Fight On! #4 Released in Print!

[calithena]

The Fight On! fanzine returns for another fantastic foray! Dedicated to Dave Hargrave and his legendary Arduin campaign, this issue features no fewer than 8 adventures, plus spells, magic items, new classes, races, and rules to take your FRP passion to the next level! Our contributors include Steve Zieser, Kevin Mayle, Steve Marsh, James Maliszewski, Monty & Josephine St. John, Gabor Lux, Jeff Rients, Geoffrey O. Dale, Baz Blatt, David Bowman, Calithena, Kesher, Douglas Cox, James Raggi, Matthew Riedel, Geoffrey McKinney, Alex Schroeder, Lee Barber, Vincent Baker, Patrick Farley, Kelvin Green, Fu Fu Frauenwahl, and many more! Let your imagination know no limit – Fight On!

You can purchase the current issue at lulu here: www.lulu.com/content/6208366 . Also, artists: don't forget to get your entries ready for the Erol Otus Art Challenge! You can find out more about this fantastic event here: odd74.proboards76.com/index.cgi?board=fanzine&action=display&thread=1809

Here's the lowdown on what to find in #4 in more detail:

Table of Contents
Delvers Delve (David Bowman)………………………3
Silver Knights of the Eld (Beaudry and Calithena)….…7
Knights & Knaves (Kesher)………….………………10
House of the Axe (Calithena)……………………...…12
Random Rooms (Michael Curtis)…………………......37
Dungeons and Librarians (Jason Vasché)…………….38
Dungeon Home Remedies (Jeff Rients)……...………41
The Spring Temple of Ai (Gabor Lux)………...……..42
Education of a Magic-User (Will Douglas)……...……45
The Tower and Spells of Duvan’Ku (J. Raggi IV)….....46
Creepies & Crawlies (Jeff Rients)…………………….52
Ghost Stories (Geoffrey O. Dale)…………………....54
Vault of the Magic Goddess (Matthew Riedel)……….57
Tables for Fables (Age of Fable)……………………..65
Proclamations of the Fomalhaut Oracle (G. Lux)……66
Magical Weapon Drawbacks (Wayne Rossi)………….68
Carousing Mishaps (Jeff Rients)……………………...69
Fungoid Gardens of the Bone Sorcerer (G.McKinney)70
These Mean Streets (Baz Blatt)……………………....79
Oceanian Legends (Del L. Beaudry)………………….91
The Airships of Mistworld (Steve Marsh)…………….95
The Kitsunemori Campaign (Alex Schroeder)………..96
Chrysolia (Monty St. John)……………………….…100
The Darkness Beneath (James Maliszewski)………...106
Merlin’s Mystical Mirror (Jeff Rients)……………….117
Guest Editorial (Calithena)………………………….118
Artifacts, Adjuncts, & Oddments (J. Raggi IV)……...120

Front Cover by Steve Zieser. Back Cover by Kevin Mayle (kevinmayle.netaidz.com/main.php). Fight On! and Erol Otus Logos by Jeff Rients. Dave Hargrave photo by Lance Mazmanian. Knights & Knaves and Creepies & Crawlies logos by Lee Barber. Interior artwork and cartography by Alex Schroeder(3,13,15,17,22,26,33,36,46,75, 96,97,98,99), Steve Zieser (4,43,69), Otherworld Miniatures (5,44), Lee Barber (ghosttower.crithitcomics.com) (7,21), Emperor’s Choice (Greg Espinoza 8, John Usiak 18,55, Brad “Morno” Schenk 19, Josephine St. John 100), Kesher (10,11,87,95), motorvinen (12,24,44), Tony Rosten (16), C. Thayer (katana2665.deviantart.com) (22,111), Vincent Baker (29,34), Patrick Farley (31,36), Gabor Lux (42,66,67), Will Douglas (45), Laura Kristiina Jalo (50), Pat Wheeler (52,53), Livio Andreatta (57,59,60,62), Matthew Riedel (58), Age of Fable (65), Ben Monroe (68), Geoffrey McKinney (70,72), Kelvin Green (junkopia.net/kelvinsdirtybits/main.html) (73,75, 76,115), FuFu Frauenwahl (fufufrauenwahl.com) (77,78), Baz Blatt (84), Del Beaudry (91,93), Robert S. Conley (106), James Maliszewski (108). We also used public domain clipart from karenswhimsy.com (11,39,41, 64,82,92,121).

[coffee]

I just got mine today (I ordered when it was in proof stage...I couldn't wait.)

And it is gorgeous! Imagine the cover you see above, only glossy.

Plus, all that content! If you haven't ordered yours yet, what are you waiting for?

[geoffrey]

I just ordered my copy. ;D

[kevinmayle]

Got my copy in the mail today. It looks great!!

[Alex Schroeder]

Ordered! ;D

[stonetoflesh]

I placed my order for FO#4 and Knockspell #1 this morning. I can't wait for my double dose of old-school!

[Random]

Sadly, I have to wait until next month to purchase.

[greyharp]

And I'll have to wait for the pdf before I get a copy.

[garish]

I just ordered all four in print. The pdf's in notebooks are too bulky to carry around.

[ant]

Despite the poor Aussie $ and the shipping costs ... ordered! :-)

[calithena]

PDF purchasers are going to catch a little bit of a break this time. Because I want to turn the next issue around in 2 months instead of 3 and because we're a couple weeks off schedule I'm probably going to release the PDF early this time. The general policy is still a month or more after print but for #4 I think we're going to send the PDF out the door at least somewhat sooner. I need to clear all the stuff concerning this issue out of my queue so that I can bore in on #5 (and promote the art contest more aggressively).

