Robot Claw

The other week a door to the past opened, and behind it was my old fanzine, Shining Forth. I gave copies of most of the issues to my good friend SFL, and for the first time in over a decade I (fondly) reminisced about the time I spent making it. Here is a retrospective of sorts, partially based on a version I wrote about ten years ago for my old ‘Zatan’ website.

Please enjoy, dear reader, the history of…

The story of Shining Forth, the fanzine, probably starts as far back as 1989. Sometime during that year (my last year of high school) AW and I discussed fanzines, and the possibility of starting one. Nothing came of this (as I recall it would have been a fantasy/RPG literature fanzine) but the idea stayed in my mind and did not let go.

Life moved on and several years and half a globe later I was reading a game review in Gamepro magazine that I patently disagreed with. I forget the game, or any details of the review – I just know the magazine slammed a great game with no factual reasons for doing so.  It was probably at that moment (which was sometime in late 1993) that the idea for Shining Forth (although not the title) was born. I knew I could write better reviews. I also knew that RPGs (more than other games) were not easy to judge based only several hours of play. It was even before I started my first issue that I decided I wouldn’t review a game unless I had beaten it first.

Unbeknownst to me, although I must have suspected it, there was a healthy video game fanzine community already in existence. I had never seen or read any of these ‘zines before starting mine, so every step I took, whether right or wrong, was done blind.

I remember posting articles to Usenet newsgroups and an AOL message board asking for contributions. The resulting silence was almost deafening, but I continued nonetheless. Since RPGs are my favorite genre, and at the time they were neither ‘big’ in America or getting the media coverage I believed they deserved, I chose to base the fanzine around them. The first title I decided to use was ‘RPGamer’ – and I even drafted some letters to send to game companies using that title – but I dismissed it as too stupid (sorry rpgamer.com). I’m not sure exactly when I decided on Shining Forth, but it was obviously due to my love of the game Shining Force (which was very new at the time).

I started writing the content in December 1993. My equipment was embarrassing by today’s standards: a Mac IIsi, B&W stylewriter and using Microsoft Word 5.0 to do the word processing. I had no scanner or graphics software of any kind, and was more or less resolved to having a picture-free zine.

Remember, I had no knowledge of the fanzine community. While some gaming fanzines of that time were an enjoyable read, attractive layouts and high quality writing was rare to say the least. Since I was oblivious to this, and have always been a perfectionist, I set my sights on the layout of a professional magazine. I worked hard to make my fanzine as impressive as possible.

I drafted letters to nine game companies to see if I could get any sort of support. Four of them replied. Sega and Enix sent form letters, but Nintendo and Working Designs sent personal, encouraging replies. Even though I was not to hear from Nintendo ever again (despite sending them a copy of every issue) this was to be the beginning of my friendship with Victor Ireland at Working Designs.

Sometime in the early 1994 I also received a single page of art from David Buttenshaw. This would have been in response to a post of mine on a forum, probably on AOL. It was above average anthropomorphic fantasy art, and with his permission I decided to use most of it to illustrate the first issue.

I was diving in the deep end. I had no knowledge of how my fanzine would be received, of whether anyone would be interested at all. I just wanted to get my opinions – my game reviews – out there.

Issue #0 of Shining Forth: a fanzine for Nintendo and Sega RPG Players was published in July 1994.

The fanzine was 20 pages in length, but my use of a miniscule font enabled me to include 41 reviews! Many of these were one or two paragraphs long, but the issue contained one ‘full-length’ review: Vay by Working Designs. I scored the game 17/20 and complained about the low quality CD art. The rest of the issue contained the first half of a self-penned Wizardry 5 walkthrough (this was well before gamefaqs.com), various introductory blurbs and requests for letters, articles and art.

I photocopied the pages and covers myself at a local store, and then stapled the issues together by hand. All told, the 50 copies I made cost me about $60. These copies were distributed for free to friends, online acquaintances and  game companies.

It’s interesting to note that I referred to the fanzine being the work of a team (contributors included KLS, BS and AW). This was not true; the editorial was 100% my work. I did this to make it seem more professional, since I still had no idea how amateur virtually all fanzines actually were. I soon found out though, and by the second issue was no longer embarassed to admit if was all my own work.

