The SM Detective

Well, I must say, this came as quite a shock.

The well-known magazine, S&M Sniper, has ceased publication after a near 30-year run in business. I don't have any inside information but it's pretty easy to arrive at some conclusions which are probably correct.

First, there's the economic situation. I won't recount the data (because it's too depressing), but Japan has been particularly hard hit.

Then, of course, there is this new paradigm we seem to be experiencing where a lot of print publications are going under, or hanging on by the skin of their teeth. When a newspaper like the New York Times starts losing money, you start to really wonder what's going on.

Things are moving to the web. S&M Sniper is no exception. They've had a web presence for a long time. So it looks like they're going to try to make a go of it as a web-only publication.

I used to know someone over there but I'm not sure if he still works there or not. I sent an email. If I get any more info, I'll pass it along here.

In the meantime, best of luck to S&M Sniper on the web.

Update: That was fast! It turns out my contact is now the editor-in-chief of Web Sniper. He confirms that Sniper is now a web publication. A long article originally in Japanese has been translated into English. It's a little rough but I am posting it here in its entirety. You will need to use your imagination a bit, but this is fascinating reading.

Hit the Read More link for further coverage.

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A few years ago I was contacted by an individual about importing some Western material into Japan. I would use the term major player but it sounds a bit pompous. Let's just say he was serious and had some serious money to put into this project. For 99 percent of the people out there scraping by making SM material, this was a once-in-a-lifetime deal.

One caveat: he did want a lot for his money. But you've heard the phrase, "Everything's negotiable"? I think everyone's heard this. Too bad, as I found out, many people don't have a clue what it means to negotiate.

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Now that we've been up and running for awhile, I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk about this blog, SM Detective, and what I hope to accomplish with it.

First and foremost, the blog should be entertaining. Secondly, I want it to be informative. To be specific, my hope is that SM Detective eventually becomes a go-to spot on the web for information about Japanese bondage/SM, as well as a place where we report on various events in Japan before and after they take place.

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A funny thing happened as I was perusing the interwebs yesterday. I was checking out a site called FetishMovies. FetishMovies takes all sorts of content from producers (including SM content) and streams it to its customers. The site is pretty easy to navigate and, overall, I think they've done a pretty good job with the design and interface. And the concept is a good one.

As far as I can tell, there are a few options for distributing one's content. You can go the old fashioned way and just press a bunch of DVDs. Making DVDs isn't hard but getting good distribution is a real challenge. And even if you get the distribution, the middleman wants a big cut.

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Suffice it to say I've seen a lot of bondage flicks. Most were, at best, so-so. A lot were simply garbage. Very few were classic. Very, very few.

I have a simple goal. I want to create very good SM movies. I feel the same way about my photography. Recently I've been mesmerized by the work of Sugiura Norio. He is one of the, if not the, premiere bondage photographers in the world. His work is marvelous, especially his older stuff when he was shooting film. Digital is nice if you like that really clean look. The resolution is there but folks, it ain't film.

The same thing goes for video.

Now, personally, I can't afford movie film. But I love the look of film. I've even seriously considered the idea of shooting something in 8mm -- just to get that bitchin' film look. But 8mm seems quite grainy to me. And even with 8mm, the cost is exorbitant.

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