- - - - -
- - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - -
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
- - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - -
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
- - - - - - - -
Pif Magazine
ISSN: 1094-2726
Published by:
Pif, LLC
PMB 248
4820 Yelm Hwy SE
Suite B
Lacey, WA 98503-4903
 |
|
| PAST ZINE REVIEWS | MORE ZINES |
Poor Mag
Reviewed by Tom Hartman
|
I've long been an enthusiastic advocate of Word (see Pif January 2000). In fact, I've been known on occasion to get ridiculously hyperbolic describing the nested frames, the clever animation, the wonderful scroll bars that, on mouse-over, move bits of text along at reading pace, the click-and-drag stuff. Navigating Word, I'm alternately giddy and infuriated that I can't cook up stuff this good in the privacy of my bedroom. (Alas, I'm still struggling with PageMill 3.) That said, I was more than a little disturbed when art director Yoshi Sodeoka, in a recent "Letter from the Art Director," declared that he was simplifying Word's design. Yes, it was wonderfully clever and really quite nice to perpetually be on the very edge of the cutting edge, but, Sodeoka admitted, he had begun to feel a bit irresponsible. He came to the realization that because of the visual gew-gaws, FLASH, Shockwave and dynamic HTML bells and whistles he and his staff have been cooking up, only a subset of Word readers could actually view the 'zine's stories and articles. He was, he said, guilty of perpetrating an injustice on Word's writers. |
Poor
Mag Editor: Catherine Nance poormag@poormag.com |
At first, about half-way through the letter, I thought, "Nah, Yoshi's pulling our leg here. Gotta be. There's some punch line at the bottom of this." But, no: the boy was quite serious indeed, and briefly Word sported a front page that co-opted the look of Yahoo's main page: gray background, minimal graphics, text menu and etc. (Funny, right about this time, Yahoo, spiffed-up their pages a bit to make them more pleasing visually.) Fortunately, Sodeoka has since bowed to reader outcry and Word, for me anyway, once again represents the pinnacle of multimedia design: rich visuals in perfect concert with rich text.
I digress to such length because Sodeoka's letter raises some interesting questions about the future of 'zine design and what is and isn't "responsible design." These questions are especially pertinent when one considers that the main goal of Web-based magazines is, presumably, to present quality text-based content.
One wonders whether any of the questions that plagued Sodeoka and Word have ever visited the design team at Poor Magazine. Like Word, Poor is best described as a pop culture 'zine, a mixed bag of essays and commentary, but with a modicum of poetry and fiction thrown in for good measure. Also like Word, Poor is a stunning site visually. In fact, one might say that what Word is to dynamic HTML and all its goodies, Poor is to Shockwave – and boy can these folks do Shockwave: from the splash page with its atom bomb motif and spinning title to the ambient subway sounds that accompany the "Poems of the Day," to the eye-popping text effects of Karen Furth's "Journal Entry, January 15, 1994."
Unfortunately, whereas Word's content cup overfloweth – publish Word as ASCII text and you still have a solid magazine – Poor's is decidedly empty. Take for example Furth's aforementioned "Journal Entry...." Visually, it may be the coolest piece that Poor has to offer, but the content, a wafer-thin narrative (maybe 200 words in all) about a shooting in a Manhattan apartment building, displays about as much narrative dexterity or descriptive flair as your average shopping list. We read Furth's text incredulous that Poor's editors could not possibly have found something more compelling to match with such eerily affecting, technically awe-inspiring visuals.
