W


here does Ed Gein come from? Yes, we know there was a mentally damaged Wisconsin farmer named Ed Gein who committed


murder and horrible indignities to corpses both fresh and graveyard-green, but what about the mythological Ed Gein also known as “The Mad Butcher” and the “Plainfield Ghoul?” The Ed Gein that has become a pop culture icon? Where does that larger-than-life Ed Gein come from?


He’s cut from the same cloth (or maybe same skin...) as zeitgeist murderers Charles Manson, David Berkowitz


and Richard Ramirez. Former commune-living hippie Manson is a symbol for the death of the ’60s and the Peace and Love Generation; Berkowitz embodies a dirty, depraved 1970s New York City; and Ramirez is often placed within the context of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s due to the occult symbols he carved on some of his victims. But Gein – who was proven only to have killed two people and therefore doesn’t fit the technical definition of a serial killer (three or more are required) – had a much bigger impact than those serial killers on the American psyche. It wasn’t because he was the only premeditated murderer in 1950s America, either. Dur- ing that decade, Harvey Glatman, a.k.a. The Lonely Hearts Killer, killed three to four women (exact number not proven), whom he lured back to his New York apartment, where he’d tie them up and rape them while taking pictures, then strangle them; and Leslie “Mad Dog” Irvin shot and killed a half-dozen people in Indiana. One killed to get his rocks off, the other robbed his victims; Gein, however, had much more complex and


sympathetic reasons stemming from “mommy issues” that were perfectly in line with Freudian psychology, which was tremendously popular at the time. More obviously, it was what he did to bodies that ignited the most morbid, primitive corners of the imagination. Shrinking heads, fashioning bones into tools and decorations and generally taking trophies is the stuff of pulp fiction about jungle tribes from “the Dark Continent” or the ghouls in EC comics – Gein was an avid consumer of both forms of literature. In the popular mindset, this was the domain of “The Other,” who civilized Americans had conquered. (His-


torically, it was the Indians who took scalps for trophies, not the white cowboys, after all...) Prior to Gein, most Americans were familiar with shrunken heads and things made from human parts through either accounts in Ripley’s Believe It or Not newspaper columns or the death camp shrunken head paperweight and human skin lamp that were put on display during the Nuremberg Trials as evidence of Nazi atrocities during WWII. Only the Nazis would appropriate such hideous mementos. Right? A few years ago I was shown a private collection of bizarre and morbid curios, and among the items was


the shrunken head of a Japanese soldier (along with his diary and identification), which had been made by tribesmen in the Solomon Islands during WWII and given to an American soldier as a thank you for driving out the occupiers. Many of these trophies were smuggled back by US servicemen, but, again, one could argue that these were relics made by islanders half a world away. Gein, however, could’ve stamped “Made in the USA” on the bottom of his ghoulish trinkets. That’s the real shocker – these horrors came from the Heartland. One of the most famous American paintings,


and the image that symbolizes the “American way of life” that the country had fought for, is Grant Wood’s 1930 oil painting American Gothic, which depicts a bald, bespectacled farmer holding a pitchfork, standing with a stern-faced woman in front of a white farmhouse. The white farmhouse with the gothic-style window (a church-like touch befitting the image’s puritanical, Protestant overtones) in this image of pure Americana is a real house in the tiny berg of Eldon, Iowa (population as of 2010: 927). Plainfield, Wisconsin (population as of 2010: 897) is only five-and-a-half hours away. This is wholesome, small-town farm country – the last place you’d expect to find a charnel house. But there was Ed Gein, a Lutheran farmer in an Elmer Fudd hat, building a chamber of horrors in his quaint


white farmhouse, which looked like it could be any farmhouse. It’s no coincidence that the quaint white Farm- house of Horror is also an integral part of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre – Tobe Hooper’s parody of wholesome rural living. When Gein’s crimes were discovered, and covered extensively in the media at the time, his story revealed


the fallacy of the American Dream depicted in TV families, aggressive consumerism and conservative politics and religion. As Hitchcock revealed in 1960’s Psycho, the boy next door-type living in the country could be a cross-dressing murderer rooming with his dead mother. In the Heartland of America, Ed Gein was an abscess, and as pop culture’s continued fascination with him


proves, one that never healed. Filmmakers realized that they best thing you can do then is own it. Pick up a knife or a chainsaw and give the sickness a face. Perhaps yours…


STAFF


PUBLISHER Rodrigo Gudiño


MANAGING EDITOR Monica S. Kuebler


ART DIRECTOR Justin Erickson


GRAPHIC DESIGNER ANDREW WRIGHT


OFFICE MANAGER ron mckenzie


MARKETING/ADVERTISING MANAGER


Jody Infurnari PH: 905-985-0430 FX: 905-985-4195 E: jody@rue-morgue.com


EDITOR-IN-CHIEF dave alexander


INTERIM ASSOCIATE EDITOR/ ONLINE EDITOR april snellings


COPY EDITOR claire horsnell


FINANCIAL CONTROLLER Marco Pecota


INTERNS lime blake vanessa furtado charlotte stear Matt White


RUE MORGUE INTERNATIONAL fabien delage (FRANCE) facebook.com/RueMorgueFrance richard gladman (UK) facebook.com/RueMorgueUK moaner t. lawrence (GERMANY) facebook.com/RueMorgueGermany aaron soto (MEXICO) facebook.com/RueMorgueMexico


CONTRIBUTORS


STUART F. ANDREWS MIKE BEARDSALL LYLE BLACKBURN JOHN W. BOWEN PHIL BROWN JAMES BURRELL PEDRO CABEZUELO PAUL CORUPE PATRICK DOLAN MICHAEL DOYLE TOMB DRAGOMIR JAY FOSGITT THE GORE-MET PETER GUTIÉRREZ MARK R. HASAN


LIISA LADOUCEUR LAST CHANCE LANCE ALISON LANG ANDREW LEE AARON VON LUPTON SHAWN MACOMBER MICHAEL MITCHELL DAN MURPHY DEREK NIETO GEORGE PACHECO JASON PICHONSKY GARY PULLIN JESSA SOBCZUK TREVOR TUMINSKI OWEN WILLIAMS


RUE MORGUE #130 would not have been possible with- out the valuable assistance of: Patrick Clarke, Mary-Beth Hollyer, Al McMullan, and the Meat Monster.


RM #130 is dedicated to the Rue Mortuary; happy 10th!


COVER:JOHN DIES AT THE END Design by Justin Erickson


Rue Morgue Magazine is published monthly (with the exception of February) and accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photos, art or other materials. Freelance submissions accompanied by S.A.S.E. will be seriously considered and, if necessary, returned.


We acknowledge the financial support of the Gov- ernment of Canada through the Canada Periodical


Fund (CPF) for our publishing activities. RUE MORGUE Magazine #130 ISSN 1481 – 1103 Agreement No. 40033764 Entire contents copyright MARRS MEDIA INC. 2013. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN CANADA.


RM6 dave@rue-morgue.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68