Screw: April 1, 1992, page 16
The Stark Fist of Removal, billing itself as "The Official Journal of the Church of the SubGenius," indeed offers a disorienting, terrifying, delightful plunge into the self- consciously bizarre world of those who would worship J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, the pipe-chomping, Brylcremed Alfred E. Neuman of the post- modern set.
We've always been equally drawn to and repelled by the self- satirical cult that has grown around the surrealist, absurdist writings, art work and videos that feature the loose, contradictory philosophy and droll theology borne from the head of such SubGenius luminaries as the Rev. Ivan Stang, Paul Mavrides, and a host of others.
Appropriating and mutating pop cultural artifacts that here include Italian porn, comics, Christian art, famous news photos and high school science texts, the SubGenius crew comes off as irritating gadflies, poisoned thorns in the side of traditional "iltellectual" art and cultural criticism.
Indeed, these are all good things, and if we were into thanking any deity at all, we'd thank Bob that these fellows exist and are allowed to run rampant. But there's the rub, at least for us -- we find even the idea of a joke anti-deity and a satirical theology a little too constricting for our imaginations. The varios contributors to The Stark Fist of Removal each take their own seemingly willful direction when adding to the Bob mythos, but the overall impact is still distressingly monolithic.
Which, of course, serves to effectively drive home oe of the very points at the heart of the entire SubGenius movement -- that organized religion is a sham, that movements are not to be trusted. The point is driven home with needless repetition, however, and sometimes at the cost of creativity.
Still, the magazine is full of startling graphics and, taken in small doses, the prose is the equivalent of hip, intelectual junk food. Everyone should definitely be exposed to the peculiar radiations emanating from The Stark Fist of Removal at least once.
Send $5 for the most recent issue to The Church of the SubGenius, P.O. Box 140306, Dallas, TX 75214.