W. H. Pugmire - Life

Life

Born May 3, 1951, to a father active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a Jewish mother, Pugmire grew up in Seattle. Pugmire served as a Mormon missionary in Omagh, Northern Ireland, where he corresponded with Robert Bloch and first began writing fiction. After returning to the United States in 1973, he discovered Arkham House and the fiction and Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft. In a press release for one of Pugmire's books, it is said that Pugmire's discovery of punk rock "saved his soul and gave him a new fictive voice."

When a student at Franklin High School and into circa the 1970s he played vampire "Count Pugsly" at Jones' Fantastic Museum in Seattle. Issue #69 of Famous Monsters of Filmland was dedicated to Pugmire. The cover feature was Lon Chaney, Jr.'s vampire in London After Midnight, who inspired the look of Pugmire's Count Pugsly.

Pugmire is a self-proclaimed eccentric recluse, "the Queen of Eldritch Horror, " as well as a self-identified "punk rock queen and street transvestite". He has worked in various theatrical capacities, sometimes appearing at parties as characters including 'Count Pugsly', a vampire. In the documentary film, The AckerMonster Chronicles!, about Forrest J Ackerman, Pugmire describes how he was influenced by Ackerman's magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland and shows the audience the issue in which his photo appears in 'Count Pugsly' makeup.

Pugmire states that after returning from his Mormon mission he came out as gay to the church, was given psych treatment, and requested excommunication. Pugmire's lover of many years, Todd, died in his arms from a heroin overdose in March 1995. In the last decade he has reconnected with the church and was rebaptized, but only after telling church's High Priests that he would be a "totally queer Mormon, but celibate."

Pugmire also edited the magazine Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, which ran from 1988 to 1999.