Not the sort of environment one would expect to meet a beautiful young woman in. There he’d worked the midnight streets of the country’s capital city, raking dung off the roads from the horses and bedpans, cast out the windows of the tightly packed houses. A highly contagious infliction which Tabor had contracted after leaving the small village of Garth for the hustle and bustle of London. The man was little more than a bubbling mass of festering flesh, oozing thick pus from the multitude of weeping boils across his body. It’s only a very short introduction, but one that provides an excellent insight into the reasons behind the existence of the chapbook and the original writing of the two homages to Guy N Smith’s ‘ The Festering’ (1989) that the chapbook contains.Ĭurled up in a shadowy corner of the old outhouse, if you looked closely, squinting into the darkness, you could just about make out the rotting mess of the once handsome forester – Tabor. Park continues on with a brief description of the ‘ Hell Of A Guy: Fans On The Rampage’ (2016) anthology that he orchestrated, the writing of the two stories, and Guy’s wonderful reaction to Park’s use of the rejected image. Park introduces his chapbook with a brief overview of Guy N Smith’s annual fan convention, when and how he first came across Smith’s novel ‘ The Festering’ (1989) and the impact the cover and story had on him.

The artwork is what Park used for the cover image of his exclusive chapbook. It was at the September 2016 Guy N Smith fan convention that Park purchased a full-colour copy of the rejected artwork by Les Edwards for Smith’s novel ‘ The Festering’ (1989). The two stories contained within the chapbook were originally written for the exclusive ‘ Hell Of A Guy: Fans On The Rampage’ (2016) anthology that was compiled to celebrate twenty-five years of the Guy N Smith fan convention. Park’s chapbook ‘The Festering Death & Contacts’ was a limited edition publication, with only around ten copies having been printed and given to friends and fans (one copy was also given away as part of an online competition in December 2016). First published back in 2016, British author J.R.

The Festering by Guy N. Smith