'Zines

[chuckro]

So, as most people who could possibly care know already, DISTRACTIONS, Princeton's esteemed puzzle magazine and one of my regular activities as an undergrad, has shuffled off this mortal coil.

Which, on some levels saddens me greatly, because neither Campus Club nor the FireHazards are in great shape either, and Koleinu's been in "recovery mode" for years. I'm not exactly leaving a campus legacy here. But that's not the point.

The point is, I enjoyed making puzzles. It was like exercise for uncommonly-used parts of my brain. And I found myself randomly making a logic puzzle during lunch the other day, possibly because I missed it. I suspect making more puzzles would be fun.

I don't know what to do with this, though. Self-publish a puzzle 'zine? Make puzzles and post them to my Livejournal? Find a place to submit them professionally (or somebody else's self-published 'zine)?

I'd love some suggestions on that. Also, if anyone is interested in playtesting/editing my puzzles, I have a tendancy to make careless errors in them that I'd prefer to catch before making them available for public consumption.

Comments

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Sort of--He already had a job at DC answering fan mail, but I believe making puzzles was the first freelance work he did.

Not that there's much call for puzzles in comic books these days. Or [except for crosswords] anywhere in traditional publishing, really.

[(Anonymous)]

Kate is right- you've got it backwards. Daddy got in with the puzzles he made for me while I was student teaching. THEN he got the job answering the mail. They gave him the mail job partly as a joke b/c he had written so many letters to the comics.

Then came the comic mobile.
Then came a "real" staff job in editorial.