From: Rayek@lorbit.UUCP (Rayek of the Sun Folk)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.furry
Subject: ALBEDO #4, REFRACTIONS #1, etc.
Distribution: alt
Date: 12 Apr 92 09:15:13 PDT
Organization: LOW ORBIT Science and Fiction

     Been several days since I've been on (60 hours at work
last week. Yuck. _Plus_ taxes. Don't ask, it's not pretty).
 
     I've got my copy of ALBEDO #4, but that's because I got
it from Steve. :-) Copies should have started arriving in
some stores last Friday (the 10th, in case this takes forever
to get out) and should be most places on their regular pickup
day next week. If not - oops.
     I personally thing the low recent press runs of ALBEDO
have more to do with Brenner's inability to print halftones.
Every time I see a Brenner-printed magazine, I'm glad that
I hunted around to find someplace else to do LOW ORBIT and
REFRACTIONS. #4 looks better than any other one they've
printed, but that's because Steve has gone to zipotone instead
of halftones.
     (Interesting side note: the first two pages are done with
55-line screens (which are later reduced), the rest are done
with 44-line (also later reduced) because he got scared that
they wouldn't even be able to handle 55-line. They apparently
can, and I encouraged him to go with 55-line throughout in the
future. He's not sure he will, because he's still nervous that
they'll blow it.)
     The blue stripe along the bottom of the cover isn't
supposed to be there, no; Brenner can't figure out what "crop
and enlarge" means.
     Sorry if I'm rambling a bit, but I really dislike seeing
good material hurt by bad printing. And the fact that it's
making the circulation drop _really_ annoys me no end.
     There's another accident on the cover, also a Brennerism,
but it looks kind of neat and like it might have been intentional,
so I won't harp on it.
 
     None of this should really reflect on Antarctic itself, by
the way; they (I SURMISE) apparently have some kind of really
low-price deal going with Brenner, so they can actually afford
to continue printing small-circulation titles. Plus, as someone
mentioned, they tend to deliver on time and don't, as far as I
know, do nasty things to the creative people with which they're
working.
 
     Capital City and Diamond Distribution have the specs on
REFRACTIONS #1 and it'll be in their shipping-in-July catalogue.
Look for Update 0.3 as soon as I get through this massive backlog
of paper mail I've got. Well... maybe sooner, I've got a _big_
backlog of mail.
     Major features of the update will be how to subscribe (finally!),
info saying basically that we still need standalone artwork - the
single item I thought we'd get the most of, it turns out we got the
least of :-( - and the happy news that Capital phoned and said that
they want to hotspot REFRACTIONS #1, so could we forward them a copy
of the cover immediately?
     We didn't have one yet. :-) We have one now, and they got it
by deadline. (This was another interesting feature of last week.
Which is another reason why nobody got any mail from me the entire
time - well, almost nobody. :-) )
 
     On the whole furrydom and sexuality discussion, I've only got
one minor comment: the problem with going around making a big point
of saying "This isn't me, this isn't what I do/like, don't associate
me with it!!!!!!" is that, while the statement in and itself is just
fine, when you say it loudly and repeatedly, two things happen:
1) Those not involved think, "Hm, must be something really really
sick and perverted/wrong with it to make people go around yelling
about it this much, and 2) Those involved realize that #1 is happening,
and get upset with you that you are, de facto, going around _saying_
that what they're doing/interested in/whatever is really really sick,
perverted, wrong, etc.
 
     On Mu Press; don't be too hard on 'em, they're bigger than
LOW ORBIT is, but that isn't saying much. :-) Their staff of
thousands (well... how does one say, "staff of ones?" :-) ) was
at Norwescon; they're alive and well. Overworked and understaffed
and underfunded, but then, aren't we all?
 
     I've got a lot of letters to answer, more as developments
take place...
                                            - R'ykandar.
 
--
R'ykandar Korra'ti - Publisher, LOW ORBIT and REFRACTIONS
Rayek (System Manager, lorbit) - polari!lorbit!rayek@uunet.uu.net
"Lightfinger" Rayek's Friendly Casino: 206/528-0948, Seattle, Washington.
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