Excellence One-Page at a Time

If you don't know who +Christian Walker is, he's the dude who is responsible for the zine rush in the OSR and related games.  He has also been putting out a fantastic little one-page zine, the tolling of the great black bell and a blog site of the same name.  Christian introduces each entry with a short video which is always a pleasure.

The man's passion for his gaming is fucking contagious.  Not only was a responsible for the zine rush, shortly after he started the tolling of the great black bell, there was a flurry of other one-page zines hitting the internet.  He has the effect.  So beware.  He's kinda like those housing flipping shows that make remodeling easy and look fantastic and the next night you find a hammer in your hand demoing a wall.  If you watch Christian talk about his zines or guitar playing, I think I saw him playing a violin a couple of times, and he's been building his own housing for his miniatures.  He infects you with the curiosity to give it try.  You have been warned.

He's on issue 17 where you find yourself on level 5 of a spire.  You might find a death metal band in a photo shoot.

If you get a chance, get copies of these wonderful things.  Christian preaches about the virtue of getting wonderful things in the mail.  I am a believe and a convert.

My History with One-Page Zines (or OPZs)

 +Christian Walker with his release of the tolling of the great black bell has sparked a surge of others getting into the one-page zines.  You've got +matt jackson producing The Ten Foot Pole, +Mike Davison  and his Boarding Action, +Tony T is writing Outpost Owlbear and +Wayne Snyder is penning Dark Ruins.  These are what I know of right now.  There might be a few more OPZs birthing out there as I write.  I hope so.

I love the excitement its generating and to no small part to Christian for inspiring others...again.  As I've said many times, without Christian's Loviatar, there would be no Manor and probably a bunch more.  Tonight I was putting together a binder for all the OPZs I've been getting and found all of Christian's older ones and I'd forgotten about a few of them.

The one I remember the best is One Square = 5' (6 issues).  I wrote a series of posts of solo adventuring through the on going adventure.  I believe I played only dwarven characters and they all met horrible deaths and all their names rhymed.  It was fun. 

Then Christian created a Call of Cthulhu OPZ called Shudde M'Ell Confidential (3 issues).  I love the look and layout of this one.  Has the feel of a 1920's newsletter.

And two more OPZs from Christian, I want to live in Los Angles (7 issues) and a letter from Los Angles (3 issues). 

I found another old one by Matt Jackson, Qwellian's Journal (1 issue).   And in a recent purchase from +Ron Yonts he sent along with the books a one-page adventure Calcified Caves of the Slime Yeti.

I guess I was just thinking how I thought all this OPZ stuff was new and once I got to digging around I found I've been getting them for years. 

Write on OPZers.