The Oracle #1 (1982)

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Title: The Oracle Issue #1, July 1982
Type: Fanzine, frp
Published Schedule: 8 issue subscriptions, Every month except February, May, August, and November
Copyright: 1982 by Horizon International, Inc.
Publisher: Horizon International, Inc.
Editor: Chris Bigelow
Assistant Editor: David Barrett
Art Director: Scott Passey
Business Manager: Darrell Wells
Office: Sandy Darlington
Contributing Editors: Rick Priest, Dave Parsons
Consulting Editor: Craig Dunn
Cover Artist: Ryan Ridges
Place of Publication: Salt Lake City, Utah
Distributor: Glenwood Distributing
Format: 32 pages. Light paper cover and interior, all blue. stapled
Cover Price: $1.50
Mass: 32g
Dimensions: length 20.8cm, width 13.3cm, thickness .2cm

Contents:
Title page
Notice to Subscribers
Editorial. by Chris Bigelow
The Healer: a Character Class for AD&D. by Ronald Mark Pehr
Reader Ideas: Spells. by Sascha Mornell
Justice Be Done: and adventure for AD&D. by Daniel Struthers
Movies. by Angie Carlson
PBM Game: The Way of the Warrior. by Dave Parsons
Stormbringer review. by Mike Dawson
Gaming Publications: by Rick Priest
- Alarums and Excursions
- Pandemonium
Contest Announcement
Questionnaire
Feedback Form

Advertisements of Interest:
The Way of the Warrior by Genji Games
Abyss by Ragnarok Enterprises (zine)

Rear cover image:


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Personal Observations:
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[Irreantum]

Hey, wow, I used to publish The Oracle when I was about 15. One of the best experiences of my life, even though I only did five issues...

[cgould42]

Welcome to the forum. That is very cool. Particularly being involved with something like that at 15!

It has been a while but do you remember any tidbits of information on this publication? For example do you recall if there was roughly about the same number of copies printed of all five?

Cheers,
Curt

[Irreantum]

The first three issues of The Oracle were offset printed, and I think the copy count got up to 1,000 for the third issue.

For issues 4-5, I was out of money and so I down-scaled to a photocopied version, only 100 or 200 copies.

Let me know if you have other questions.

[scribe]

Hey! That is cool of you to post. For your age at publishing, I am impressed at how many people were involved via credits. And am impressed at the effort to advertise. Any other thoughts regarding that?
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[Irreantum]

Do mean advertise The Oracle for people to subscribe? I remember I ran an ad in Dragon and offered a free TSR adventure module "of your choice" with subscriptions, and I purchased the modules at wholesale from a local game/hobby distributor. I think about 200-300 people took advantage of that, and it didn't leave me much money to publish with...

I honestly don't remember how I connected with the contributors. How did we communicate before the Internet? Did we actually snail-mail letters back and forth? I also remember talking on the phone to some people. Perhaps I sent around letters to people I saw writing in other 'zines, and to advertisers inviting them to advertise in The Oracle. Also, I remember some people just contacted me, including some professionals from NYC, and I actually paid them for stuff. Another reason I soon ran out of money...

[scribe]

Great story! It must have been rather shocking to see all those subscriptions to come in!

I wish I had more issues to get your whole run online. I only have #1.
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[Irreantum]

Ah, the chance to have my old stuff immortalized online. Send me your address and I'll ship off what I can find. If I don't have an extra copy of an issue, would it be worthwhile for me to photocopy it for you?

[scribe]

Can you scan the images and make entries here? You don't have to send anything. I can help host the images if you can get them to me via email.
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