Is Fangoria.com Dead?

I am not a regular reader of Fangoria.com but I have always had alot of respect for the print magazine and the strong voice that it was in the horror genre for decades. The site has linked to us in the past which is saying alot since most commercial sites have little respect for fan sites like ours.

We are not journalists and do not pretend to be and Fangoria was never threatened by this and was always respectful of us and our blog.. We are fans, writing about a genre we love and Fangoria was one of the few that respected us in the beginning so to me they are good people!

So needless to say I am completely shocked to discover that by all appearances Fangoria.com appears to be dead. The website no longer loads and instead we are presented with their logo and nothing else. HorrorBid was the first to post news that Fangoria appears to be dead and I really did not know what to make of it since when it broke the site was still loading but now it appears to be truly dead.

I dont read Fangoria since I prefer Rue Morgue Magazine but I have to wonder what it means for our genre when one of the finest genre print magazines seems to be facing some kind of trouble. Is it just an un-announced face lift or is Fangoria.com dead? What does this mean for the troubled print magazine if the web presense is in disarray?

I have reached out to one of its writers who I have known for awhile now to see if he can give us some insights but at this point its anyones guess and I certainly have no clue what is going on.

Fangoria.com in my view faced alot of trouble in competing with blogs just like ours because blogs unlike print magazine are on the cutting edge of the stories and when they are run by fans just like us its impossible to compete. Sites like ours, DreadCentral, UpcomingHorrorMovies and MANY others are tapped right into the soul of horror because it is what we live and breathe.. not what we get paid to do. Frankly this gives us a huge advantage but that is also not me trying to take away from the credibility and quality that Fangoria brings in its writing its just a different animal and in an MTV generationw here fans seem to want their fix now, and in an 5second format its tough for large publishing outfits to survive I am sure.

What are your thoughts? Do you think Fangoria.com is truly dead? Ryan at STYD rightly points out that the 'blog' for Fangoria is still up and running but Fangoria.com is very much dead at this point.. or at least not loading. I am sure some are revelling in the fall of Fangoria but I for one am not. I am a believer in the value of the many solid voices in horror and losing one as good as Fangoria is never good.