[jimlotfp]

Ahhh, thank you for making Laura's picture full-page. It's one of those things I was worried about for several different reasons, yet I knew I had no say as to how much space it would actually get.

[kelvingreen]

I've had a quick look through, and it looks great.

[labsenpai]

From a quick glance at the PDF:

A lot of new artist submissions...Is there a "Fufu" on the forum ;D
The placement of the full page Arduin advertisement, wedged in after page one of the Elf Knight article seemed jarring.
"Fungal Gardens" not converted to garamond typeface?

I'd like to do "title bar" art for the artifacts column, for cohesion with the style of K&K, C&C. Unless folks don't like it.

[calithena]

Fu Fu Frauenwahl was someone Geoffrey contacted, he (?) is obviously a pretty talented artist.

The Arduin ad is not quite as jarring in print because it's a left-hand page. So you get to the elf article and turn the page to the elf article, with the arduin ad appearing on your left.

I left Geoffrey's typeface because he does everything in that typeface. I have somewhat mixed feelings about it but the Chrysolia article not long after is also in a different typeface, so oh well.

I expanded the margins for Akrasia.

I'd love any title bars you could do. Merlin's Mystical Mirror, Oceanian Legends, and probably a few others could use them as well.

[kelvingreen]

I have to say that the work from the other artists in this issue was stunning throughout; I'm going to have to pick up my game if I contribute to #5!

[calithena]

We'd love it if you'd continue contributing, and don't sell yourself too short - your work was just right. But I do agree with the general point that the art just keeps getting better and better. Hopefully some of you guys will take some prizes in the contest...

[Random]

On the topic of artwork, I think Fight On! should strive to be submitter-friendly and not get too uptight about what artwork is "good enough" to include. I have liked the mixture of good and bad art so far. The last thing I want to do is pick up Fight On! and feel like someone is trying to deliver a polished and professional product to me. Much better is a fat-stack of cool ideas and generally wild gaming material.

[amityvillemike]

Speaking of art: despite having looked at the cover for several days now, I just noticed the fact that the warrior on the cover has four arms.

That's pretty freakin' cool!

I can only conjecture that that fact slipped by me for so long only because it was so unexpected. Or maybe I'm just none too bright.

[coffee]

Mar 5, 2009 21:47:04 GMT -6 amityvillemike said:

Speaking of art: despite having looked at the cover for several days now, I just noticed the fact that the warrior on the cover has four arms.

Huh. I hadn't noticed that, either.

I can only guess the guy was forewarned. "Cause, y'know, forewarned is four-armed.



[ducks and runs]

[Random]

I noticed immediately (and thought it was a cool picture).
Yeah, keep the covers looking great, but allow for at least a few goofy illustrations inside.

[sham]

The four-armed dude is a Throon in keeping with the Arduin theme. The Throon was Hargrave's way of getting Barsoomians into his game (AG III)...he just named them after a planet from Burroughs' John Carter books. One of my players played Throons or Phraints exclusively when I ran Arduin. I've always had a soft spot for Deodanth PCs myself (aka Deodands from Vance's The Dying Earth). Hargrave crunched a lot of influences into Arduin, some obvious, some I've probably not even noticed.

[Alex Schroeder]

I just hope that all the art prints ok. I noticed that several of my pictures look very different from the rest of my pictures: They take terribly long to load, they seem to be black and white (instead of greyscale), and seem much cruder. I will have to look through my emails to see whether this is something I can control. I'm still hoping that they look ok when printed. I don't really understand the technical details of PDF.

[calithena]

I don't think there's much worry about FO! becoming too slick and polished. Even if somehow our sales went up by a factor of 100 and we could actually hire a staff, which seems profoundly unlikely, we'd still be striving for an aesthetic which includes fairly simple layout and plenty of goofy art, wherever we can find it.

[calithena]

Lulu in general is not doing very well with the greyscaled pics in print. Most look good in PDF IMO (for example: the metaljaws, Kelvin's dino riders) but in print the lead dino rider dude's face is not visible. I'm not sure what to do about this beyond encouraging artists to work in B&W.

[kelvingreen]

I may have undermined the project there. I really wanted to do the dino-riders in colour, given Geoffrey's vivid description, even if it wasn't going to be printed as such. I thought a good solution would be to do it in colour and then convert to greyscale, but I would probably have been better off doing it in black and white from the start. The colours were all a bit too dark, and look too similar when turned to grey. Live and learn, I suppose.

I was blown away by the metaljaws picture, by the way. Such a simple image, but so incredibly well done.

[katana]

It looks great. thanks Sean.

[labsenpai]

If an article is accepted in a noticeably different font or margin template, it should involve a purposefully designed element beyond the druthers of the author. Perhaps it needs to stand out as a recurrent column, advertisement, or accommodate complex visuals. Otherwise, it may look like a "xeroxed filler" piece added hastily.

Diverse content and art is great, diverse formatting is for your Grandma's scrapbook ;D. The last thing you want (when selling a zine) are chaotic layouts that inflate page count or look like a graphic error.

[kelvingreen]

I hear from someone involved in another project using Lulu that their image printing is quite bad at the moment, so it's not just Fight On!

[jimlotfp]

The player hosting my game tonight had recently received his copy of Fight On! #4. It was my first opportunity to look at an actual printed copy of the mag... good stuff.

How weird though... I can't imagine in the old days playing at the same table with someone who has been published... and here I am with a few pages in there, and one of my players has three art pieces inside, and then there's the art I arranged with someone local for The Tower adventure...

Finland represents.