Ep. 37: Comeback Story: SCARS Magazine Is Back From the Dead — Here’s What Happened

SCARS Magazine is back — but the story behind it is even crazier than we expected. This week on Off The Shelf Podcast, Jordan and Clint sit down with SCARS Magazine editor Raymond Dowaliby for a completely unfiltered conversation about the rise, disappearance, and resurrection of one of indie horror’s underground magazines. Ray takes us all the way back to where it started — including the unexpected job that helped teach him the production and design skills that eventually led to SCARS. We get into his early experiences with horror, meeting legends like George Romero and Stephen King, handing the first issue of SCARS directly to celebrities at conventions, and what it was like building a horror publication before social media became what it is today. We also talk about SCARS giving early coverage to creators like James Gunn, Matt Reeves, Darren Lynn Bousman and others, why Ray has always had a soft spot for independent filmmakers and artists, what eventually caused him to step away from the magazine, and why he now calls its return “the resurrection.” Plus: lost issues, MySpace, Hatchet, Tony Todd, the realities of magazine distribution, the future of SCARS, and why Ray still believes the weird, independent and overlooked creators deserve a place to be seen. If you love horror, independent film, collecting, underground culture, or hearing the stories behind the people who helped build the scene, this one is for you. 💀 CONNECT WITH SCARS MAGAZINE Official Website: https://www.scarsmag.com Instagram:   / @scarsmag   Buy/Read SCARS Magazine: https://www.magcloud.com/browse/magazine SCARS is an independently published magazine covering alternative and horror film, music and culture, with issues on MagCloud dating back to 2009. Its 2024 return was described as a resurrection after a roughly 10-year hiatus. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Chapters: 00:00 Cold Open – The R-Rated Origin of SCARS 00:53 Welcome to Off The Shelf 01:46 Who Was Ray Before SCARS? 04:52 The Horror Movies That Started It All 07:19 Watching Creepshow With Stephen King & George Romero 09:44 The Magazines That Inspired SCARS 14:50 How SCARS Magazine Actually Started 17:13 Taking SCARS to Horror Conventions 17:45 Where the Name “SCARS” Came From 19:13 Creating the First Issue 21:32 How the First SCARS Issues Were Lost 22:19 Building SCARS in the MySpace Era 23:43 Landing James Gunn, Matt Reeves, Rob Zombie & More 27:00 Adam Green, Hatchet & Supporting Indie Horror 31:05 The Original Vision: Fangoria Meets Playboy 34:21 Why SCARS Champions Independent Creators 36:40 Why SCARS Disappeared 39:20 The Resurrection of SCARS 40:09 Why Ray Brought SCARS Back 1:01:44 Rapid Fire 1:03:21 Ray's Ultimate SCARS Issue 1:04:05 What's Next for SCARS Magazine? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ WELCOME TO OFF THE SHELF PODCAST Off The Shelf Podcast explores the worlds of collectibles, pop culture, entertainment, gaming, cannabis culture, entrepreneurship, and everything in between. Hosted by Jordan & Clint, we sit down with creators, collectors, filmmakers, artists, entrepreneurs, business owners, and fascinating people with stories worth hearing. Expect unfiltered conversations, unexpected stories, industry insights, collectibles, entertainment news, and plenty of things that go completely off the rails. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔔 JOIN THE OFF THE SHELF COMMUNITY Subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss new episodes, interviews, clips, and more. 💬 JOIN THE VAULT ON DISCORD   / discord   Connect with the Off The Shelf community, talk collectibles, gaming, movies, pop culture, and help shape what we cover next. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🛒 OFF THE SHELF SHOP Check out official Off The Shelf merchandise, limited guest collections, collaborations, and more: https://offtheshelfpodcast-shop.fourt... ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📲 FOLLOW OFF THE SHELF   / @off_theshelfpodcast     / off_theshelfpodcast   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎤 WANT TO BE ON THE SHOW? Are you a creator, collector, filmmaker, artist, entrepreneur, business owner, or someone with an interesting story to tell? We'd love to hear from you. 📧 offtheshelfpod@outlook.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🤝 PARTNERSHIPS & COLLABORATIONS Interested in sponsoring Off The Shelf, collaborating with the show, providing products for us to check out, or partnering on a giveaway? 📧 offtheshelfpod@outlook.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ OFF THE SHELF PODCAST Unfiltered. Unscripted. Unboxed. Hosted by Jordan & Clint #OffTheShelfPodcast #Podcast #Collectibles #SCARSMagazine #HorrorPodcast #IndieHorror