Hippogryph Issue Four

Welcome to Issue Four: Quaranzine Part 1

A bit of clarification before we begin: This is not an issue packed with advice on running modern-day medical thrillers, developing post-apocalyptic fantasies, or rules for deadly viruses. Sorry. It’s the first of three issues that I’ve put together in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic. During this period of social distancing and self-isolation, I still need to make a living. Yet this situation has required me to spend some extra time tending to my mental and physical health. I’ve needed to spend some time helping others as well. All of which has taken away from the time normally spent working on this zine and related projects.

The nature of a zine, though, is that it can be anything you want or need it to be. While I love the format of the early issues of hippogryph, I’m not beholden to it. The current pandemic has introduced the sorts of resource limitations that are a devoted zinester’s bread and butter. I started to view putting together new issues as more of a creative challenge than an obstacle to be overcome.

From 1996 to 2009 I ran one of the earlier RPG blogs under the handle UncleBear. It’s long gone now, with most of the content. Periodically I’ve attempted to resurrect it in some form, but that moment has long passed. In the year 2020, zines are effectively the new blogs in the same way that around 1999 blogs became the new zines.

This issue is made up timeless articles from across various sites, not currently available anywhere else. It’s 100% recycled content, All of these articles have been re-edited and expanded where necessary to bring them up to date. Please enjoy them, and rest assured that I’ll be back to producing entirely new content soon.