This month’s issue of Jersey Devil Press is all kinds of milestone-ish. Not only is it the first issue of 2014, it’s also the 50th issue. Fifty! It’s rare enough that any literary magazine makes it that far, but for a weird little online magazine that loves dick jokes and aliens that live on human poop as much as we love serious speculative fiction, that’s frankly astounding.
This issue also marks my second anniversary as production editor! And I’m still standing! Miraculous, folks.
But wait, there’s more: this month’s issue is so amazeballs that our content editor, Laura Garrison, made a playlist for the issue. And the music that goes with these stories? I mean, sure, it’s got some Springsteen and some Bowie and some Rockwell — yes, that Rockwell — but she had the genius/temerity to include Green Jellÿ’s “Three Little Pigs”!
Let’s all just pause for a moment to reflect on that.
I just had a high school flashback.
But let’s get to the fiction: we have haunting broken-romances about men turning to ashes and men growing gills, a fable about a smartassed fox scaring the bejeezus out of three pigs, a weirdly tender story about a meth-head who talks to dogs, and the existentialism of poor Waldo (can he find himself?).
And because it’s the New Year, we’re bringing you a toast from cover artist Pedro Abreu. And because we’re JDP, the toast is blind and eerie.
So here’s to the new year and the next 50 issues, gang! Cheers!
Samuel Snoek-Brown 