TITLE:THE SPANDIMERDA GUIDE TO DISKMAGS MAKING (Abnormalia 4)
PALETTE:0223 0668 0799 09a7


3                    THE SPANDIMERDA GUIDE TO DISKMAGS MAKING


To make a diskmag nowadays is a really hard and difficult deed.
Many  and  obscure  are the reasons why there is just a diskmag every two groups
and not one for group (or even for division).

The prime one is the incredibly tricky 2code1 required for a diskmag.
It  must  have  a powerful text-show routine, it has to cope with icons and disk
loadings and it may even need to play a music at the same time!
Every  coder  knows  that this is a horrendous, terrible, long and painful work.
Only  few  brave ones in the world have the necessary faculties to code a mag on
disk.  Ever wondered why Phenomena have never made a diskmag?
Because their coders couldn't code one, just for that.

Second  problem  is  to  find  the graphician who can draw some very imaginative
2buttons1.   That  requires  a  very  keen painting tecnique, which, obviously, is
possessed by few elected.
Of  course a diskmag without clip arts is a piece of shit, therefore it's needed
a whole team of graphicians able to paint microscopic pictures, without them all
the work would be senseless.

2Music1  is  another  major problem.  Nowadays a diskmag, in order to be ranked as
acceptable  has to boast at least three modules for issue.  If your mag has just
two or one songs you can forget even to try to publish it.  Nobody will consider
it.

2Spreading 1 is also important, every good main editor knows where to ask in order
to obtain the indispensable network of mail and modem spreading.
Once you've done this you can fix the release date for the week to come.

You have just to find the2 articles1 and to think what is the spirit and the whole
organization of your diskmag.
That's  a  piece  of  cake.   While  to  make musics you need musicians, to make
graphics  you need graphicians and to make a piece of code you need a maniac who
makes sex with Asm-one, to write something you just need a text editor.
Writing  articles  is  the  easiest  work  in  the scene, you can write one even
ignoring the language you're using ("My ingliz iz kewl!  Ya know, I rulz").

All  the  mags  in  the scene MUST (for the law) have news, advertisments, party
reports, interviews and copyright notices for Pd companies.
For this kind of articles you first check other mags and copy the news, then you
ask to your contacts to send you their advertisments and finally you can make an
interview with the most known of them.
To  write party reports you are supposed to attend parties, but that's not a big
problem,  you  could  write  about the journey and finish the article announcing
that  the  "party was cool but it was full of lamers, though it has been cool to
meet  some  friends".   Well, nowadays party reports are far more sophisticated:
you have at least to write the compo's standings.

Once you have done this you find that you have six articles.  You decide then to
divide  the  news in three parts and to make 8 articles of your 17 advertisments
(no matter if there are double, who cares?  More ads, cooler mag).
You also realize that this is not enough even for a mag with more clip arts than
articles but here then comes the real ability of the cool main editor.
First you write an editorial.  This is the most original text of mag, just write
2"We  have  made  this mag for you!  We need your help!  We won't publish just an
2issue!  This mag is different from the others!  ...  PS:  Vote for us!"1.
Insert many esclamation marks, they seem so cool.
Then there are the very important "service articles".
An  article  to  mention  credits,  one  to  list  the contributors, one for the
addresses  of  the  editors, one for the addresses of your group's swappers, one
for the numbers of your boards, one for the instructions, one for telling to the
audience  how to write an article ("Load a text editor and type something"), one
to  greet your friends and one for the news about your group.  All these have to
be added to the note for PD companies, just vital for every decent mag.
Eleven articles just for the introduction.
That's good for your mag, but it's not enough.
You  have  your  scene  section,  but  two  interview,  a party report and three
articles for the news are not enough.
Here  comes  the really talented bunch of editors.  They start to write a miriad
of articles commenting all the scene aspects.
It's  not  important if they are written in an hurry, if they are 748 bytes long
and  if  what they say has been said a pair of billions of times.  They are good
to fill pages and this is what the scene wants.
So you can write about:
- 2Lamers1  ("I'm  elite!   They  are  lamers!   But  I've  nothing against them!
  Everybody has been a lamer!  Even me!");
- 2Diskmags1  ("Too  many  of  them!   Groups  should  unite  them  and  get more
  powerful!");
- 2Modem scene1 ("It's faster! But it hasn't friendship!!");
- 2Swappers 1 ("Useful little kids!  But even if I've 140 contacts I'm not one of
  them!");
- 2The old times1 ("They were better! More friendship! More fun!");
- 2The scene today1 ("Too many shit heads! Too many diskmags!");
- 2The scene tomorrow1 ("It will be better! A1200 rulz!")
- 2Packs1 ("Too many with low selection!");
- 2Intros 1("All the same! We need originality!");
- 2Melon Dezign1 ("They are cool! They have a their onw style!");
- 2Fascism in the scene1 ("It's bad! It's lame! Make love not war!");
- 2Open letters of various nature1 ("I didn't like your article!").
Of course at the end you can write:  "This was my opinion, if you somehow have a
different one, write a reply to this article!".
Patetic move to rescue some more contributors which never succeeds.

When  you  realize  that  even  this is not enough you have to squish your brain
cells  and invent something else.  Some charts incorpored in the mag, reviews of
everything and message boxes can suit the whole thing.
At  the end, if you really aren't satisfied, just write an article like this one
where  you  ironically  fight common and unoriginal articles with another common
and unoriginal article.

Now  the  scene  part is done, but your mag has to offer something else, you can
write about music (songs texts, music news and reviews, techno-rulez apologies),
movies,  life  ("Love  is  the best thing on life!  Have fun!  Enjoy life!  Stop
computing!  But read our mag before!"), sex ("Better to fuck or to be sucked?"),
books  (just sum up them so that nobody wants to read them anymore) and whatever
you can copy from the paper mags you have.
A humour section is a must too.
Just write the four jokes you know and copy the others from some book.
Also  short  stories  can be cool for your mag, just write about a good fuck and
the success is sure, you may even pass for an intellectual.

What else?
Well,  if you have still space to fill you can include some pictures (especially
humouristic  badly  drawn ones), a whole collection of chip tunes, hardware tips
and  reviews, games reviews, the coder's words ("This mags does this and that, I
have fixed the previous bugs"), collections of aphorisms, unreadable articles in
your  mother  language, recipes, satanic pieces (they are always trendy), soccer
results,  various  hard  meditations, political reports, astrologic previews and
weather reports.
What does it remain?
The letters to the editors!
If  you  are at the first issue, you can use an article to announce that you are
waiting for letters, if you have already made a dozen of issues but nobody still
writes  to  you,  you  can always copy your contacts' letters and comments (they
always say that your mag is cool) and be happy with them.

Don't  forget also the 2last words1 ("Hope you liked this issue, next one out in a
pair of years") and give the diskette to the readers.
If they were actually -READERS- they would delete it in 0.3 microseconds.

Bad luck that it seldom happens.