cut, paste and photocopy plus

[dem]

billbunter said:

They were the only ones beyond myself who saw it as I partially recovered my sanity shortly after.

Craig

I don't think i can claim any partial restoration of mine, but during what must have been a particularly radical departure from, if not sanity, then common sense, i once spent three months working on something called Jesus Vampire Army. When i eventually got it to the photocopy shop, i discovered, to my huge delight that i'd left p. 3/4 behind (not that it made much difference, i wouldn't have thought), so i ran off one copy of what i had, stapled it up and .... that was the end of JV A, print-run, 1, readers, 0.

I'd certainly not refer to what i did as anything in the same solar system as 'editing', but during the compilation of the earlier mag, i somehow got it into my head that i'd do a better job of putting it together if i got into "the right frame of mind". So number #3 was thrown together with help from a bottle of scotch and the stooges funhouse played loud, over and over. after a vaguely coherent opening salvo, you could kind of watch it all falling apart page by page just as i did. it earned some really supportive reviews, too!

[Steve]

admin said:

number #3 was thrown together with help from a bottle of scotch and the stooges funhouse played loud, over and over.

Funnily enough, a very similar thing happened to me just this week... last Tuesday was thrown together with help from a bottle of scotch and the Stooges' Funhouse played loud, over and over.

[redbrain]

I have copies of 2 issues of the Lancaster University Sporadic Planet from circa 1968. It was supposed to Cartmel College's magazine. The first issue included a story co-written by DFL and me (but published under only my name). This annoyed students so much that it was pinned to a college noticeboard together with a "we don't want filth like this in our college magazine" petition. The other issue of which I own a copy was a Peter Jeffery special - containing only more innocuous material. There may or may not have been a third issue of the magazine, I'm not sure.

[weirdmonger]

redbrain said:

I have copies of 2 issues of the Lancaster University Sporadic Planet from circa 1968. It was supposed to Cartmel College's magazine. The first issue included a story co-written by DFL and me (but published under only my name). This annoyed students so much that it was pinned to a college noticeboard together with a "we don't want filth like this in our college magazine" petition. The other issue of which I own a copy was a Peter Jeffery special - containing only more innocuous material. There may or may not have been a third issue of the magazine, I'm not sure.

Thanks for that, Red. History has now been cleared of any misunderstandings. So, my first publication was not, after all, Padgett Weggs in 1986. But the collaborative 'Rape of Susan Stenn' in 1968!

[Craig Herbertson]

I hate to say it troo but with an ego the size of mine you throw nothing away. Somewhere amidst the telephone bills and the lawyers letters from the 1970's there will be a copy which people will use to incriminate me later.

[Craig Herbertson]

And to demonstrate the real depths of depravity its possible for a man to reach.

I loved that bit about 'this sort of filth'. That should have been a clue you were on to a winner.

[troo]

Wow, fantastic!

[Craig Herbertson]

But Dem, that's a brilliant title for a mag; Jesus Vampire Army.

[dem]

it's probably for the better that the world was spared it. Looking at the cover, i realise it wasn't that 'new' after all, but at an attempt at reviving the original 'zine during its post-audience years. File under: mindless aggression.

[pulphack]

good heavens, what's that about Long John Baldry's cat i can just about read in the first paragraph? splendid stuff, that proves all the best writing is, indeed, done on a bottle of Bells.

my mate mark does a zine called Most Punks Are Total Arseholes (which is punk, football, anarchism, and a bit about Jack Trevor Story last time out - ahem), which he now does on his PC - but deliberately makes it look cut and paste as he prefers that look. it's 'authenic'. is this fake, post-modernism, or a design choice? i guess it doesn't matter in one sense, but it is true that the cut and paste look gives a zine a certain look that informs you about the mindset of the editor in these days of DTP.

[dem]

pulphack said:

my mate mark does a zine ... on his PC - but deliberately makes it look cut and paste as he prefers that look. it's 'authentic'.

Harumph! Call me 'Mr. Victorian Values' if you will, but I'm not sure that I approve of these scruffy long haired leftie skinheads utilising computer technology to make their publication look even worse than it is. Some of us did it the hard way. Pure graft, a black Tempo felt tip, a clapped-out typewriter with obligatory missing letters 'e' and 'a', the room seeped in glue fumes - ah, those were the days! It was like the Blitz! This 'mark' character is just plain cheating!

pulphack said:

splendid stuff, that proves all the best writing is, indeed, done on a bottle of Bells.

I dunno. You should've seen the one I did on a can of Um Bongo Super-strength.

As to the cat saga, trust me. it's too potentially incendiary and - more to the point - bloody tedious to go into on here, but if you ever come across a copy of Harry Shapiro's splendid biography of the tragic Graham Bond: The Mighty Shadow (Guinness, 1992) check out the occult content ....

[helrunar]

In high school I was on staff with a small lit mag that came out once a year.  I had two poems in one issue.

My true cut and paste days were in Philly, early 1980s, when I was a member of a collective that put out a bi-weekly radical review.  We covered politics, social issues and some cultural topics.  I did it all--writing, editing other contribs, the scissors and paste layouts, helping with the photocopying and distro of the final product.  It was a lot of fun.  I left because I moved to the Far East where I stayed for several years.

It's cool to see that at one time, zines were a topic being explored on this forum.

H.

[dem]

Jun 3, 2016 14:17:07 GMT helrunar said:

It's cool to see that at one time, zines were a topic being explored on this forum.

H.

Their time on here will come again. Have a filing cabinet I can't yet get to ....

[ropardoe]

Mar 1, 2008 8:03:45 GMT dem said:

pulphack said:

Yep, all the early issues of Ghosts & Scholars were typed on a manual typewriter, and all the addresses were hand-written.  It's that last I find hard to believe nowadays, as the print-run got up towards five hundred at one time (with G&S in its current incarnation, I limit the print-run to 200, and I print out the address labels.  Back before G&S, when I was publishing Seagull and other SF zines, they were all typed on Gestetner stencils so the main problems were typewriter keys clogging up with wax and the middles falling out of letters such as  'o's.  Gosh, I've lived!

[dem]

Jun 3, 2016 15:35:41 GMT ropardoe said:

Mar 1, 2008 8:03:45 GMT dem said:

Yep, all the early issues of Ghosts & Scholars were typed on a manual typewriter, and all the addresses were hand-written.  It's that last I find hard to believe nowadays, as the print-run got up towards five hundred at one time (with G&S in its current incarnation, I limit the print-run to 200, and I print out the address labels.  Back before G&S, when I was publishing Seagull and other SF zines, they were all typed on Gestetner stencils so the main problems were typewriter keys clogging up with wax and the middles falling out of letters such as  'o's.  Gosh, I've lived!

I still have a number of Haunted Library newsletters - evidently you hand wrote the names of all the recipients on those, too! I met a guy couple of years ago who told me he paid £100 for a copy of the Ghost & Scholars début issue. Thing is, what impressed me about G & S was how professional it looked in comparison to the day's other supernatural/ horror interest small press publications (will rope the Vampire/ Gothic/ 'Paranormal' titles into this category, if only for convenience sake).

Such a shame that there was no vamp-zine equivalent of Martin Lacey's El Tel Was A Space Alien and/ or Phil Shaw's Whose Game Is It Anyway?. It was mooted a few times but I guess nobody was up for negotiating the copyright nightmare and the moment passed.