Favorable reviews in Electronic Gaming Monthly (by Arnie Katz) and the UK magazine Super Play (by Zy Nicholson) resulted in a flood of responses, almost all of which sent the $1 I planned to charge per issue. I ran out of copies quickly, and rather than reprint #0 I decided to work on #1 immediately.

While written contributions from readers were scarce, I received quite a bit of art. Two artists in particular stood out: Lauren Nicolo and John Watkins-Chow. Lauren drew mostly original female characters in a crisp, finely inked style. I found it charming and with her permission started using her art from issue #1 onwards. John’s art on the other hand was rough, almost ‘dirty’. John was a comic artist who also happened to love playing RPGs, and his illustrations of well-known RPG characters were both powerful and original (and in many cases, sexy). I was astonished and fascinated and even a little dumbstruck (at my luck to ‘find’ him) and from the second issue onwards John’s art graced the covers and insides of every Shining Forth fanzine. I have no doubt that his contributions helped make the fanzine as popular as it was.

Shining Forth #1 was published in October 1994. The 20 page fanzine featured cover (Mina from the Sega Genesis game Warsong) and interior art by John Watkins-Chow. My self-drawn (based on Shining Force) logo debuted with this issue.

The fanzine contained 12 reviews (including Final Fantasy 3, Illusion of Gaia and Spike McFang); an article entitled ‘What Makes a Good RPG’ adapted from a submission by AW and his friend Phil; hints for Final Fantasy 3 and Breath Of Fire; and the usual commentary by the author. Additional interior art was by Lauren Nicolo and Dave Buttenshaw.

This issue includes a complaint directed at Konami from removing the Guyver from a bar scene in Snatcher. This would begin my real-world Guyver obsession making it’s way into the fanzine.

Enthused by the response from the reviews I had received for #0, I spent around $160 to have 100 copies professionally printed and bound. Virtually all 100 copies were immediately distributed, about 80% of which went to paying readers. My enthusiasm was slightly tempered by the fact that I lost a fair amount of money. I was only asking $1 an issue, and yet it cost me about $2.25 an issue (excluding the cost of my time) to print, bind and mail the fanzine. It was clear if I wanted to maintain the quality I would have to raise the price.

Shining Forth #2 was published in March 1995. The 28 page fanzine featured wraparound cover art by John Watkins-Chow (Zylo and his comrades from Shining Force). Contributors included Lauren Nicolo, Sean Robinson, Eric Alegado and Albert Ostering.

The issue contained 15 reviews (including Phantasy Star IV, Popfulmail, Beyond Oasis); a comic by John Watkins-Chow; an interview with Working Designs CEO Victor Ireland (in which he mentions an original WD RPG due in 1996!); hints for Shining Force 2 and Phantasy Star IV and the usual regular articles (Page Three, Coming Soon, etc.) by the author.

Since many of those who sent money for #1 had been impressed and sent for #2, I again had 100 copies professionally printed and bound. My total cost had risen slightly to about $175. I had not raised the price at all, so I was still running at a loss. One of the reasons for this was the lead time on magazines meant reviews would occasionally still appear listing the ‘zine at $1. However also around this time I started receiving more than asking price from some regular readers, which would give me an idea…

I think issue #2 was the one in which my ideas for the fanzine finally gelled. It was quite a success (for a fanzine) and I easily sold the 100 copies printed. Around this time I was also starting to get noticed in the fanzine community (the EGM article had helped a lot) and I found myself getting an ever increasing amount of fanzines delivered to my PO Box.

I can remember being very surprised by how unimpressive many of them were. I don’t mean editorially (although some were), but in terms of production quality (some of them were just a few stapled-together A4 sheets). As I started to correspond with the various ‘faneds’ I found that Shining Forth was quite unique in not only it’s content (there were still no other RPG fanzines) but also in it’s layout and production quality. Even though I was losing a couple of hundred dollars an issue this fact was probably what galvanized my decision to try and continue making the fanzine for as long as I could without raising the price. I wanted to remain affordable by anyone (my readership ranged from pre-teens to retirees) without sacrificing production quality. I wanted Shining Forth to be something you would keep; rather than discard once you’d finished reading.

