Angel in the Dark

Angel in the Dark is a 144-page slash Professionals Bodie/Doyle novel by Thomas. The novel is well known for its dark themes, lyrical writing and innovative combination of art and text together at a time when more and more fanzines were eliminating interior art due to the advent of personal desktop word processing.
The cover artwork by Suzan Lovett won a 1997 Huggy Award for Best Zine Illo or Cover.
In the early 2010s, the zine was scanned into PDF format, and with Thomas' permission, offered to readers on Archive of Our Own without the art, which is by Suzan Lovett. However, in 2017 the work was removed by AO3's Policy & Abuse team as a "non-fanwork" due to not containing the text of the work itself but rather an external link to a PDF file. This led to substaintial wider discussion about preservation of zine fiction, AO3's mission to preserve fanworks, and the barriers that surround the documentation of paper zines and fanworks.
Angel in the Dark was later restored to AO3 in HTML format.
==Summary==
Summary from The Hatstand: "Set in the CI5 world, this story traces the slow evolution of Bodie's and Doyle's relationship, which reaches its apex just before the darkness in the title becomes reality."
Summary from Media Monitor: "A story of love and the fear of love; of beauty and obsession - 'For Beauty's nothing but the beginning of Terror we can scarcely endure, and we adore it so because it serenely disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrible.' - Rainer Maria Rilke. This is a powerful, dark, and poignant story but be warned, it is not a 'soft' story."
==Other Contribs and Thanks==
"Thanks to Lezlie, Pamela, Renae, Teresa, Doris, Sallie, Suzan, Sharon, Mary Lee and Lois, Megan Kent and Charlotte Hill, MFae, Cynthia and Kathy for proofreading and 'debugging' the Americanisms, to James for the final proofread, and most of all, to Mary."
==Removal From Archive of Our Own, and a Flashpoint for Discussions About Zine Preservation==
Both the author and the artist gave written permission for the novel to appear on Archive of our Own, and it was added to that site in April 2012.Morgan Dawn's personal notes accessed Dec 29, 2017.
On December 21, 2017, the Archive of Our Own deleted the work after it was reported as a "non-fanwork",Morgan Dawn's personal notes, accessed December 21, 2017. and requested proof that Thomas was the work's original author. A Wayback link to the header for the story on February 16, 2016 shows that at the time of removal, there were 10 comments, 3 kudos, and 664 hits, which were lost when the work was removed. Many fans were distressed about the work's deletion without opportunity to preserve these comments (some were later retrieved from email notifications). The removal also sparked off a discussion about the preservation of paper zines and fanfiction, and the barriers to entry that are put in the way of this, particularly for ageing and disabled fans.
Two posts (and ensuing discussions) by Morgan Dawn on Dreamwidth in response to the issue:
* Pros novel: Angel in the Dark deleted (21st December 2017)
* Come On Everybody, Let's Put On A Play! (a proposal for preservation of fanzine fanfic on AO3) (24th December 2017)
The PDF was converted to HTML format and copy-edited by volunteers and reposted to AO3 with the art on Dec 29, 2017.
==Reviews and Comments: "Angel in the Dark"==
Some reviewers found it an (unintentional) near-au version of the Sebastian story Wonderful Tonight -- Angel in the Dark is what happens when Bodie and Doyle don't have Kate Ross (the psychologist of CI5) to talk through their messed-up relationship issues with.
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==Gallery of Interior Art by Suzan Lovett ==
The following are low resolution images of the zine's interior art with commentary. Art has been included on Fanlore with the publisher's permission.
File:Pros angel in the dark interior s lovett 1.jpeg|This interior frontspiece was used as the basis of the zine flyer. Because of the popularity of Suzan's art at the time, the inclusion of this image on the flyer made the flyers collector's items. Even non-Pros fans would scoop them off convention flyer tables in spite of the fact that the image (seen more clearly here) was largely obscured by the flyer text.
File:Pros angel in the dark interior s lovett 2.jpeg|This scene appears early in the novel and depicts Doyle as he watches over a sleeping Bodie. The art throughout the novel incorporates key story phrases which were selectively abbreviated to convey a specific mood. Here the selection reads: "Passion imprisoned in stone, moulded by some unseen creator, wanting only a lover's hand to release it." The 'lover as stone' metaphor becomes central to the story as can be seen in the final image in this gallery.
File:Pros angel in the dark interior s lovett 3.jpeg|Many readers point to the combined power of the text and illustrations that made this zine a memorable read: "To ignore this story is to deny yourself some of the most sensitive writing in any fandom (not to mention the wonderful Suzan Lovett illustrations)."from DIAL #20 In this image the tenderness of the two men (Bodie cradling Doyle) is complemented by the text selection: "Bodie watched him all through the night."
File:Pros angel in the dark interior s lovett 4.jpeg|Another theme in the novel is Doyle's struggle to feel worthy of being loved. In this image, his lover Bodie encourages Doyle to look deeper into his psyche. The text selection reads: "...to hold captive-...a timeless purity" and is part of this longer section: "He scarcely recognised himself. Where was the grim, hard-faced man he saw every day? Those wide-startled eyes, did they belong to him? No, *his* eyes were cool, his smile ironic, as befitted a man who regularly consorted with corruption. But the face in the mirror seemed to hold captive a timeless purity." Interestingly, the abbreviated text selection gives the image a slightly softer mood than the full paragraph.
File:Pros angel in the dark interior s lovett 5.jpeg|Another example of Bodie as a stone metaphor. The text reads: "...a rhythm which flowed like water disturbed, like music in the dark." and is part of this longer selection: "Sunk in misery, Doyle watched him with dull eyes. He wondered how he could have ever thought Bodie was made of stone. Stone-hearted, yes. But his body was a study in motion, muscles rippling across the span of his shoulders, living curves surging along his spine, slinking around his buttocks, setting up a rhythm which flowed like water disturbed, like music in the dark." The image, even without the surrounding text to provide context shows the reader exactly how Doyle perceives Bodie's body and spirit at that moment in the novel—as the opposite of stone, alive and fluid.
File:Pros angel in the dark interior s lovett 6.jpeg|This text selection foreshadows a key plot point of the novel, namely ghosts and spirits and transformation. The excerpt: "...the spider's ghost -- trapping light.." is part of the longer: "Sometimes I think the spider's ghost is living there, trapping light the way it used to trap flies." The image shows Bodie kneeling at Doyle's feet, with a the spiderweb clearly visible in the upper right corner.
File:Pros angel in the dark interior s lovett 7.jpeg|This scene shows Doyle and Bodie finally reuniting. The text reads: "...to embrace the stone..." and is part of the larger section that says: "He slept restlessly, when he could sleep, dreaming of a stone shape encasing him. As he moved to embrace the stone in return he found it was warm and alive and he was licking an endless flow of tears from brilliant blue eyes, then kissing the lids closed as the lower half of their bodies moved in unison." Bodie as 'living stone' is a metaphor repeated throughout the novel. In this image, the entwining lovers mirror the stone that encases Doyle in his dream. In the background, Bodie's face looms forbiddingly, partially obscured by the lover's bodies, hinting at the novel's dark ending.
==Notes & References==
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===References===
Category:1992 Fanart
Category:The Professionals Slash Zines
Category:1996 Zines
Category:2022 Featured Articles