65 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
65 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
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As I mentioned in the welcome, I decided to turn THE MOUTH OF XIBALBA into
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a "digital" zine rather than continue as a paper one. One of the chief
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reasons for this was my frustration at getting the paper zine out the door to
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any interested parties, hell, just FINDING any interested parties was proving
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to be damned near impossible. I suppose that I just don't have the patience
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to set a thing into motion and let it gather its own momentum, I want instant
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gratification, it's the American way! Now I no longer need to send out free
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copies to various zine authors, hoping for a plug in their respective mags,
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when I am happy with a work-in-progress, I can simply upload portions of the
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zine into the digital ether via modem.
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My disatisfaction with Xerox results is another reason for switching
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formats (is that the correct term?), the inability to get a truly decent
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photocopy job done, I don't have the funds or the distribution to warrant an
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offset printing job. Of course, I have to impose a limit of 640 x 480
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resolution because I don't want to automatically exclude someone who doesn't
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have SVGA resolution, this makes for images that don't carry the same amount
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of detail as a clean photocopy, particularly with tiny type. This is a small
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sacrifice that has to weighed against the ability to reuse collage portions
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and art repeatedly without loss of detail (and no messy glue!).
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I received a grey-scale hand scanner for my birthday and that's what I've
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been using to get graphics into the computer for manipulation. The hand
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scanner works well but it's hard to get perfectly straight lines into the
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computer due to my human limitations, perhaps I need one of those scanner
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trays.. yeah, probably, but I don't have the money for that right now. At any
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rate, I am using the scanner at lowest resolution and saving images in 16
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color format so that I can keep the byte size of these images as low as
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possible, if I am going to distribute any of this stuff via disk, I need to
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pack as much as possible onto a single disk.
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Another restriction that I am burdened with as a result of using this new
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format is that I no longer have the ability to mix text and background
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graphics with the same sort of reckless abandon as I had with issue 1 and 2.
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Scanned text just doesn't look sharp enough to me, it can't be avoided when
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you need to scan in a cartoon or weird article but disk space requirements
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also preclude the scanning of a page of text when a simple ASCII file will
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do. So it's not as colorful or visually stimulating to have the ASCII
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seperated from cryptic graphic backgrounds, oh well, another one of the
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trade offs that I have been forced to make due to format limitations.
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Something that I was interested in doing was creating an engine that would
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provide a graphic menu system that would allow the use of a mouse to choose
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articles or images but my proficiency at C is not extensive enough to get
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such a project off the ground, for now, a simple batch menu will have to
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suffice. However, if anyone out there is interested in helping me design
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such a menu in C or C+, please contact me at the usual address:
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Neil Sorenson, THE MOUTH OF XIBALBA, 59a Onway Lake Rd, Raymond, NH 03077
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Lastly, on a more subjective/less technical note, I have decided to lean
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towards another form of zine, rather than pack it full of my own ravings and
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weird art, I have decided to use this format to desseminate the work of other
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zine writers and artists. Perhaps some will see this as a cop-out, thinking
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that I am using the work of others as a vehicle for my own meager talents
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and in most ways, I suppose that this is a correct assumption. You may call
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THE MOUTH OF XIBALBA the K-TEL of the zine world, I plan to pick delicious
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nuggets from various zines (and etc.) that make it to my door and reproduce
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them here (with full credit of course). If you have an article or piece of
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art that you would like to submit for consideration, by all means, please
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feel free to send me mail at the above address or if your submission is
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digital in nature, you can send me E-mail with file attachments to me at
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COMPUTER CASTLE in Newton, NH at (603)642-5914 or (603)895-2393.
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Feel free to write to either sources with your bitches, complaints,
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praises, questions, offers of free energy, secrets of the unknown, and
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recipes. S'long.
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- Neil
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