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August, 2010

Death Panel Issue 2

By Intern Pete

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

death panel press magazine zine trumbull island jarrod shanahan

Magazines rise and fall on a monthly basis here in New York City. That issue of Mass Appeal with The Clipse on the cover is still in our magazine rack next to the john, along with countless issues of The Source, GIANT, American Helicopter Society, Cookie, VIBE, 02138, Play, and Chief. Now, in the place of each of these periodicals, warped and bloated from years of steam and other forms of éther de toilette, two or three smaller zineforms have sprung forth. Like baby eagles they cry out, hungry for more readers, ignorant to the dangers and financial ruin that await them beyond their nest of bro-ship and bar party hook-ups. But perhaps this generation of publications will redefine what a magazine is, and how it works. This is a review of one of these magazines.

Trumbull hooked me up with a press pass to the release party for Death Panel Magazine’s second issue, which is at least twice as hype as the last issue of Death Panel, and printed on a finer stock of paper than most blogs would dare. It was shortly after returning home from this soiree that I lost my issue of Death Panel. I paid for it, mind you — I believe it cost $2. Well, I had no more money, and I felt embarrassed about my predicament, so with a deadline looming I decided to push on with the review with what was available to me.

I closed my eyes and thought back to the party. There were a series of readings by some of the Death Panel contributors. They were all-right guys and girls. One of them wasn’t all-right, but his reading was the best. Austin Lemieux. Here are some other names emerging from the murk: Andy Spano? Richard Thomas? Niina Pollari? And despite the fact that Death Panel is by and large a printed affair, one of the night’s readers joined us via satellite from a far-flung corner of the globe — not too shabby.

(Continued)

    FOOTNOTES

  1. Insofar as Summer 2010 skinhead, graffiti, and Puerto Rican biker gang activity (good, old-fashioned fun) is concerned.
  2. Cocolo refers to Spanish-speaking Caribbean people beholden to Afro-Latino culture, especially Salsa music, as opposed to the "rockeros," a group who emerged in the 1970s and 80s in Puerto Rico, favoring rock music and the English language instead.

Burn The Club Up Thugs

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

trumbull island dutty love

I Dropped Out of High School to Play StarCraft

By Zac Greer, July 2004

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

zac greer starcraft 2 ii trumbull island

2006 Zac Greer playing StarCraft II, illustration by O.B.B.

We started Trumbull in Summer 2004 as a jackass ‘zine to make our friends cackle and educate morton teenagers on the subtle charms of the Cro-Mags’ 1990s recorded output. We may or may not have failed in our simple task, but, somehow, our zines are out of print and remain among our finest accomplishments — yes, even more impressive than my high school crust band, or Owen’s undocumented hitchhiking adventures. Though the confusion our overwrought tomes to forgotten Air Maxes elicited gives us warm feelings still, this piece, about how StarCraft changed our friend Zac Greer’s life, remains a favorite. StarCraft II was released last week.

StarCraft,1 I would say, is the best and most addictive game ever. It was made by Blizzard, the company that had made Warcraft 2 and Diablo. It’s a PC real-time strategy (RTS) game that pioneered the concept of totally different classes, or races, of which there are three. What makes the races special — two different types of aliens, and “humans” — is that they are all differently but perfectly balanced in their skills, something that had never been done or to my knowledge still hasn’t been, even in Blizzard’s [then- –ed.] newest RTS game Warcraft 3.

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    Footnotes

  1. StarCraft was originally released 31 March, 1998.
  2. "The popularity of StarCraft, a military-sci-fi game, has given rise to an elite class of professional gamers who have been elevated to the status of national e-sports icons. The best are said to make up to $300,000 a year in televised contests watched online by tens of thousands of adoring fans."