From: mauser@INTERCON.COM (Richard Chandler)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.furry
Subject: Re: Tell me more
Date: 6 Apr 92 16:40:32 GMT
Article-I.D.: intercon.9204061640.AA01801

> Hey, I saw your name on alt.fan.furry for the fanzine (is that right?).
> I just skimmed the article, but would like to know more.  Enlighten me...

  Aha, Another one.  That's two inquiries in one day from the DA list!
A bit of history:  You may, or may not have heard about one of the most 
influential APAs in furry fandom, a thing called Rowrbrazzle.  A lot of the 
more famous anthropomorphic artists got their start there.  Stan Sakai, Reed 
Waller (who actually started in Rowrbrazzle's predecessor, Vootie), Steve 
Gallacci, and a host of others.  The problem with 'brazzle is that it has a 
limited membership of 60, who are only allowed to miss one issue at a time, 
and must do their own reproduction.  In other words, every 3 months they have 
to send in 60 or so copies of whatever they want to put in, and pay for the 
postage to receive this huge stack of stuff (I've seen a few, it tends to be 
an inch and a half thick.)  Lately a number of the members and quite a few 
people who have been on the waiting list for a few years have been getting a 
little disgruntled...
[Shift back in time 3 years]
  I can't draw, but I've heard about all the wonderful stuff that has 
appeared in Rowrbrazzle.  Well, If I can't play in their sandbox, I'll make 
my own.  I decided that first of all, I'd make it open to anyone to 
subscribe, then, since I was new, I decided to work in some sort of 
royalty/incentive system, and I also decided to do away with any sort of 
theme.  (Of course, furry artists happen to be better networked, so it was 
much easier to find artists who do anthropomorphics.  But I've got a Dragon 
lady and a young man with a very interesting world view who add a lot of 
spice.)
  I sent out about 40 letters, and netted 8 artists for the first issue.  
Donna Barr responded within a week.  In November of 1989, the first trial 
issue, Gallery #0 (The Cheezy Issue #0) debuted.  I printed 20 copies.
They disappeared quickly, so I made another batch.
  As time passed, I learned a lot.  Trying to put Gallery in the comic shop 
taught me that I needed wholesale pricing.  I also realized that my initial 
incentive strategy of taking $1 from each subscriber and dividing it among 
the artists was giving me an amazing headache with fractional cents (Some of 
which are still propogating through the spreadsheets). I also experimented 
with different binding systems: GBC (those 19 hole plastic spiral things, 
very labor intensive), Personal Velobinding (the worst) and now, a simple 
system of heavy duty staples and photo-tape.  More recently I've lost access 
to free Xeroxing, which boosted the production cost from about 18 cents an 
issue to about $3.  But this actually is a good thing, because I'm now 
completely independant from other people.
  Independance is good, because for almost a year I've been trying to get my 
friend to xerox the old masters to make reprints of the earlier issues, but 
it never hapened.  Only recently was I able to get the masters back.  Finally 
I'll be able to do them.

  See Matt High's "Furry General Store #16" for details of who is in what 
issue and how to subscribe and all that stuff.  I can send copies of this to 
anyone who askes, and also copies of the recently revised rules sheet for 
anyone who thinks they'd like to join up as an artist.

Hmmm, I think I'll head off a mass of inquiries and mail and post this all 
over the place.  Amazingly self-serving of me, eh?