About Planet Magazine
Planet Magazine -- a free award-winning electronic quarterly of short science fiction, fantasy, horror, poetry, and humor by new or little-known writers -- began in the summer of 1993 and published its first issue in the first quarter or 1994. The editor and publisher is Andrew G. McCann, who has been a professional journalist and editor, in one form or another, for about 12 years and has edited a few books about the Internet. More important, he has been an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy since kidhood. At the age of 16 he built the infamous Face On Mars.
Like many fans of SF and fantasy, Andy (who is referring to himself here in the third person -- the editorial oui, as the French say) had always wanted to publish his own cigar-chompin', ham-fisted SF magazine, yet was stymied by the time and money constraints (i.e., his laziness and cheapskate-ness) of paper-based publishing, where he had some first-hand experience. However, with the rising growth of online services and the Internet in the early 1990s -- which promised nearly free printing and distribution - Andy saw the light and began working on the first glorious issue of Planet Magazine.
The name Planet Magazine was chosen for a number of reasons: its allusion to "Planet Stories" (the pulp SF magazine published from the late 1930s to the mid-1950s) and the fact that it connotes the global reach of the Internet, "other worlds," and, perhaps, "giant cheeseburgers." From the start, Planet focused on fiction written by beginning or little-known authors, partly because the editor himself was new to the publishing game and partly because he couldn't afford to pay anything other than the currency of good vibes. Planet was never interested in charging readers, running ads, or reviewing commercial SF products like "Babylon 5," "Star Trek," or President Clinton's depositions -- preferring instead to keep the zine simple and fun. Initially, material came from people the the editor knew. Later, as the zine became more widely distributed on AOL, CompuServe, eWorld, various bulletin boards, and via Internet e-mail, readers and artists began submitting directly to Planet.
As editor of Planet Magazine, Andy reviews submissions, make acceptances or rejections, edits and proofreads as needed, and uploads the final pages, which are created by Romeo Esparrago, who not only designed Planet Magazine's newest look but also creates much of the art for Planet. His home page can be found at romedome.com. Planet's associate editor is Ray Dangel, who proofreads and edits most of the material. When we reject pieces, we offer our reasons, but we sometimes have agreed to use someone's work after it's been revised.
About e-zines and reading stories online: Lots of people don't like to read text on a computer screen, and that's an issue we considered carefully way back in 1993 when we were planning the first issue of our Little Zine. In fact, we tried to put Planet out as a paper publication, as well, for a little while, but the time and cost of that effort was at odds with our original intent of taking advantage of the Internet's relative low cost and ease of distribution. Still, it is hard to curl up with your monitor on the sofa (not to mention in the bath), and reading online can rack up connection charges for some people. Thus, we have always suggested to readers that they print out Planet -- especially with the advent of cheap color printers -- if they are uncomfortable reading on-screen material. In fact, our earlier issues come in PDF, DOCMaker (Mac only), and text formats that can easily be printed out and look pretty good, too. The current and recent issues are in HTML, or Web, format only, which doesn't always print out as well as a PDF document, for example, but we think it's good enough (whaddya want for nuthin'?). We had to stop putting out issues in non-Web format because it just took too much time, and became a bit exhausting. We had wanted to move to HTML format in 1994 but felt that the page-creation tools were not advanced enough and that not enough people had Web access. However, in the past couple of years, the Worldwide Web obviously has taken off in a big way. We believe that the Web, as an international, cross-platform medium, is the easiest and best way to publish electronically. In future, as the Internet, the PC, and the TV somehow converge, we think reading publications online, and printing out online material, will become easier and cheaper.
The latest issue of Planet Magazine is available here or at our mirror site, http://www.etext.org/Zines/planet/.
Signed,
X
Andrew G. McCann, editor
(His Mark)
The Old Underwater Castle,
Cape Fear, N.Y.
May 1998
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