In retrospect it seems a bit silly – who was I to suppose what I was doing was worth anything in the scheme of things? But to this day I believe that the content of my fanzines was not only superior as far as gaming ‘zines were concerned, but also easily stood against the best of the ‘prozines’ (i.e.. gaming magazines).

Shining Forth #3 was published in August 1995. The 28 page fanzine had a wraparound cover by John Watkins-Chow, featuring the ‘RPG girls’ who debuted in the comic in issue #2. These girls would grace the covers of all subsequent issues. Contributors included Lauren Nicolo and Sean Robinson. 100 copies were printed at a cost of about $200. Virtually all sold out immediately.

The issue contained 12 reviews (including Lunar: Eternal Blue, Shining Force CD, Ogre Battle); a review of ‘Shining Force: Descent Of Great Intention’ manga series (Chinese edition); a letters page; fanzine review page (Russ Perry’s Slap-Dash gets ‘best-of’ award) and the usual regular articles (Page Three, End Game, etc.) by the author.

Late in 1995, after extensive begging by the publisher, I wrote a lengthy article for the one-off fanzine Consortium. This fanzine was a sort of ‘best-of’ containing articles by many gaming faneds. My article was a whimsical wish for an RPG in which we could play the bad guy for once, and I remember I was forced to cut my original version it in size considerably to fit within the two A4 page limit given to each writer. Consortium was reviewed in at least one commercial publication, and I gained a few more readers because of this.

Also during 1995 Shining Forth gained some ‘legitimacy’ due to game companies sending me pre-release games for review. These were Mystaria, sent by Sega, and Might and Magic 3, sent by FCI. The latter was a bare ROM board which I had to stick into my Super Nintendo. I can recall taking the spring loaded door off the SNES so it wouldn’t damage the ROM. My memory of the game – which I had extensively played on the PC years before – was of one long string of bugs. It was clearly unfinished software. FCI would send me several more games (not all RPG’s!) before going out of business, some of which may never have actually been released (such as a SNES version of Ultima 8). If only I had kept those ROMs…

Shining Forth #4 was published in December 1995. The wraparound Christmas themed cover was by John Watkins-Chow. Contributors included Andrew Cushen and Sean Robinson. As usual 100 issues were printed (for about $200), and almost all were immediately distributed.

The 28-page issue contained 9 reviews (including Mystaria, Chrono Trigger, Secret Of Evermore); a Final Fantasy OAV review (years before an American release) and the usual ramblings by the author. This issue also contained my first coverage of NES games (the original ‘Retro Gamer’!) and a still-fascinating article by Andrew Cushen on what it was like to work at a game company’ (in his case, FCI). I give Chris Kohler’s Video Zone my Fanzine of the Month award.

Sometime in late 1995 Sean Robinson approached me and asked if I wanted him to start an archive of my reviews online. Not really a Shining Forth web page, just a site at which people could read RPG reviews. There were none that I knew off in existence then, and since I didn’t have the inclination to do it myself (although I did have the ability) I agreed. Unfortunately this embryonic web presence for Shining Forth never really amounted to anything, due to an increasing amount of ISP issues. Within six months it had ceased to exist.

Issue #4 received good reviews in EGM2 and a very nice write-up (about half a page) in Videogames magazine. I had also received several more mentions in Super Play (which led to an increased amount of readers from the UK). For the first time I received more than 100 ‘orders’ for the next issue. A catch-22 was arising, since every additionally copy printed represented a loss of greater than a dollar for me. How many more could I print without raising the cost?

I was having no trouble distributing 100 copies (about 90% of which were paid for) but the catch-22 had arisen. I believed I could easily distribute 150 or 200 copies, but since every one would represent a loss to me did I want to? I reluctantly decided I had to raise the price, but was determined to make the resulting fanzine worth it.

To that end, issue #5 would be bigger and better. My computer equipment had improved quite a bit in the two years since I started Shining Forth, and issue #5 was my experiment (of sorts) in making the fanzine digitally. I still did a lot of cutting and pasting (artwork mostly) but putting the thing together for the printers was a bit more sophisticated than before. I also played with the formatting a bit, and made better use of the pages (which I had increased to 32).

But the biggest change was to be with the cover. I decided I would print some color covers. At a daunting $5 apiece I wouldn’t be doing many – but I printed enough to reward those that had bought every issue since #0. When I finally got the cover from John I was amazed: he’d sent two versions, one black-and-white and one coloured using comic markers. It was incredible, and the printers did a fantastic job!

