Pinball Magazine is here! (with Pinball Arcade interview)

Pinball Magazine No. 2 is here: 188 full color glossy pages.

This Issue focuses on two special guests. The cover story spotlights the career of pinball designer Dennis Nordman (White Water, Pirates of the Caribbean, Blackwater 100, Party Animal, Indianapolis 500 and other titles).

Dennis is joined by graphic artist Greg Freres. The two of them joined forces on Elvira and the Party Monsters, Dr. Dude, The Party Zone, Scared Stiff and Whoa Nellie! Big Juicy Melons. In this issue they discuss Dennis’ career in pinball and share some fascinating inside stories and insights about the pinball industry.

The magazine is packed with exclusive photos provided by both Dennis and Greg. You'll find images of what Dennis originally had in mind for the chest in Pirates of the Caribbean, Dennis' original mockups for White Water, Transformers and Big Buck Hunter, early artwork and sketches for Elvira and the Party Monsters and Dr. Dude and lots more.

People who are close to Dennis and Greg have added color as well: pinball designers John Popadiuk and Steve Ritchie, graphic artists Pat McMahon, Doug Watson and John Youssi, sound designer Chris Granner, technical right hands Mark Weyna and Ken Walker and Multimorphic’s Gerry Stellenberg.

Roger Sharpe, who was spotlighted in Issue 1, also wrote a contribution and we were able to compile an interview with Cassandra ‘Elvira’ Peterson.

There are plenty of other articles too. We felt the balance between the cover story and the other articles in Issue 1 wasn't quite right, so this time the emphasis is on more variety.

Here’s what you'll find:
- Custom Games: Wade Krause and Dirty Donny comment on their Beatniks Koolsville game.
- An interview with Dave Peterson, head of the investment group that bought stern Pinball in 2009.
- Randy Perlow and Chris Enright talk on how they created ColorDMD.
- Pinball News editor Martin Ayub talks about the history of the No. 1 news website pinballnews.com
- Bobby King talks about the success and future plans of popular game/app The Pinball Arcade
- Rob Berk and Mike Pacak talk about the history of, and organizing, the longest running annual pinball show: Pinball Expo
- Founder Robert Ilvento talks about The Silverball Museum in Asbury Park, NJ
- Paul Rubens contributed a story about a huge arcade find on an abandoned ship
- Nic Parks talks about The Pinball Company, supplying completely restored pinball machines for the high end of the market
- As a remarkable accessory Darren Brehm discusses his Pinball Armor
- Who’s working on what?
- And much, much more!

Long story short: Pinball Magazine No. 2 is even more of a book than Issue 1 was.

More info on http://www.pinball-magazine.com.

The first chapter of the Dennis Nordman interview is published on pinball-magazine.com in 3 parts:
Part 1: http://www.pinball-magazine.com/?p=1181
Part 2: http://www.pinball-magazine.com/?p=1261
Part 3: http://www.pinball-magazine.com/?p=1195

Cheers,

Jonathan

Wow. It sounds like you've outdone your self on an already excellent first issue. Keep it up, your passion and dedication is awesome!

I received the second issue of the Pinball Magazine today and just finished the nine page interview with Bobby King. Though there was nothing in the interview about any specific unknown future titles it was a great read with some interesting history of FarSight. While it wouldn't be fair to post everything about the article, here's a couple takeaways:

- Pinball After Dark (tables that wouldn't pass the E rating) is still a possibility.
- Addams Family is a REALLY tough license. Bobby explains a good amount about that license.
- ios is their biggest platform.

At almost two hundred pages on high quality paper this hardly a "magazine." So worth the money. I can't wait to read the Dennis Nordman interview. I glossed over it and it looks very well laid out with a chronological order of his games. Each table has a huge splash of its playfield along with discussion about them. All I can say is "Buy It!"

Just ordered both available issues!

I keep wanting to order, but everytime I see the cost of shipping, I just can't do it. It's all psychological really. If each issue was priced at $25 and s/h was $8 for the two issue pack, I'd probably have them by now.

Hmm, I wonder if I can convince myself that this is the case.

Yeah, I wish they'd offer it in digital format. The shipping's ridiculous. It's probably really heavy because it's on good paper and everything, but still.

Actually, $21 to ship two issues by DHL to 'rest of the world' is a very good deal.

Usually it would cost at least double that amount for a similar package.
If I want to send a simple letter by courier to the US its $50 from where I am.

