INTERACTION

There'll be no Black Static in June. Issue 29 will instead become the July-August issue and mail out at the same time as Interzone 241, and the magazines will continue on that schedule, sharing the same dateline and mailings. This makes much more sense after the recent Royal Mail changes.

We've taken this opportunity to make a couple of design changes too. The magazine will lose 36mm off its height and 30mm off its width, which will allow us to print a lot more pages (issue 29 will be 96 pages instead of the usual 64, with the very real prospect of increasing to 128 pages in the future), using a thicker uncoated paper and a thicker cover, which will be laminated. It'll have a spine. The point size of the fiction will be slightly bigger. Hopefully this all adds up to a better reading and handling experience, and a format that better suits the content.

That sounds like a smart move to me, Andy. Looking forward to the new version.

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www.stephenbacon.co.uk

Wow, big changes. Sounds great, Andy! Very much looking forward to seeing it.

Sounds really good.

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Theaker's Quarterly Fiction

Ooh. Sounds good. It was nice to have the alternating BS/Interzone every month, but I'm more than happy to wait for a double dose to save on postage costs.
My only quandry will be which to read first when they arrive!

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My fiction

Agreed - makes sense to me, I'll just have to try to ration myself better over the two month period. The new design sounds swish too.

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http://probablymonsters.wordpress.com/

Thanks for the encouraging comments so far. I left one thing out though, which might not be so popular... The interiors will be black and white.

It might be wishful thinking, but I hope that this too won't look bad in the new format -- not as bad as it would in the old format anyway.

And the Black Static fly is back.

Andy, yes, when you'd mentioned the uncoated stock I'd wondered if that necessitated b&w interiors. I love black & white artwork.

Me too, Mike, when it works it can be very effective. I have bigger reservations about presenting colour book covers, DVD packshots and film stills in b&w, but hopefully it's not that big a deal.

The cover remains in colour of course. And elements will wrap around the back, which isn't finished yet, but the front will look something like this. The art is by Ben Baldwin.

Nice! Well, not nice, but you know what I mean.

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http://probablymonsters.wordpress.com/

Andy, personally, I don't think running DVD and book covers in B&W will be a problem. I think I recall the first 10 issues or so fo Black Static were B&W inside, weren't they? Or am I just confused?

Great-looking cover.

So - is it just BS that's having a format change, or is Interzone changing as well?

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My fiction

Just Black Static.

But the option does exist... I think Interzone should have a lot more books coverage, for example, and we've been wondering how to do that. Impossible in the current format, but just those couple of small changes to height and width could well allow us to print 128 pages. Luxury.