I’m pretty sure Propaganda’s demise was complicated. Censorship and ensuing distribution problems seemed to hamper it more than anything else. Once the magazine reached a certain level of popularity, people came out of the woodwork, voicing extremely strong negative opinions about Fred’s consistent focus on Nazi/fascist fetish imagery (which could be quite radical), as well as his penchant for using of models who looked underage (even thought there weren’t).

Anyway. I don’t know the whole story, but the impression I got from him back in the early 00s when shit was hitting the fan was that his hands were tied. (Pun intended, natch.)

I should look him up, actually. His life and work would make a great feature for Coilhouse, too!

I think what always irritated me the most about SKIN TWO (and MARQUIS and pretty much every other fetish/goth mag out there) is the glaring absence of queer men and anyone of color (other than the occasional exhibition of Asian women to satisfy the fairly racist fetishization of Asian women that white men all too often harbor) from the covers or the internals. I was drawn to the bright and shiny of the magazine, but the heterodox focus on whiteness and heteronormativity of that end of fetish culture was always infuriating and alienating.

The only fetish mag I really really really miss is PROPAGANDA. The last issue of it I picked up (in like 2003, I think) was packed full of hot twinks that look like me and hot women of color photographed in–oh my god, could it be true?–positions of power. Some of the photography was genuinely subversive, quirky, and hot as balls without making you feel like you were indulging someone else’s fantasy.

It is also worth mentioning that your cover photograph was one of the most inspiring images I’ve ever come across and I remember hunting down a copy of that magazine just for that image (even though it’s quite hard and expensive to find in Australia).

I guess the big question I still have is… how could Skin Two go from printing abstract, artistic, challenging covers like Julian Murphy/Graphic Sex, that silver sex machine thing, Polly Fey, “Life’s a Drag,” etc., to the really banal, porn-like stuff? And why were facial piercings, tattoos and other weird things off-limits for covers? That, to me, seemed like such a big shift in philosophy… so much of fetish is about unusual modification and pushing the limits. Fakir Musafar, Mr. Pearl, etc. Pretty ladies are, of course, a bit part of fetish is about as well, but when I think of women who really represent fetish – cover girls, if you will – I think of people like Empress Stah. Why make the covers of fetish magazines – print or online – look like porn, when there are dozens of porn magazines/sites on the market? I’m not saying that non-artsy, porn-looking girls have no place in fetish – it’s their scene, too – but if they’re going to be used for covers, at least the photo itself has to express “fetish” by projecting attitude, strictness, mystique, etc. See this excellent Marquis cover for an example of how I see this working in practice – and see another cover of theirs for the same idea concept failing miserably, resulting in a boring, pornographic image. It’s a fine line.

I think what really mystifies me is that it feels like the whole staff of Skin Two changed from the 90s to the aughts, if you judge only by cover choice (with certain exceptions – for which I’ll be forever grateful, Tony :) – thank you!). But the same exact people – you, and Tim, and Fearnley – were in charge. Was there some pressure from the market to change the covers? Did your readers respond more favorably to the new covers? Was there a spike in sales the first time you put a more “sexy” cover out? Did you feel that the 90′s club-kid/drag/body-mod thing was played out? I’m not asking this to be accusing in any way… I’m just curious how such a big shift could’ve happened.

Thank you again for coming to this site to give us your insight, Tony. Really looking forward to your response.

However, there are a couple of factual errors in your original piece that I would like to correct if I may.

First, I did not break the story of Skin Two’s demize “in my blog” as you say. The story was the lead news item in my online fetish magazine, TheFetishistas.com, which is not a blog.

Sadly I have not had time to maintain the original blog (called FetishDayz) that I started post-Skin Two, since The Fetishistas has been taking up all my time since launching in early 2007. I do like blogging, however, and hope to revive FetishDayz or something very similar at some point soon.

Second, though Michelle Olley (who remains a good friend to this day) was a very important influence in her time at Skin Two, she was never actually the editor/editrix.

She started as assistant editor and then became features editor. During that entire period, I was actually editing the magazine, but Tim would not relinquish the title of editor which he kept for himself along with publisher, managing director, chairman etc etc. So for many years I was de facto editor of the magazine while my title was still art director.

Michelle was a fantastic, very creative and supportive deputy to me during that entire period. I eventually got the title that went with my job after we moved offices to Battersea, and the first issue produced under my titular editorship was No 25.

This information is all contained in the retrospective history of Skin Two that I wrote for issue 50 – the one, coincidentally, with your fantastic Feisty Diva image on the cover :).

As tof how covers were chosen, allow me to clarity that process for you. One of the biggest frustrations of my time as editor, both de facto and titular, was that Tim always insisted on choosing the final cover image and design, something which by rights should have been the editor’s job.

I could propose, suggest, and attempt to persuade, but I could not decide. So all the hard work I put into producing the best possible content for the magazine was never allowed final expression in the choice of cover.

When Michael Fearnley became our full time designer, the procedure was that Michael and I would collaborate in the creation of a set of between half a dozen and a dozen dummy covers for each issue. These had to be presented to Tim in a cover meeting, so that he could choose the one that he liked best. There was debate, but it was not a democracy — there was never any doubt who was going to have the final word.

As Michael still works for Skin Two it would not be appropriate to say too much more about this process. But it would be fair to say that one of the consequences of my deteriorating relationship with Tim in the last few years was that Michael’s influence over the overall appearance and content of the magazine grew considerably. I’m not saying he sought it; in the magazine’s tripartite power structure, it was inevitable as Tim increasingly sidelined me.

We also had to abide by various rules for cover images imposed on us by our US distributor, reflecting what he deemed legal and safe for getting the mag into his US retail customers’ stores.

All this stuff created the likelihood of ending up with covers that no one was completely happy with. And indeed, for me, it felt like little short of a miracle if we ended up with a cover that had actually been my choice from the start.

If I didn’t acknowledge this too openly at the time, it was probably because it was embarrassing to admit the limits of my influence in this important area when the people I regularly dealt with over covers — photographers, clothing designers, models etc — naturally assumed me to be the man who would make the ultimate decision.

I trust this clears up a few mysteries for you and your readers. There’s a lot more where that came from, but I’ll leave it there for the moment.

I’d agree that it’s decline was probably most a factor of the internet, and it’s partly a shame, because physical media is nice to peruse, and can often point you in directions you wouldn’t have discovered otherwise… But to compete with the sheer vastness & depth of the internet, most niche magazines will sadly suffer…

Skin Two will leave a deserved legacy, and it’s fantastic to see it from such a personal perspective.