111144
RETRO
JJAANNUUAARRYY 2202211 |COMPUTERSHOPPER|IISSSUUEE 39955
“Ittakesupalotoftimeandeffortandit
needsalotofdedication,”Mainolfisays.“Ilive
andbreatheFREEZE64andI’malwaystrying
mybesttointroducenewreadersand
subscribers,aswellasthinkingupnewideas
forfeatures.It’stiringbutalotoffun.”
Thefanzineconcentratesprimarilyon
gamesandcheats,butcarriesinterviewsand
widerfeatures.“I’llletyouintoalittlesecret,”
heconfides.“IwritewhatIwanttoreadandI
don’t writewhat Ithink the readers want to
read. If Idon’t enjoyit, then Iknow my readers
won’t enjoyiteither.”
It seems to work. The
fanzine is up to issue 40,
featuring Barbarian II on the
cover and afull interview
with its programmer Rob
Stevens. “A mixture of old
andnew,and the weird and
wonderful seems to work,”
Mainolfi says. “I also don’t
take anything forgranted, and
Iwon’t print something forthe
reminiscentofthe1980s.Likemanyother
fanzineeditors,Kretzinger’saimisnotto
re-treadground,buttopresentacuratedread
fullofinterestingdiscussionsandfacts.
“Awebsitewouldbeflashier,”hesays.
“Youcouldintegratevideosorpodcastsand
there’sawholelotofthingsyoucoulddo
therethatyoucan’tinaPDFmagazine.But
thisisnotaboutreachingthemaximumof
whatcouldbedonetechnically.That’snot
what the 8-bit world is about.”
Indeed, according to the editor of
HyperPlayRPG(www.hyperplayrpg.com), who
goes by thenickname Kincl, his printed fanzine
dedicated to role-playing games and Nintendo
provides comfort foranyone who loves retro.
“There’s acertain age range (let’s say30-
to 45-year-olds) who particularly hanker for
print periodicals about their favourite
videogames of yesteryear,” he says. “Various
reasons recur: nostalgia, rediscovering your
youth, enjoying games afresh with your kids,
even therapeutic purposes like recovering
from illness, mental or physical.
“There’s something special about having a
handcrafted games mag in your mitts: the art,
the layout, the humour,the aroma of inkand
paper –whether you’reflicking through or
111111444
sakeofit:ifthere’sacheattoshare,there
needstobeanunderlyingreasontoshareit.
Thesamegoeswiththegamereviews.”
GOINGDIGITAL
Butwhyprint?Whynotstickthiscontent
onawebsite?Well,somefanzinestakeon
theformofaprintedmagazinewithout
actuallyprinting.KilobyteMagazine(issuu.
com/kilobytemagazine),forinstance,is
PDF-only and the brainchild of Boris
Kretzinger,aco-founder of the printed
German retro mag,Return.
“The thing Ilearned from
Returnis what an obligation and
stress it is to publish aprinted
magazine,” he says. “There are
deadlines to be met, printers to
behandled, writers to manage
and alot of moneyinvolved.
Each issue you ask whether it
will sell enough to at least
break even, so Ithought it
would be nice if my hobby
could be more relaxed.”
The magazine focuseson
8-bit computers and it’s laid
out in aneon-esque fashion,
R
s
m
d
b
➡Now up to issue nine,Eight Bit
is apopular fanzine and you can
download the digital versions of its
annuals forfree
⬆AmigaFutureis printed in both German and English, and there are sample
issues available for anominal fee
⬆ColourPersonalComputingdoesn’t keep toaregular schedule but it’s asuper
read for fans ofthe Amstrad CPC
