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Well, I didn't get no freebie miniatures with my subs copy, so I guess it was new subscribers only.

Mind you, I also didn't get a free Star Wars postcard with the last issue of whatever I was supposed to get it with (Megazine or prog? I forget).

Ah well...


Roy

My tuppence-worth:

Time and money involved in obtaining the covers: 5 minutes to write code to automate grabbing them all from this file server (I just wrote some, and it took 3 minutes to grab the first 100 covers before I stopped it).

Putting together "Gallery" application: Either point gallery creation software at the resultant mass of image files, which will automate the task completely, or take 5 minutes to write all of two HTML pages (one intro, one thumbnail gallery using the thumbnails from this site - if you wanna be flash, you could use the medium-sized thumbnails for a "detailed gallery"). The latter is made easy, as Wake's already done the work of thumbnailing the images.

Cost of CD: Blank 700Mb CDs can be picked up for 20-25p these days, and a 16xwrite CR writer can burn one in 5-7 minutes. Let's say minimum wage and 10 mins per CD - total cost of production is around ?1 for each CD.

So, yeah, ?20 per CD doesn't exactly sound like "for the love of the comic" time...

Roy

Er... Isn't discarray your company, Tarantino?

I seem to remember your email address being @discarray at any rate.

I just checked and the Ikea bookcases we're using are called Billy", apparently, if you need to look 'em up.

The "boxes" I mentioned aren't things with lids, by the way, just cardboard magazine files.

HTH

Roy

Oh - that should be 40 old-size progs and 50 new size per magazine box. The only ones which old have 30 in them are the very early progs, because progs 3-10 and the banned progs (71,72,77,78) are bagged and boarded, which takes up more space.

None of the other comics are bagged (though I might pop 1208 in a bag after I've read it, I doubt I'll bother)

Roy

I use cardboard magazine boxes from Ikea - you get five for a pound and each holds 30-50 progs (30 of the old size, 50 of the new ones).

The same boxes hold all sizes of prog and Megazines and specials, and the complete run pretty much fills 2 Ikea bookcases in the bedroom.

The bookcases were forty quid each, and the complete run of progs fills one bookcase (32 magazine boxes).

On the other bookcase, The Megazines fill one shelf; the specials, Starlord, Crisis, Revolver, Scream, etc, fill another shelf; reprints (Best Of Monthlies, Complete Judge Dredd, Classic 2000AD) fill a third and the annuals (unboxed) pretty much fill the fourth shelf.

The magazine boxes have the comic name and issues scrawled on them with a marker pen, so I can find them.

Oh, and they look pretty good, too.

Roy

PS/ I'm now only two years behind the rest of you in my reading - hard to believe I've read 23 years of 2000AD, Starlord, Megazines, specials, annuals, etc, since November, but there you go.

Of the stuff that's current at the moment (for me), the second series of Mercy Heights just finished (it was crap), Balls Brothers series two was quite fun, Dredd: Doomsday Scenario is what I'm in the middle of right now, and I'm enjoying that a lot. Though it's a pain having to remember to swap back and forth between the weekly and the monthly every few issues.

> Re-Read the Bio Chip episodes and at the end when the wild aliens are allowed to use bio chips the president (who is now spending time in a wild alien body) says to Dredd who wouldn't want to live forever.

> Dredd basically says that he wouldn't.

Ah, but Joe was a lot younger in those days - age brings perspective. Besides, Duty is all, for Dredd - give him a choice between a biochip and the City being destroyed and he'd go for it.

The Big Question, then, becomes: What would force such a choice? Having to rebuild the Judge system from scratch after it's smashed by person or persons unknown?

Which reminds me, mk - you never did phone about those T-shirts

> What about Frank Hart, eh? Drifting around up there all these years? That'd be a comeback and a half, make no mistake about that.....

Yup - bring back the Visible Man. I wanna know what he found out there. After 24 years wandering in space on his own, he's *got* to be a little...er...kooky, to say the least.

OK, I'm 3 years behind reading 2000AD at the moment, so I can't speak for more recent future shocks.

This is the first in a long while, though, that a "twist" ending has actually taken me by surprise.

Another good bit o'work, JimBob - keep it up.

Roy

OK, I know I said I wasn't going to bother. But I did, and here it is. All nicely reformatted and typos fixed (but not dialog - sorry. I'll leave that to JimBob), all six (count 'em - six) parts of JimBob's reworking of "Fiends of the Eastern Front".

My view? I enjoyed it - a rollicking tale of supernatural forces clashing and so forth. The ending was a little rushed, but understandable in a mere 36 pages. Personally, I'd like to see the "extended edition" of say, 64 to 72 pages.

Expand on parts 4 & 5, a little more explanation and family background, perhaps.

The dialog wasn't terrible - sorry if I gave that impression - but one or two lines were...questionable, I think. Nothing a little blue editorial pencil couldn;t sort out quickly, though - and the tale's the thing, after all.

A good effort - far better than some writers I could mention, put it that way (did someone mention Mark Millar and Steve White? Well, *I* certainly didn't...).

Anyways, the link is to the re-formatted six-parter, which should give you a nice clean slate to rework, JimBob... ;-)

Cheers, and thanks for a decent read,
Roy

Link: http://www.kallistiyalla.com/tmp/fiends.htm" target="_blank">Fiends of the Eastern Front

Er...What's the message?

(and, no, I have *no* idea who "JomBob" is - ask JimBob, maybe he knows...)

Roy

I don't have time to add part 5 to that doc (and so I'll bow out now and leave you with what I've done to part 1-4 if you want 'em, JimBob).

I have fixed the links on that doc now (basically, I forgot to put the prefix on when I copied them from the links on this site - d'oh!).

Interesting tale so far, JomBob.

Cheers,
Roy

Link: http://www.kallistiyalla.com/tmp/fiends.htm" target="_blank">Fiends of the Eastern Front

I've been impressed with the story so far & I had a spare 15 minutes, so I figured I'd do a quick reformatting job (and fix up typos) on parts 1-4.

I was tempted to do some minor rewrites of dialogue as I did this, but resisted the temptation (I even left in the line "War changes a man" ;-) ).

Anyways, click the link below to see the result.

Link: http://www.kallistiyalla.com/tmp/fiends.htm" target="_blank">Fiends of the Eastern Front