Phantasmagoria Zine
Nov. 4th, 2022 07:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingPhantasmagoria 👁 Indie RPG Fanbook
https://rpgmzine.itch.io/phantasmagoria
Phantasmagoria is a celebratory digital anthology dedicated to RPGMaker games, horror pixel RPGs, and more of similar genres.
This is a cool little art zine, and it's free!
Unfortunately, because I'm not familiar with most of the games, the zine feels like a folder of random illustrations that someone saved as a PDF.
I'm not complaining about this zine, of course - the art is great, and again, it's free! - but I think it brings up a major issue with fanzines in general: A lot of them should ideally be organized by people who can write, as being able to write helps with communication, social media promotion, page layout, text formatting, and perhaps "replay value" style content like captions or end material - which, in this case, might be a list of the games that the artists are creating illustrations for. Paradoxically, however, (most) fandom writers aren't popular or promoted on social media, so it's difficult for a writer to organize a fandom zine.
Some of the most successful zine projects I've participated in have been organized by writers, by which I mean they've been the most well-managed and on-schedule projects with the friendliest communities and the most polished final products, but these zines have also been among the most poorly received. Not because of lackluster marketing or fandom drama or anything like that, but simply because of their lack of reach.
Ah well. What can you do. This is just the price we pay for Twitter, I guess. Also, having dipped my toes into the murky pool of indie lit mags, I can attest that publishing projects run by writers with no art direction are also Not Great.
In any case, I love that Itchio has become a viable platform for hosting zines. Here's another good one in the same genre from this past summer, if you're interested:
Sanguis: A Horror RPG Zine
https://thesanguiszine.itch.io/sanguis
https://rpgmzine.itch.io/phantasmagoria
Phantasmagoria is a celebratory digital anthology dedicated to RPGMaker games, horror pixel RPGs, and more of similar genres.
This is a cool little art zine, and it's free!
Unfortunately, because I'm not familiar with most of the games, the zine feels like a folder of random illustrations that someone saved as a PDF.
I'm not complaining about this zine, of course - the art is great, and again, it's free! - but I think it brings up a major issue with fanzines in general: A lot of them should ideally be organized by people who can write, as being able to write helps with communication, social media promotion, page layout, text formatting, and perhaps "replay value" style content like captions or end material - which, in this case, might be a list of the games that the artists are creating illustrations for. Paradoxically, however, (most) fandom writers aren't popular or promoted on social media, so it's difficult for a writer to organize a fandom zine.
Some of the most successful zine projects I've participated in have been organized by writers, by which I mean they've been the most well-managed and on-schedule projects with the friendliest communities and the most polished final products, but these zines have also been among the most poorly received. Not because of lackluster marketing or fandom drama or anything like that, but simply because of their lack of reach.
Ah well. What can you do. This is just the price we pay for Twitter, I guess. Also, having dipped my toes into the murky pool of indie lit mags, I can attest that publishing projects run by writers with no art direction are also Not Great.
In any case, I love that Itchio has become a viable platform for hosting zines. Here's another good one in the same genre from this past summer, if you're interested:
Sanguis: A Horror RPG Zine
https://thesanguiszine.itch.io/sanguis
