Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5492546" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 225: January 1996part 7/8Palladium fantasy gets a new edition. Undertaken personally by Kevin Siembida! (wait, doesn't he do nearly everything there anyway. ) More fun and detailed than ever before! Dragonmirth takes the pragmatic approach to the situation. Swordplay is quite dry in it's wit. Brave brave sir robin. Even the gamers guide gets a logo in the new style, with the G once again looking like it ought to be in colour but isn't, and winding up looking murky and amateurish as a result. Come on, that's basic layout. Many things that are fine in colour look like crap when put in greyscale. Preview this stuff before sending it to print. The changing faces of Dragon: Or let's highlight how little the magazine has actually changed in the last 10 years. They've lost their The, and eventually accepted that yes, they are a magazine after all, but they've stuck with their logo design for longer than D&D itself has at this point. Whether that's a good thing or not is very debatable. There is a lot to be said for not fixing something if it isn't broken, but it can also be called complacency. I suspect the main reason they're trying to change things is precisely because they're not working anymore. Still, this is interesting, because it points out a few changes I didn't spot at the time, such as the shift from a ™ to a ®. It's also amusing because once again they say they want the new magazine to have more attitude. You know who had attitude? Poochy. And you remember what happened to him? [brooklyn accent]Boy, they really screwed the pooch on that one.[/brooklyn accent] No, no, stop it, it's too easy, you're writing my commentary for me! Welcome to the failboat. We will be your ride for the rest of the year, presuming we don't capsize first. Um, um, can I get some semblance of sanity in here? So in conclusion, this is quite revealing. If anything, it reveals a little too much, and not in a flattering way, like your mum trying to squeeze into the clothes she wore as a teenager. (ok, ok, no more! ) Your choices in the past got you into this, and now you're making the wrong ones to get you out again. It wasn't just bad luck. I look forward to seeing how quickly they try to change the format again after this. Rainforest rescue? It might not be too early for this eco-crap anymore, but it's still tiresome. The world isn't ending. Stop going on about it. The role of books survives the purge.... For now. Actually, this new logo looks quite nice, even if it does have that badly photocopied air that pervades the rest of the logos. The basic theory is sound. Can they scrape up the cash to get it working properly? The shape-changers wife by Sharon Shinn sees John welcome another first-time novelist onto the scene, producing something that would be excellent no matter the experience level of the writer. The ordinary and the fantastical is blended quite nicely, making both stand out all the better. Two crowns for America by Katherine Kurtz, in deliberate contrast, sees him criticise a long established writer for being dull and formulaic in her writing. Sure it's a different milieu, but the characters are the same, the plot is the same, the magic works the same way. Did you think we wouldn't notice? Ghostlight by Marion Zimmer Bradley, on the other hand, sees her try out her hand at gothic romance and do pretty well. It manages to make the twists sufficiently surprising that John doesn't spot them beforehand, and keep the characters well matched to the challenges. That way, you don't have to rely on a deus ex machina to solve the problems at the end. Sisters in fantasy, edited by by Susan Shwattz & Martin H Greenberg (he must send comp copies of every anthology he does to John) takes a somewhat darker slant on feminist fantasy than the recent Chicks in Chainmail. It's also pretty engaging intellectually, without neglecting the emotional side either. Once again, they've pulled in a good selection of big names to do the job. Which is so much easier when you have the long established contacts. Dragons of summer flame by Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman sees John praise it pretty highly. Well, he was on board right from the start (see his review in issue 103) Their writing is more polished than it used to be, and they've had the courage to completely transform the setting, which is always a major risk when the world is as well established and filled in as this. In fact, they're almost too casual about the number of small and big changes they introduce. But then, creators are frequently a good deal less precious about their work than the fanboys. Just remember, the public are more conservative than they'd like to think they are. They can and will complain, as we're also seeing with regards to Athas.</blockquote>

Verification