STERN factory tour!

Oh man, Jon and I really, REALLY wanted to go to Pinball Expo this year, but with our teaching schedules it just wasn't in the cards this year...  The expo event that we were the most excited about checking out was the Stern Pinball factory tour.  Luckily, Darian Glover did go on the tour, and whipped up this excellent video of the trip.  It looks like it was a lot of fun...  Maybe we'll be able to go next year!

Harry Potter Pinball Wizard T-Shirt!

If you have been enjoying the Harry Potter Pinball dream machine playfields I have been drawing for Drop Target, then man-oh-man do I have the T-shirt for you!

This awesome Harry Potter Pinball Wizard T-shirt was designed by Ashley Hay and is available for a measly $11 on TheYetee.com   It's only available until 10/20 (about 40 more hours!) so if you want to score one for yourself, you'd better apparate over to there right away!

Thanks to Drop Target reader Don for letting me know about the shirt.  I ordered one and it will be my official pinball shirt from now on!

Max's Carcassonne Pinball Adventure

The "Dream Machine" in Drop Target #3 was created by our Belgian pinball friend Max de Radiguès, who many of you no doubt recognize from our installments of "Zeros to Heroes."  After spending a year living (and playing pinball!) in White River Junction, Vermont, Max has returned to his homeland of Belgium, where he is still playing pinball!

Recently Max traveled to Carcassonne, France to visit his cartoonist friend Pierre Maurel.  While in town, Max and Pierre taught a series of comics workshops at local schools.  As an added bonus, Pierre tracked down a local pinball enthusiast who agreed to show the guys his pinball collection.  Here is Max's description of their trip out to his house:

It's in a farm a little outside Carcassonne. The guy is from Luxembourg and owns something like 30 machines (he had more than 40 but sold a couple of them). They are from a lot of differents time periods... He also as a huge slot machine collection. He just like to fix them. He doesn't really like to play... 

So they're all in his barn covered with blankets, dust and random stuff...  He buys most of them in Belgium and Luxembourg and sometimes Holland and he as a few machine on free play for his clients (he rents rooms for tourist...)  He's getting divorce and looses the house so god knows what will happen to that treasure...  Wish you could have been there !

Below are some photos from their visit - what a collection!  Hopefully they'll end up in good hands.

Sorry it has been quiet around here lately.  We have been spending most of our recent "Drop Target Time" sending out orders to all of our readers! Jon and I have a lot of cool stuff in the pipeline though, and we'll be sharing some of it with you all soon!  Until then, keep flipping!

Drop Target #3 is now available for ordering!

Okay, Drop Target #3 is finally available for ordering!  This is our most jam-packed issue yet.  It has all the regular features as well as two NEW features:  "Special When LITerature" (pinball book reviews!) and "BANG BACKS" which we were going to include in issue #2, but we couldn't quite get it together.

Here is all the information about this issue:

DROP TARGET #3 - The Classics Issue

56 pages - 5.5" x 8.5" - B&W printing

First Printing: 8.5" x 14" full-color centerfold, screenprinted cover

FEATURING:

- THE REPLAY REVIEW: Classic Pinball Machines

- VIDEO MODE: Tommy (1975) vs. TILT (1979)

- SPECIAL WHEN LITERATURE: Pinball! By Roger Sharpe

- PINHALLS: The Pacific Pinball Museum - Alameda, CA

- TILT TALK: Interview with PPM director Michael Schiess

- BANG BACKS: Interview with Ben Heck

- APRIL FOG MEMORIAL PINBALL SCHOLARSHIP

- DREAM MACHINES: Zine King by Max de Radiguès, Portal by Jon Chad and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by Alec Longstreth

- FROM ZEROS TO HEROES: Part 3 - Making a Monster

You can order a copy on the DTZ #3 ordering page.  Also, sadly we had to get rid of the combo page.  Even with just three issues there were starting to be a lot of different combinations.  With four or five or six or SEVEN issues, it would have been too much to keep up with.  So for now, you can add issues one at a time on each of their pages and use the "VIEW CART" buttons to see what you've got.  

Thanks everyone for your patience and continued support.  Next up will be the MOVES issue, which we're aiming to have out in January/February.

Drop Target #1 first printing has SOLD OUT!

Well, it's official.  The first printing of Drop Target #1 has SOLD OUT.  All 400 copies have been sold, but the zine is not out of print!  Jon and I have created an easier-to-make second printing, which is still available on the DTZ #1 page.

The second printing has a plain black and white printed cover (instead of a screen printed cover on color paper) and instead of the full-color, fold out center spread, it has a grayscale center spread on the same size paper as the rest of the zine.  Everything else is the same.  Instead of a $5 cover price, the second printing will only cost $4, because it has fewer bells and whistles.

We will be creating similar second printings for each of the Drop Target Zines as their first printings sell out, so that we can focus our self-publishing energy on the NEW issues.  Once the first printings of all seven issues go out of print, we will make a print on demand collection of all the issues.

Just so everyone gets a chance to see the center spread Dream Machine playfield in full color, here is a low-res web version for you all to enjoy!  We will post these each time an issue's first printing runs out.

We are in the process of sending out the comp copies of Drop Target #3 and it will be available for ordering later this week!  Thank you all for your patience.

Well what do we have HERE???

 

Tonight we finished the first proof copies of Drop Target #3!  In an unprecedented move,  Jon and I are going examine the books for a WHOLE NIGHT, to look for any errors, BEFORE printing.  Tomorrow we'll be slinging paper in the lab, and the book will debut at SPX September 10th and 11th in Bethesda, Maryland!

Also, things are going to be CRAZY around here with the start of the semester and SPX, so it looks like it won't be available until AFTER the show.  Really, that's the soonest that we will actually have time to fill all the orders, etc. etc.  Sorry for the delay, but please know that it will be worth the wait!  This issue is a zinger!

It's off to proofreading we go!