Readers of the fly-leaf of Steve Dorril’s new book The Silent Conspiracy will notice that he gives his address as the contact point for Lobster. More accurately, I should have written for his Lobster. Yes, as I write this in early June the word is that Dorril going to produce another magazine called… Lobster. Here’s what happened.
For some time I had been irritated by the description of Steve as ‘co-editor’ of Lobster (a description you will not find on the magazine, incidentally.) For with the exception of the Who’s Who, Steve didn’t edit a line. The truth is that from issue 1, I have done 99.95% of all the actual work — key-boarding, type-setting, pasting-up, editing, running the subscription base, dealing with correspondence, keeping the books, dealing with the printers and so forth. (Not to mention taking the occasional legal risks involved in being the named publisher.)
The last straw came while he was working on The Silent Conspiracy. For nearly six months he claimed to be so busy he didn’t have time to meet me to talk about… the magazine of which he was said to be the co-editor. So I took his name off issue 24.
I could go to court and get an injunction against him using the name, but I can’t afford it. So, if he chooses to persist with this, there will be two ‘Lobsters‘ and we will look ridiculous. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do about this. For my part, nothing has changed and Lobster — this Lobster, the turgid, design-free zone Lobster — will continue as usual, an issue appearing in June and December.