody Terror and Ghosts Of Old Leigh.

In the 1970s, Ted achieved possibly his most consistent success with a series of haunting science fiction, horror and existential sadness books for now-defunct Romford publisher Alan Books. At the time, Ted’s insistence on the plot of each of his novels being explicitly stated in title, as well as explicitly illustrated on the cover, was considered deeply unfashionable, but his publisher agreed to it on the condition that Vaaak would refrain from entering the premises. By the 80s, this system of explanatory book titles and covers was the industry standard, but unfortunately for Ted’s sales it was too late, and he turned his attention to film.

His film work, now lost, was said by some to be horrific. After a brief turn as editor of essexterror.com in 2009, Ted Vaak retired from public life in 2010 and has resisted all efforts at contact regarding this exhibition.

T: Cover illustration for The Hypnotic Moon, illustration: Tom Morton, publisher: Alan Books, 1972
B: Cover illustration for His Eyes Escaped, illustration: Thomas Morton, publisher: Alan Books, 1974

***

The Essex Bestiary

After the collapse of Essex Terror, Ted Vaaaak retreated from the public eye and turned his attentions to his greatest passion, the history and myths of his beloved Essex. The Essex Bestiary – a work of impeccable scholarship that earned him a PhD in the Folkloric Arts from the Maldon Evening College – gathered over 700 disparate tales of Essex beasts, monsters and men, painstakingly sourced from texts and oral testimonies, and brought them together in a single easily accessible volume. Out of print since 1995, The Essex Bestiary is likely to be Vaak’s most enduring legacy.

T: The Baboons Upon The Marsh, text: Ted Vaaaaak (1995), illustration: trad
B: Edward Bright, Eater Of The Dead, text Ted Vaaak (1995), illustration: unknown

***

Ted Vaak and Jack Chick

One of the genuine curiosities in Ted Vaaak’s career is his close friendship and numerous collaborations with noted religious comic artist and author Jack Chick.

Vaaaak initially encountered Chick in 1950, when Ted’s script for a horror comic intended for the editor at Unwelcome Magazine was instead sent by accident to the then 26-year-old Chick’s apartment in Los Angeles. The illustrations Ted received several months later were so impressive that Ted solicited a number of cartoons from Jack for Vaaaaaak’s growing collection of magazines aimed at the Essex and East London market, such as Bellower, Belligerent Tales, and Weasel. (Oddly, the first cartoon, The Pub That Never Exploded, was, for reasons never adequately explained, not published for many years, only eventually appearing in Nauseous #298 in 1982.)

Jack Chick’s conversion to evangelical Christianity is said to have occurred while on a trip to Ted’s temporary home in Stow Maries in 1959, and they were never to be reconciled.

T: The Branch of Death, a rare horror comic both scripted and illustrated by Jack Chick, from Untrue Horror #2, 1954

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ESSEX TERROR!

When the latest installment of Essex Terror was launched in 2007, every effort was made to help the new magazine, and latterly website, stand out in the crowded Essex-based horror, occult and ghost-hunting market. After a lengthy debate on the best strategies for growth, visibility and market penetration between new editor Ross Field, illustrator David N. Guy (no relation to the David N. Guy who edited the original Essex Terror nor the similarly named assistant lawyer and colourist on the aforementioned publication) and freelance marketing consultant Ted Vaaak, the decision was made to hire a steadily expanding roster of celebrity columnists, reviewers and soundtrack artists (the latter to take advantage of the freedoms the internet medium allows). So far it has proven to be a great success, with a minimum of 100 unique readers for every article published to date.

T: A popular Essex Fear Factor column by Sky News presenter Jeff Randall (2009)
B: A review by The Guardian’s chief film critic Peter Bradshaw (2010)

***

What Next For Essex Terror?

What lies ahead for Essex Terror is difficult to predict, but one thing that can be certain is that it will continue to take advantages of all that the 21st century and its inevitable advances in technology can bring.

Not content with just utilizing the internet, Ted Vaaak is said to have ambitious plans for moving into the mobile arena. Indeed, Ted has reportedly created an Essex Terror iPhone app that makes a user’s phone “bleed” (in reality, the seepage is a mixture of condensation, rust and battery acid) while in use. It is currently awaiting approval from Apple before its hoped for release on their store at the end of the year.

Beyond that, predictions become harder. Attempts to break into the competitive ghost photography market have so far proven fruitless despite investment in a variety of cameras, and however powerful Ted’s dreams of the moon are it is unlikely to bring it any closer to his reach.

Whatever is to come, however, we can rely on it continuing Essex Terror’s proud tradition of terror, fear and perplexment in all those that it encounters.

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