JERSEYANA; Weirdest of All, the Magazine Has Caught On

THEY are chroniclers of the creepy, bards of the bizarre.

They are Mark Sceurman and Mark Moran, the two men who edit and publish Weird NJ, the magazine devoted to all things odd -- or most odd -- in New Jersey.

Perhaps most odd, Mr. Sceurman and Mr. Moran -- a study in contrasts themselves -- seem almost too normal. The slender Mr. Moran, 42, who sports a soul patch, is loquacious, while the 46-year-old Mr. Sceurman, solidly built with an auburn goatee, is more taciturn.

From abandoned asylums to colorful real-life characters past and present, to folk stories of ghosts, monsters, and aliens, Mr. Sceurman and Mr. Moran have created a journal of New Jersey's unwritten history.

Their accumulated tales gain more permanence with a new book, ''Weird N.J.: Your Travel Guide to New Jersey's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets'' (Silver Lining Books, $19.95).

''It's a culmination of the last 10 years worth of magazine articles,'' said Mr. Sceurman, ''except we rewrote and rephotographed everything, and actually did a little more research than the first time around.''

The 272-page compilation -- in hard cover and full color, from the Barnes & Noble imprint -- may come as a shock to longtime fans who recall Weird NJ's earliest and most primitive incarnation.

As far back as 1989, Mr. Sceurman began cobbling together his odd newsletter.

''I collected oddball stories about New Jersey -- places I remembered my brother telling me about, like Albino Village,'' he said, referring to a fictional place said to be populated by fair-skinned freaks.

Mr. Sceurman gave away the typewritten pages to his friends.

''If there were five people that wanted them,'' Mr. Moran said, ''he'd go down to the copy shop and run off five copies.''

After an article on Mr. Sceurman's peculiar periodical appeared in The Record, demand suddenly increased.

''I had to put something together real quickly,'' Mr. Sceurman stated. ''I put together all these newsletters and called it an issue.''

Mr. Moran -- or Mark II -- entered the picture in 1993, when the freelance graphic artist started contributing letters, drawings, and photographs to the magazine.

Then in 1996, Rutgers University Press approached Mr. Sceurman about creating a Weird NJ book. But the manuscript he submitted, assembled with Mr. Moran's help, was met with a curt rejection notice.

''They sent us back a letter saying 'We can't publish this! This will compromise our standing in the academic community,''' Mr. Moran recalled.

The snub only served as inspiration for the two Marks.

''That's what fueled our fire,'' Mr. Sceurman said. ''We thought, 'We can do it ourselves, and prove them wrong.' And we did.''

In 1997, Mr. Sceurman invited Mr. Moran to be co-publisher, and together the pair set out to produce a full-fledged magazine. For starters, they took it to such bookstores as the Montclair Book Center and asked if it could be sold on consignment. The circulation began to build steadily: 500 copies of issues 4, 5, and 6 (now collectors' items on eBay), to 1,000 copies of issue 7, which added a new element -- color on the cover.

''That was a big leap," said Mr. Moran. By issue 8, there were 2,000 copies being printed, and the Marks decided to publish twice annually, in May and October, instead of just once.

With each successive issue, circulation began to increase by about 5,000 copies. The quality continued to improve as well -- thorough research, better graphics, more pages, and more contributions of odd tales from readers.

''It was a snowball effect,'' said Mr. Moran. ''As more people saw the magazine, we had more feedback from the general public. The magazine thrives off that. Everybody has at least one good story.''

Booksellers, comic book shops, music stores, and others started asking if they could advertise in Weird NJ, according to the two men.

While by no means a main revenue source, the money generated from a limited number of ads has allowed color to become more prevalent in the magazine (from 2 color pages in the 12th issue to 36 in the 20th), which costs $4 at the newsstand.

From there the franchise grew to include a Web site, weirdnj.com; a video; a CD; special themed issues; T-shirts and hats' live appearances, and more. As evidenced by the popularity of Weird NJ-sponsored functions, a phenomenon of sorts was under way.

Christine Zardecki of Highland Park, who attended one Halloween party put on by Weird NJ, said: ''We thought we had great costumes -- my friend was a dead ringer for Carrie. But we didn't even come close to the people that dressed up as the New Jersey icons, from the Jersey Devil to Clinton Road, that the magazine has uncovered and created.''

