Outline for proposed short story magazine

GENERAL INTRODUCTION
For some time I have been considering setting up and editing a magazine of popular fiction short stories. Each story would be illustrated with at least two line-art drawings, and I would also like to include a comic strip story or two in each edition.
The stories and comic strip(s) would cover a wide range of popular genres - spy thriller, historical adventure, detective mystery, science and speculative fiction, American western, Australian outback gothic, bushranger etc. The list of genre variations goes on and on.
There is no current publication date for the first edition. I'd like the magazine to contain high-quality, well-written, entertaining stories and well-illustrated drawings that will appeal to a wide readership, and I don't intend to publish until the quality is there. This will take as long as it has to take. None of the stories and comic strips are to have been published anywhere else, at any time, nor should they currently be accepted for publication elsewhere. (As well, see Update, below, about stories posted to blogs etc.)

THE MAGAZINE
It would be great to start the magazine as a quarterly or bi-monthly, but being realistic that's not going to happen! The first edition will be presented as a "one-off", then depending on what happens we'll take it from there.
The magazine will principally be available on-line, as a downloadable PDF edition, and hopefully as many of the illustrations and comic strips as possible will be in colour. There may be a hard-copy version of the magazine, with a colour cover and black and white contents, but this will depend on costs of print run and reader interest etc. Both electronic and print versions of the magazine will be available for subscribers to purchase directly.

WRITERS AND ILLUSTRATORS
Writers and illustrators will at least be paid something for the first edition, after all costs have been met - but it won't be much (as a published writer of short stories myself, I know what it is like not to receive any payment at all for my efforts).

(Continued top of right-side column)

If there are further editions, I would like to invite those contributors whose work appeared in Edition #1: the one-off, to submit more material - in this way writers and illustrators may be interested in presenting a series of stories featuring the same characters, the same genre, time-period and setting, or developing a story arc etc over succeeding editions.
All submissions of material must be the contributor's own work. Copyright of story and art remains with writer and illustrator after first publication in the magazine.

WHAT IS REQUIRED?
Writers may submit short stories of up to 5000 words, emailed as an attached file in Rich Text Format (RTF) only, double-spaced, page-numbered. (Why RTF? See end of page.) The author's name, contact details (including a necessary and current email address), and title of story must appear only on the cover page.
Illustrators should email only two or three sample line-art illustrations, while comic strip writer-illustrators should email two or three pages of sample story-art that can be viewed on a computer monitor (JPG or GIF). Alternatively, upload the samples to a website, and email the website address so that the work may be viewed. Samples may have been previously published or not. For comic strip illustrators, it is probable that the page dimensions of the magazine will be B5 (176 mm width, 250 mm length). Comic strip stories that appear in the magazine will be between eight and twelve pages in length (although this can be negotiated). For the magazine's first edition they should be self-contained, not serialised.
Please note that if your contribution is not accepted for publication you will be informed by email. However, unless the magazine has an army of volunteer manuscript readers the email will generally not include a written assessment of the contribution nor the reason(s) for why it has not been accepted.
(UPDATE - SEE BELOW, 21 July 2008.)
SUBMISSIONS AND FURTHER INQUIRIES
Email to: magazine@rmsed.com.au

UPDATE (21 July 2008):
Some fine short stories and samples of illustrations have been submitted - more are required!
21 July 2008: after months of frustration over a planned comic strip that never happened,
the mag NOW HAS a comic strip story in development (and a most unusual
and intriguing tale it is)! It will probably still be a few months before it's completed.
More about comic strip tales further down this Update...

For some months I refrained from referring to "the magazine" by title.
A title has been given to it (a very basic, descriptive title which pretty-well captures
for prospective readers what is likely to be between the covers, or on-line), but this may change
later when or if tested by a sample reading audience (see final comments, further below).

Most short stories received have so far been around 1000-1500 words in length
- for a good mix, would like to see a few more stories submitted of 2500 words or longer, up to 5000.
(Regardless of length, please try to make every word count;
a common problem with many submissions is that they can easily be cut to 75% or even 50%
of their original word length without doing any damage to plot and characterisation etc.)

