The first issue is about video games.

Ok, folks. It’s time to look for submissions for issue 2 of Hold in To Trip.

The overarching theme is “Night.” Or “Darkness”. Hence the title of this post.

Video games are dependent on light for their existence – without that light coming out of the screen, there’s no existence. So write about darkness and night and games.

Or maybe not about games at all – submit what you think is best. We’ll probably publish anything that’s good. And you can make good things, can’t you?

Text, images, whatever you’ve got. So long as it can be dumped onto a page in Scribus or InDesign, anything goes. Keep in mind our printing will most likely again be grayscale (maybe with a bit of spot-color), and not super-high quality so fine details may be lost in image-work. We are probably not the best place to submit your intricate paper-cut-design patterns.

Word count: aim for 800-1000 words. Over or under is fine, if it suits the piece. Or talk to me about it over lunch.

Email holdintotrip AT truespies dawt org OR shoot a message to @holdintotrip or @brianmtaylor on Twitter.

But you DO get a free copy of the zine.

Also, I will have some copies of issue 1 in my bag at PAX in September. Maybe there’ll be a discount if you buy one in person!

Volume 1 is now available, featuring:

• Curt writing about Shadow of the Colossus
• Andy writing about Rock Band
• Elaina writing about the Super Nintendo
• Brian writing about his brothers.
• Other things!

Thirtyish pages, photocopied, hand-folded, and hand-stapled.

If you’d like to read things about video games written by people who usually write about things like music, books, and art gallery shows, this is the zine for you!

Price is $6 (which includes shipping in the US – if you need international delivery, email us at holdintotrip at truespies dawt org)!

Here is a handy little button: you should click it! That would make me happy.

Layout’s complete. 27 pages + end matter.

In late March 2010, a PAX East in Boston, I visited the attractmo.de booth. There I bought a few game zines.

I was inspired.

Not wanting to leave my 20s without having published a zine (not counting that family newsletter I wrote around age 9 where I interviewed my mom about her Tetris strategy), I decided to put together one.

I tried to get some people who don’t play video games very often to write about video games for this issue.

Editing other people’s work for content is hard. I’m downright trash at copy-editing, but I hope to have it ready in a couple weeks.

It will probably cost a couple bucks to make up for materials and shipping.

Would you like a copy?

Patience.