Thursday, May 21, 2009

Fanzines



I really like Fanzines, and I believe that they are critical to the success in any hobby. Since Dragon was pulled back by Wizards of the Coast, they have been popping up everywhere. I think Wolfgang was the first to launch KQ, which is a really slick magazine, and I believe it is the spiritual successor to The Dragon. I also buy PDF’s of Knockspell and Fight On! The other day, I downloaded Knockspell volume 2 and I am in the process of reading through it. Knockspell is quickly becoming one of my favorites of the Fanzines. There is something about its old school feel that I really like. In the intro editorial, Matt makes a comment that he will be supporting both S&W and OSRIC in Knockspell going forward, which really made my day.

As I look over the landscape of the publishing industry, it is increasing easy for Fanzines to be created, and with print on demand capability available, costs can be kept down and access is available across the globe. I suspect that the print on demand industry is a growing one, and that we will see more changes to the way that content is brought to the end user. The PDF industry has taken off, and as I remarked in my blog a couple of weeks ago, products like Kindle make electronic books a lot friendlier to use. Reading books on a computer screen is a bit clunky, but reading them off a light weight device that is optimized for reading books is altogether different. I still believe that a color Kindle is on the horizon, whether it is produced by Amazon or another company makes no difference, as I think it is only a question of time.

It is interesting how technology has changed the way we view things. Digital content is becoming increasingly important. The printer is really taking a backseat to digital storage. Why print out pictures when one can simply store them on a website or a sharedrive/sharepoint. While I love my notebook computer, it’s the harddrive that I really care about. I almost always have my external harddrive with me for back up and to store pictures and my multitude of game stuff, which now takes up 4 gigs of space, and is growing almost daily.

It is interesting to ponder what would D&D have looked like if Gary and Dave had created it today instead of 35+ years ago.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to agree that Knockspell is pretty spiffy, this issue is really spectacular. Not because I have my humble little article in it, but the sheer volume of quality articles by everyone else. When I submitted my first draft and Matt sent it back with suggested revisions I really became concerned, but that should tell you the level of quality he expects from contributors and I do appreciate that.

Mr Baron said...

Agreed.

I liked the first Knockspell, but in the second issue, Matt really set a new bar on the quality of the product.