IMPORTANT: Not only should stories not have been previously published,
nor currently accepted for publication elsewhere, it is preferred that stories submitted
are NOT already currently available for viewing freely on websites and in blogs.

LOOKING FOR:
Historical adventures from any place, any era (Napoleonic Wars? Medieval knights?
Australian gold rushes?); spy tales; mysteries (including old-fashioned schoolgirl mysteries);
jungle adventures; sea-faring; private eye thrillers; intrepid aviators;
SF set in the 19th century; futuristic other worlds; alternative history/reality.
(THESE ARE MERELY A SAMPLE. IF UNSURE OF WHAT MIGHT BE ACCEPTABLE, PLEASE INQUIRE.)
A very high percentage of submissions have been in Science Fiction/Fantasy mode
(possibly because there are so many of these specialist-genre magazines around),
with the second-most popular being hard crime (as distinct from crime-mystery),
but it would be nice to see writers trying other genres, or even mixed genres
- the object of this mag is to cover a wide range of possibilities of "popular" fiction tales;
it's not likely that more than two or three SF-fantasy stories, or straight-out hard crime tales,
will make it into the final selection.
I haven't mentioned comedy and humour:
Romantic comedy, domestic comedy, farce etc -
these genres are fine, although very difficult to hit the right note, and often need much redrafting.
I find that humour goes a long way in ANY genre so long as it doesn't look forced.

A BIT SUSS (but don't be put off by these comments):
Spoofs of popular genres, such as the predilection for sending up the hard-boiled
Chandler crime story, often don't show a great deal of ingenuity,
or maybe even an appreciation of the original.
Is the writer making fun of the genre out of contempt for it, or out of respect?
Fairy tales, especially of the "fractured" kind, are OK, but will have to be VERY original,
because they are so derivative, as are Superhero tales (yes, I enjoyed the Heroes TV series.)
Satire - it's supposed to expose some kind of hidden truth, such as hypocrisy or selfishness,
and should have a point; taking potshots at stereotyped characters just because they are
politicians, preachers or bald schoolteachers etc can be tedious (in my opinion).

COMIC STRIP STORIES:
21 July 2008:
The mag is STILL looking for another comic strip tale of around 8-12 pages
that will appeal to a broad mass of adults (and others) wanting light entertainment.
If you are a writer-illustrator or working in collaboration as a writer-illustrator team,
send your ideas and/or post two or three sample sequential pages
of story onto a website, or email them as JPG files (keep file size down if you can).
The artwork should be in traditional, realistic mode
(old-fashioned newspaper serial art-style is appealing), rather than cartoony. By this I mean
that human figures should look reasonably human; there are degrees of "human-ness"
so if you aren't sure of how cartoony is "cartoony", send a sample anyway.
(Sorry! Graphic violence, gore-fest and sex fantasy not really wanted.
This may seem intolerant, but the mag is not aiming to shock, titillate nor to gain notoriety,
nor to appeal only to a niche audience; its aim is to offer a wide range of readers
a mix of well-written, well-illustrated, entertaining story-telling.
This could be a rather old-fashioned concept come full circle... Sherlock Holmes, anyone?)
Please do NOT go to the trouble of preparing from scratch, and sending a fully completed
comic strip story to the magazine in the hope or expectation it will be accepted;
if all your hard work is rejected it would be a terrible waste of time! Samples only, please.
I'm not an illustrator, but if I think a comic strip tale has potential I am ready, as editor,
to work with writer-illustrators on ideas and suggestions for developing,
and redrafting their stories, both in word and image.

A shortened, not-for-sale sample edition of the magazine is currently being put together,
prior to development of an expanded, for-sale version. This will contain a sample selection of short stories, each one accompanied by at least two large illustrations, plus the previously-mentioned
comic strip now in development. As this comic strip will take
a few more months to complete, the sample edition won't be ready until after then.

Will add, delete, alter, refine updates as required down the track.