RIP Bill Landis

In his own words:

"Bill Landis founded Sleazoid Express in 1980 as a biweekly newsletter, the first publication to record exploitation films as a serious cinematic art form. Throughout the early through mid 1980s he immersed himself in the red light world of the pre-Disneyfied Times Square and documented his associates and experiences. Afterwards Landis joined forces with his penultimate collaborator, Michelle Clifford, who revived Sleazoid Express in a monograph format, and later co-authored the book of the same title. Landis also contributed to Clifford's monograph Metasex, which deals with the more sexually charged aspects of the vice world. Landis and Clifford wrote Anger, the unauthorized bio of underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger. They have been interviewed in the books Clayton Patterson's Captured and Creeping Flesh. Landis has contributed to Taschen's hefty bio of Vanessa del Rio, the Soho News, New York Rocker, Village Voice, Film Comment, Hustler, Screw, Penthouse, the Hungover Gourmet, Carbon 14, Maxim and Time Out New York. Landis and Clifford curated the Grindhouse Festival at the Music Box Theater in Spring 2007, and were profiled in Time Out Chicago, Time Out New York, and Flaunt Magazines. Landis and Clifford, have hosted many exploitation film festivals from the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and, locally, the Art Institute of Chicago."

He was also our friend. Rest in peace Bill.