To me, DHL is a lose/lose situation. It's much more expensive than USPS, and you're GUARANTEED to be taxed. And while I don't mind the import tax itself (25% of the price) taxing also means an added fee of $25, PLUS the tax of THAT amount. Lots of other European countries are similar in this regard. At the end of the day, those two issues would cost $104 for me. I don't remember even spending a fraction of that amount on a magazine.
They should print some in Europe and ship "locally" from there.

And it likely won't even get to me any faster despite being sent by courier, as the tax department like to keep my packages for three weeks before sending them to me.

Seriously, I don't know why you'd want to use couriers to ship a magazine. In the very rare case where a package might get lost, it's not much of a loss to send out a new one.

Well agreed, it would make more sense to use the local postal service within the EU, especially since it is just a magazine.

Hell, publications use publication/media mail for it - it's not as quick, but it's a helluva lot cheaper.

Best yet is to skip all that and go digital - it's not the best solution, but when the solution is to basically rape everyone on shipping (deserved or not). The afficionados can have their paper copies and pay the outrageous shipping, everyone else can be happy reading a PDF.

Plus, I thought it was printed in the EU, that's why it's so freaking expensive to ship it to North America...

I do want a paper copy, but there's no way I'm spending so much on shipping for a magazine that's already a tad expensive.

If they sell enough copies to the US, it might make sense to find a local printer.

Sumez said:

I do want a paper copy, but there's no way I'm spending so much on shipping for a magazine that's already a tad expensive.

Click to expand...

How would you get charged so much in shipping when it is shipped from The Netherlands?

Q: Why are the postal costs so high?

A: Pinball Magazine is shipped from The Netherlands in Europe.

Click to expand...

http://www.pinball-magazine.com/?page_id=329

Do they just charge a flat rate to everyone?
This reminds me of another company I was interested in supporting recently but their shipping costs were more than the price of their item, wtf is going on lately?

netizen said:

How would you get charged so much in shipping when it is shipped from The Netherlands?


http://www.pinball-magazine.com/?page_id=329

Do they just charge a flat rate to everyone?

Click to expand...

I actually thought it was sent from USA since they name all their prices in American dollars! That means I won't have to worry about taxes. But the shipping price seems to be static, I didn't have to type in my address to begin an order where I could see the shipping fee.

Shipping to the US is a flat $9.91. I agree that seems a little high but if the overseas shipping is pretty fast I guess it isn't terrible. The problem as I see it is that they ship in batches. For instance, if you order today, yours might not ship until mid-to-late August. I ordered issue #2 earlier in the week the night before a batch shipped so let's see how fast it comes.

If it really is as thick and high-quality as everyone says, around $15 seems fair. Not $19.80. And shipping should be around $5.

The problem is with high quality printing, low quantities cost a whole lot more. Anything under a few thousand copies could cost twice as much per copy (or more) than if they were printing tens of thousands of copies. The more you print, the cheaper it gets.

I ordered the two issue pak.

Price of two issue pak (and tax, I guess): $36.30
Priority Shipping Northern America: $15.58
Total: $51.88

Seems a good deal to me.

Tom

TomL said:

I ordered the two issue pak.

Price of two issue pak (and tax, I guess): $36.30
Priority Shipping Northern America: $15.58
Total: $51.88

Seems a good deal to me.

Tom

Click to expand...

How did you get the NA shipping? I only see the "Rest of the World" shipping for $21.63?

Fungi said:

How did you get the NA shipping? I only see the "Rest of the World" shipping for $21.63?

Click to expand...

Rest o the world shipping is the worst case scenario.
Put in your shipping address, and you'll get the actual shipping cost, which will be less than 21.63.

Tom

Little tidbit from the new issue since Jonathan just shipped his second lot of magazines and I doubt this will hurt his sales. I don't know how many of you that have heard about Dennis Nordman's and Greg Freres's custom game Whoa Nelly! Big Juicy Melons. It's made from a Gottlieb table from the 50's called Continental Cafe. Well, it was only supposed to be four custom, hand made games but it's a good possibility Stern may pick it up to make an actual production run. Also, according to the article, Dennis and Greg have talked to FarSight about a possible digital conversion. Even though I'm not a big EM fan I would love to see this. It's a pretty cool looking layout that Dennis came up with. Yes, it was altered some from the original Continental Cafe. Also, even though it's an EM style game it has or will have solid state components which include a sound board. So maybe, some background music. I'm surprised I couldn't find any really good videos of it but here's a link to their Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Whizbang-Pinball/103211373044997

Hard to say if this pin's theme would be acceptable for Pinball Arcade's E rating. I think it has something to do with breasts.

Like I said, Pinball Magazine's sales seem to be doing well and with the few amount of EM fans on here, I don't think I'm hurting them by posting this. If the mods feel otherwise, just remove it. I promise not to cry.