Shining Forth #5 was published in May 1996. The 32 page issue featured a wraparound cover by John Watkins-Chow. A fifth of those printed were full color. Contributors included Chris Berdoz, Lauren Nicolo, Sean Robinson and Nathan Stehle. 150 issues were printed, approximately 30 of which had a full color cover. The total cost to print was about $300.

The issue contained 16 reviews (including Mario RPG, Kings Field, Iron Storm); a second interview with Victor Ireland; 3 pages of games hints and the first coverage of 8-bit RPGs. This issue also contained a ‘comic review’ of Breath Of Fire 2. Fanzine of the Month was Digital Anime by ‘Shidoshi’ (I forget his actual name, but he would end up working on Gamefan magazine and at Sega and we communicated for a few years afterwards).

In response to repeated (and in some cases scary!) requests from my readers for more personal information, this issue also contained a slightly autobiographical piece, and a short story I had originally rewritten for inclusion in the Phantasy Flight fanzine.

Shining Forth #5 was the best issue. It contained the best writing, the most information and the best art. It was also the beginning of the end – of the print ‘zine at least.

I had decided to take Shining Forth online. I was no stranger to the Internet, having been online for almost ten years even back then (but that is another story…). Between issue’s #5 and the upcoming #6 I launched a website I had been working on. At first I had no web space of my own (this was before ISPs gave free personal websites) and hosted the site at a location graciously obtained by Sean Robinson (who had been a great help with the fanzine for the last few issues). It started modestly – little more than a review archive – but grew in popularity quickly. I was quite active on Usenet and various message boards and I knew how to promote it.

I was approached to write reviews for a few other sites as well. I contributed a few to Game Online! (which was owned by Viz, and eventually merged into j-pop.com) and there was talk of printing one in the magazine before it folded. Happy Puppy also approached me to write reviews. That came to nothing, as I wasn’t interested in non-RPGs and they weren’t paying. Even so, Happy Puppy gave me a link for a while, which I’m sure helped me obtain almost 10,000 hits in six months (which was a lot in those early days of websites).

It was obvious to me, or rather I was finally admitting to myself, that a website was the way to go. This was compounded by the fact that I wasn’t getting many letters asking for the next issue. I believe the reason was twofold. Firstly I had raised the price to $2, and secondly I was updating my website regularly then and I believe people were less interested in the print version. Added to this was the fact that John seemed less inclined to provide artwork. I had no problem with this, since my enthusiasm for putting together another print issue was at an all-time low. It had simply been too much work for too long.

I was quite sure, as I sent #6 off to the printers, that it would probably be the last.

Shining Forth #6 the final, the  issue, was published in October 1996. The 24 page issue featured a wraparound cover by John Watkins-Chow. Although he seemed reluctant at first, I believe this final cover was the best he ever drew, and I was very appreciative.

For the first time since #0, the entire contents was 100% my own work. In addition to 10 reviews (including Dragon Force, Beyond The Beyond, Lufia 2) the issue contained glowing coverage of an unknown-in-America game called Pocket Monsters. All the usual sections were included but the editorial, in retrospect, has an air of finality.

I state, on the last page, that I was planning a seventh issue. I’m sure I knew that not to be true.

And as if I needed a reason beyond the web to curtail the print zine I got one when I visited the printer. This was during the paper shortage (remember that?) and the 100 copies I printed cost me almost $250. I was able to distribute about half of them at $2 apiece. Many others were given away, and to this day I still have a handful left.

And so it ended. In under three years I had created a fanzine that for it’s time dominated the video game fanzine community. In fact, some faneds even badmouthed me because of the production quality of Shining Forth, and the fact that I had obtained what they thought was a disproportional amount of mainstream magazine coverage (consider the irony). By the time I finished the print zine many other video game fanzines had come and gone, but I still was not aware of a single other RPG fanzine.

But of course the end was a new beginning as well. My website was popular, and I was receiving dozens of emails almost daily. But little did I know the future was bright: my days of reviewing video games were far from over and my audience would increase a thousandfold…

But that’s another story, and you’ll have to wait to see how it all turned out 🙂

This entry was posted on Monday, June 27th, 2011 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Family, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.