It is difficult to classify the people who flock to Weird NJ events and keep the magazine's circulation rising. (The most recent issue sold 55,000 copies; including back issues, 150,000 copies were sold in the past year.)

''We'll be doing a talk somewhere, and there will be 7-year-olds sitting on the floor at our feet, and in the crowd, right behind them, someone 90 years old,'' said Mr. Moran.

''And the goth kids,'' Mr. Sceurman interjected.

With that, Mr. Moran continued: ''They can all relate to it. You wouldn't picture seeing some punk kid sitting next to some old lady in a group, and think that they have something in common, but they do.''

To some extent, the diverse readership mirrors a state that lacks a clear identity. Perhaps the magazine's popularity underscores a desire for New Jersey to define itself by its very eccentricity.

Doug Kirby, co-author with Ken Smith and Mike Wilkins of the book ''The New Roadside America,'' (Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1992) knows how New Jersey's quirkiness quotient measures up to the rest of the nation.

''New Jersey offers a surprising number of offbeat sights for its size relative to other states -- a profusion of odd monuments, museums, and classic roadside attractions,'' Mr. Kirby said. ''As we've traveled the country, we've found every state has its own weird stories and legends, but the mania to chronicle them in New Jersey is particularly intense.''

Yet with its relative success, Weird NJ is still very much a mom-and-pop, or rather, Mark-and-Mark, operation. The men work out of their homes: Mr. Sceurman's in Bloomfield, and Mr. Moran's in West Orange. Mr. Sceurman, who is also a co-owner of the Aquarian music weekly, handles the production tasks on Weird NJ, and Mr. Moran is responsible for the photography. Writing is divided between the two.

The rest is kind of a family affair, with Mr. Sceurman's wife, Shirley, and her sister Susan dealing with the mail. And a part-time associate editor, Chris Gethard, came aboard three years ago.

''We get people all the time sending us résumés for jobs,'' Mr. Sceurman explained. ''I tell them, 'We don't even have an office!'''

Then there are the deliveries. Though Weird NJ offers subscriptions, the vast majority of sales are at newsstands. The magazine is available in hundreds of chain and independent stores statewide as well as nearby towns in New York and Pennsylvania. Because of the personal relationships developed with these retailers, Mr. Sceurman and Mr. Moran deliver the magazine themselves.

''I went to a Tower Records in Cherry Hill and dropped off four boxes of issues,'' Mr. Moran recounted. ''They were, like, 'Aren't you the publisher?' I said, 'Yeah, who do you think is going to deliver this?'''

But with the support of an enthusiastic publishing company, Mr. Sceurman and Mr. Moran will not have to deliver the new book themselves. Many publishers had contacted Weird NJ since the run-in with Rutgers University Press, but the Marks said they held out until the project could be done on their terms.

''It chronicles a lot of stuff that isn't around anymore,'' Mr. Moran said. ''We're documenting a culture that is fast disappearing in New Jersey.''

Now that the ink is dry, Mr. Sceurman and Mr. Moran will hit the road for a 21-stop statewide book tour in October and November, and then it's on to the next issue, more books, perhaps, and any intriguing projects that come their way, including talks with television production companies.

''We dabbled in video, we dabbled in music,'' Mr. Sceurman said. ''I don't know what else there is to fool around with.''

Then he added with a smile, ''Maybe we'll make little car air-fresheners.''

As the interview with Mr. Sceurman and Mr. Moran at the Harris Diner in East Orange wound down, a young married couple, Jann and J.G. Jones, approached the table. They recognized the two men, and wanted to say how much they enjoyed the magazine. The Joneses, who are both in the comic book industry, recently moved to West Orange from out-of-state and discovered Weird NJ when they saw Mr. Sceurman and Mr. Moran on the Travel Channel discussing the mysterious Clinton Road.

''I grew up in Florida, and there's no history there,'' Mrs. Jones said. ''When something gets old they just knock it down and build something else. Here, there's a lot of history behind everything. I find that really fascinating, the urban legends and the local myths. I'll read something in Weird NJ and ask my friends who grew up here to tell me about the Land of Make Believe, or Clinton Road, or Midgetville.''

Before Mr. Sceurman and Mr. Moran left, Mrs. Jones pointed outside the window at the Crazy Walking Man of Harris Diner. ''He will just walk back and forth past the diner a lot,'' she described. ''We always joke that he should be in Weird NJ.''

As Mr. Moran said, everybody has at least one good story.