EDITORIAL
At last!
First of all, many apologies to all of you who provided material many, many months ago, as well as to all the potential readers who have been waiting for me to deliver. And waiting. . . .
But there's some good news: The stories are just what I wanted! (Not just the ones I wrote myself, that is.) The cover is just what I wanted! Ross Chamberlain really got the feeling of the old pulp covers. Then Clif Jackson did such a great job illustrating the lead story, as well as his rendition of Lt Luna.
BUT –
I'm still not happy. I haven't achieved the look of a pulp magazine, at least not to my satisfaction. For one thing, I should have had the titles of each story done by hand. . .in fact, if someone out there wants to do a header, draw it up and send it in! That's one thing about doing this; it's flexible! Or, as they say, "Project In Progress."
Oh – while I was issuing compliments up above, I needed to issue MANY thanks to Lloyd McDaniel. He was the one who located the area for the site, as well as found the necessary programs to bring Planetary Stories to reality. In fact, Lloyd deserves full credit for this even being here! Back in 2003 I had mentioned to him how I really needed an online magazine.
(Well, Joseph Green has a lot of credit coming to him, too. The reason I needed an online magazine in the first place was because he has been telling me, for years, that my stories read like the old pulp magazine stories.)
I told Lloyd I needed an online zine to revive pulp magazines, so I could have a place to publish my stories.
"Well, then do it," Lloyd said.
I know, I know; that was back in 2003. It isn't really THAT hard to put an ezine together! . . .Unless, of course, you are Shelby Vick.
HELP!!! I would like to use two columns to intensify the 'pulp' look, but I'm told the programs we're using -- WS-FTP and Front Page Express -- are unreliable; some monitors will pick it up fine, some won't. Anybody know of anything new?
Right now, I'm going to efanzines.com; there will be further format changes -- maybe including columns. We'll see.
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ABOUT ME: and why not? It's my magazine! . . .Actually, this is just for those who say, "Shelby Vick? Who's that? Why should I care!"
I'm 76 years old, and have been reading sf & fantasy for 70 years -- that is, if you count Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant and the Burroughs Mars and Venus books -- the later courtesy of my grandfather. He was also responsible for me finding sf magazines. No, he didn't read them -- but he read Western Stories pubbed by Street and Smith. One day I was at the newsstand looking for Western Stories -- and there was Astounding Stories (currently known as Analog). Back then, Street and Smith pubbed Astounding, too, and it was the same size as Western Stories. And there was a very sympathetic clerk at the newsstand; she understood about the limited funds kids had, and told me month-old issues could be bought at half-price, if I didn't mind the cover being missing. Following, of course, I ran across Startling and Planet Stories and Thrilling Wonder and Amazing and. . .but, you get the idea.
I've been writing for about the same length of time. Sold four books and five short stories, but none of them sf. But, in 2004, a sf story Joe Green and I put together sold to an ezine, so I've finally made the field!