Devils Blush interview
A little while back I wrote an article for Time Extension about folks creating their own video game themed zines. It seemed to me that there had been an upswing in bespoke, limited-run publications in recent years.
I wanted to know why. So I reached out to several people whose publications I liked to get their take.
You can read the article proper here. And, spoiler alert, the people still dealing with print often see it as a response to the disposable, ephemeral nature of the online world. Or, as I put it, “The Internet ain’t what it used to be.”
But if you want to take a deeper dive, and learn more about their respective projects, I’ve republished the full interview with Will Stevenson (Devils Blush) and Mathew Kumar (exp. game zine) on this site.
Here’s Will Stevenson, aka Devils Blush.
Let’s start with a bit of background, when did you start capturing video game images and posting them online, what was the initial motivation?
“I started out photographing PC Engine games in 2018 after I’d downloaded a rom set of all the HuCard games. They had a particular look and mood to them that caught my interest. I guess I started photographing them because I’ve always hated the feeling of seeing something cool in a game and then just letting it go.”
How would you describe the Devils Blush aesthetic? What makes an image stand out for you?
“That’s tough, I guess some styles I like are dense pixel art title screens, chunky 3D character models, regular urban environments and catching enemies in nice looking formations. I feel like there’s something cool to look at in the majority of games, it’s just a matter of whether I can find a way to frame the scene nicely.”
How do you capture such crisp images? How elaborate is the process?
“My process is really simple. I play most games on a MacBook in OpenEMU, take screenshots then photograph those with an old iPhone.”
Why did you decide to produce a printed magazine (rather than just sticking with a website)?
“I’d been playing around with a neocities website for a little while (dvlsblsh.com) which was fun, and definitely an idea I endorse. Websites rule! At some point just for fun I made a mock-up magazine cover and got a lot of nice feedback on Twitter, so I started looking into how viable it might be to actually produce. Once I had an idea of how many copies I needed to sell to come somewhere near breaking even I ran a poll to gauge interest then just started making it.”
How did you go about producing the magazine? Did you do it all yourself or enlist the services of a designer / other people?
“I did the design work myself. I’d come home from work and shuffle screenshots around in Illustrator until I found a combination I liked, then move onto the next page. The difficult part was correctly labelling everything! I was lucky to be able to get some fact-checking help and advice about layouts, and my wife Kate proofread and handled a lot of the distribution side.”
What were the challenges of producing a printed magazine?
“Deciding how much to spend on printing before I’d actually sold anything and figuring out the details of international shipping were probably the hardest parts. Also, just being based in Australia was a real roadblock. Shipping to the rest of the world is so expensive, it definitely made the book unviable for a lot of people which really sucks.”
How have you promoted the publication?
“I posted about it on Twitter and Instagram, and that’s pretty much it. I don’t like being reliant on social media platforms but it’s all I could make time for.”
What did you learn from the experience and would you do it again?
Most of what I’ve learned is basic layout and production stuff; for a perfect bound book you need to add some blank space to the inside margins of your layouts for them to look right; how long it takes to go from thinking you have a finished design to actually holding it in your hands, etc. Definitely doing it again! I’m working on volume two already.
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