Today’s Washington Post has a profile of Paranoia magazine, a terrific print magazine about wild conspiracies, Forteana, and the paranormal. I remember when Paranoia first launched in 1992 during the print ‘zine heyday. I haven’t read Paranoia in a while but I’m going out later to find a copy at my local independent newsagent. From the Washington Post:
I decided to ask the co-editors, Joan D’Arc and Al Hidell. I called and Joan D’Arc answered. Well, I wasn’t born yesterday so I knew that name was fake — a subtle reference to Joan of Arc. So I asked her: “What’s your real name?” She refused to tell me.
“You must surely realize that there are people out there who hate us and would want to harm us.”
She told me that editing Paranoia was not a full-time job so I asked her what she did for a living.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” she said.
Apparently, when you’re exposing the secret government you can’t be too careful. D’Arc told me that Paranoia was born in 1992 in Providence, R.I., where she ran an alternative bookstore called Newspeak, which hosted weekly meetings of the Providence Conspiracy League. The league started collecting conspiracy information and storing it in a big loose-leaf binder with a picture of Lee Harvey Oswald on the cover. And the binder led to the magazine.
Link to the Washington Post article, Link to Paranoia (via The Anomalist)