Review of TROLL Magazine

Let me begin by stating that I sincerely hope that Troll becomes successful in its quest to survive in the gaming market. Most of the gaming magazines seem to be little more than house organs, so the advent of another magazine dedicated to general coverage of role playing is most welcome.

That said, let me be blunt. This magazine has a long way to go before it becomes a high quality product. The editing and writing exhibited in the premier issue leave much to be desired.

For starters, on the cover, a blurb proclaims the title of the comic to be found within. It is called "Prodical Son." Now, last I knew, "prodical" was not a word to be found in the English language. I know what a prodigal son is, but not a prodical son. This is on the cover.

The problems with editing and language continue within the covers. Punctuation and spelling errors abound. I heard one wag suggest that a good test of an editor would be to hand him a copy of the magazine, offer a page number at random, and see how many errors he can find.

Let's examine the magazine section by section.

I will point out that the overall production values are solid. The ads appear in their intended glory and most of the text is easily readable.

We first find the editor's page, and then the table of contents. I thought the two page layout for contents a bit excessive, but possibly expanded issues in the future will have need of all that space. The letters section follows, which was sparse due to this being the first issue. That will probably expand in future editions.

The first actual article was next. The article was an interview piece with three illustrators in the gaming industry. This article was poorly written and lacked much structure or focus. Basically, the writer let the illustrators bitch for awhile and then printed the bitch session up as an article. We learned nothing about how they approach their work, nothing about the nuts and bolts of getting assignments and selling work, or much of anything that seemed useful. The writer never prodded deeply into the claims made by the illustrators, allowing them to spout a lot of opinion without any qualification. As an expose on problems in the industry, the piece failed. As an informative article to help prospective artists in the industry, it failed.

Next up was Book Reviews. To state that these were reviews is to be very generous. What these actually seemed to be were restatements of the printed material on the back of the book or on the dustcovers. There was no analysis of the writing, either in matters of story, style, or craft. One of the reviews, on a new Modesitt book, not only gets the name of the setting (the world of Recluce) wrong, but does so in two different fashions. The setting name is referred to as "Recluse" four times and as "Reduce" once. Not once was the proper name used.

Also of note is that the background graphic on the book reviews pages was dark enough to obscure a great deal of the text. The graphic is of a rustic village or such to begin with, and I have yet to figure out how this ties in with the idea of books being reviewed.

Next was a story written by an illustrator. There is a reason why the author of this work is not a writer but is an illustrator. The illustrations seem fairly well-drawn to me -- although adolescent-power-fantasy-type images don't appeal to me -- and speak of a competent illustrator. The story, however, is quite horrid, bespeaking a lack of writing craft and ability.

Next up was the comic. Nowhere is the title of this series to be found, although the name of the creating company intrudes upon the edges of each page the comic runs on, complete with net address. From what little happens in the four pages that start the story, I can conlcude[sic] that the protagonist is an embodiment of a macho adolescent power fantasy anti-hero, complete with the attitude and deportment of poorly-socialized boor. I see other problems with the story from the outset, but the first two pages were enough to turn me off.

Let's see, then come the game reviews. These are much the same as the book reviews. They review nothing, but consist of blurbs that point to the general content of the game or supplement in question. These are useful only in notifying fans of a given line that a new product is, indeed, out on the market.

The poor editing of the magazine and the low level of writing cripple this issue from the outset. I believe that the magazine can only improve. The staff reports that they have enough material for the next eight issues, and I understand that some of the old-timers in the industry have material appearing in future issues.

I wonder about the magazine's ability to attract many articles from active freelancers in the business, though. The general guidelines printed on the final page state that "All submissions to Troll Magazine become the exclusive property of the publisher." I know of some freelancers that find such a statement to be chilling, because the company is claiming ownership of material simply on the basis of submission, without regard to such matters as copyright law and having to purchase the rights from the author. This statement speaks of either an intent to screw with authors, a gross misunderstanding of publishing, or a great degree of carelessness. None of these are admirable in a publishing company.

Again, I hope that Troll will remain viable in the marketplace and serve the needs of the gaming community by covering roleplaying games in general. I also see that the magazine can only improve from its initial issue.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)