Title: Intense Device

Author/Artist: Simon Whitechapel

Publisher: Critical Vision (Headpress)

Media: Book

Reviewer: Pan

Simon Whitechapel, along with Howard Lake, has always been one of the prime attractions of Headpress. His long, erudite and interesting articles have always been a joy to read, even if there have been occasions where he's lost me completely. The range of his interests is partly what makes him interesting, that and the fact that he seems to have read up on just about every subject under the sun. You want Etruscan mythology, he's got it. You want obscure electronic noise bands, he's got it. And we won't even mention his abiding interest in all things de Sade.

As you would expect, 'Intense Device' displays the full range of Whitechapel interests - from the history of dildos to the obscure links between far-Right holocaust revisionism and Christian fundamentalist creationism and back to de Sade again. Along the way he takes a close look at the Christian Crusader comics, which I'd never heard of before but which almost tempt me to cross the portals of one of the Christian bookshops that seem to be sprouting all over the country.

It has to be admitted, however, that sometimes the pace flags a little bit. I could have done without the digressions on rugby - we all know that it's a homoerotic SM sport where spectacular male-on-male violence is all - and the look at the TV and movie book tie-ins. I would much rather have had more on neo-Nazi electronic noise bands, more on de Sade and more of his Qabbalistic decodings.

Even so, despite these minor annoyances, this is an interesting read and it just makes me want to find out more about the author. So come on, who the fuck is Simon Whitechapel?