ZZap wages?

Lloyd Mangram · Post by **Lloyd Mangram** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 11:07 pm

Professor Brian Strain wrote:
COMMODORE FORCE INCORPORATING ZZAP! 64

And don't you forget it!

That, of course, was only a strategic marketing decision and had nothing to do with reality.

Zzap died after exactly 4 years. (IMHO

)

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 12:38 am

Then why was the new Zzap!64 labelled issue #107? Ah hah... get out of that one now

Lloyd Mangram · Post by **Lloyd Mangram** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 9:48 am

Mayhem wrote:Then why was the new Zzap!64 labelled issue #107? Ah hah... get out of that one now

Hey, that was decided by the editorial team. Not that I agreed!
We had btw quite a discussion about that at the old Rrap and in the Zzap!107 Yahoo group as well. Heheh.
I suggested issue #91, but that wouldn't cover it either, I have to admit.
Issue '0' or '2002' would have been an option??
I dunno.

With #107 we (or should I say:Craig) tried to go back to the Zzap era 1986/1987, so what's in a number?

Professor Brian Strain · Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:50 am

All this discussion reminds me of the ZZAP! competition where you had to guess what the number on the cover of the January 2000 issue would be...

CraigGrannell · Post by **CraigGrannell** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 12:53 pm

The reason we (Gaz, Gordo and myself) decided on 107 was because, officially, the CF team deemed CF to be a direct continuation of Zzap!, as proven by the issue 100 supplement (although, frankly, somewhat contradicted by the "we're closing it" statements in issue 90). For me, it had to be a real number: 2002 is a date, not an issue, and we wanted to make "the next issue"/"just another issue" (like there'd been a huge gap rather than a cancellation—as noted in Gordo's editorial) rather than a special. Also, although we had a couple of "looking back" features, we didn't want to be overtly nostalgic.

As for "issue 0", that's used in publishing for test issues that are released prior to a magazine's first issue, and we were 106 (or 90) issues too late for that.

With #107 we (or should I say:Craig) tried to go back to the Zzap era 1986/1987

I'd say that's mostly the case, mostly. For me, that era had the best design in terms of clarity and style—closer to Edge than C&VG.

Lloyd Mangram · Post by **Lloyd Mangram** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 1:21 pm

CraigGrannell wrote:
With #107 we (or should I say:Craig) tried to go back to the Zzap era 1986/1987
I'd say that's mostly the case, mostly. For me, that era had the best design in terms of clarity and style—closer to Edge than C&VG.

I totally agree, and I hasten to add: you did an excellent job!

Bazza · Post by **Bazza** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:55 am

Mr.Zzapback wrote:With #107 we (or should I say:Craig) tried to go back to the Zzap era 1986/1987, so what's in a number?

Yeah, I for one think that was essentially achieved. It had the flavor of the mag in the early days. Whilst my letter didn't win letter of the month, I am sure that was just an oversight due to time restrictions

gordon · Post by **gordon** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 2:34 am

Bazza wrote:Whilst my letter didn't win letter of the month, I am sure that was just an oversight due to time restrictions

On the contrary, never underestimate the twin forces of nepotism and corruption.

barnabypage · Post by **barnabypage** » Tue May 24, 2005 7:32 pm

Randy wrote:Barnaby, now there was a cracking bloke.

Rented his cottage down by the water after escaping The Boarding House From Hell and felt like a proper creative type!

Looking back, it was a right dump, but no worse than I left Gaz Penn's place.

Never came back to find the front door kicked off its hinges by the Old Bill either, but hey, that's Sarf London for you.

Did you ever come back to find frogs on the doorstep, though? I used to have to throw coins at them to get rid of them.

Ref. wages, in general Newsfield was only an average payer but bear in mind most of its staff were inexperienced (at least when they joined) and also that the cost of living in Ludlow was much lower than in London, which distorts average magazine salaries. Having said that, I think some of the LMers must have been on reasonable money (the mag certainly lost enough and I don't know what else it could have been spent on!). I was on 8K when I joined LM, as I recall, which puts Gordon's somewhat later 4.5K into relief. And I think by the time I was editing Prepress, when N'field closed, I had gone up to 18K.

Fiery Phoenix · Post by **Fiery Phoenix** » Tue May 24, 2005 10:50 pm

What sort of wages were Emap offering at the time I wonder? Most Zzap staff ended up there.

LeeT · Post by **LeeT** » Tue May 24, 2005 11:20 pm

Nice to see you here Barnaby!

Post by **Iain** » Wed May 25, 2005 12:08 am

There sure as hell is a lot of ex Newsfield staff showing up here over the past year, it's great to see!

Reminds me to backup the forum again!

Lloyd Mangram · Post by **Lloyd Mangram** » Wed May 25, 2005 8:02 am

Iain wrote:There sure as hell is a lot of ex Newsfield staff showing up here over the past year, it's great to see!

Reminds me to backup the forum again!

Gulp!

You didn't?

ANyway, it's indeed good to see ex-staff showing up at the Rrap!
Welcome, Barnaby.

Shame we lost the whole 'who is So Long Ago thread' due to the hackers last year.