The Wake.

"There’s music on the station,
but all I hear is cold wind,
cold wind, cold wind, cold wind blowing".

"So, Teletext, what happens next?
Frankly, I'm perplexed."

Please can we celebrate Megazine?
Please can you write about all your bestest memories of Megazine, and also all your favourite letters and 'Ziners and ideas.

:-[

Pretty much anything ever by Straws, Colin, Barry, David-James... Damn... I know there's many more but I just woke up :/

The first 'Zine letter I read was by Samurai Hedgehog back in '01 or '02 time, and it all went from there basically. I also recall Sam Got A Snorkel, Smashed Strawberry and The Geek Who Shall Inherit The Earth from those days.

What I think is fantastic is that Mega-Zine actually outlived previous text service Oracle by over 2 years. That fact alone makes the 'Zine even more epic in my eyes.

I remember Ian and Alex and Martin (Delorean one) being brilliant the last time I read as well. As in a couple of years ago, when I was under the other pseudo.

And you're welcome, you earned it by making me smile. Also, you're a nice person and that.

i once had a picture in August of 2006. It was a picture of a flapper.

My first letter was of course, only this year. All those years where I could have written in, and joined in the chat about EVA Units, and orangey cake snacks.

I remember coming home from school about 4pm, and my sister would ask me if 'Zine had updated yet, and we'd sit down and read it together, as she could never remember the Teletext page-number. Or which channel to even start on.

My favourite letter of all time was Martin DeLorian's one about playing a blank tape and the mime next door going nuts. The one-liners were always the best.

It took me about 4 years to write my first letter (2004 I think?) and I never really wrote much after that. 15-20 I think, combining Mancomb and Lewis Gumdrops. The only one I enjoyed whilst reading back was about wanting WLW to teach me the ways of love, and claiming I had my own ladder if that helped. A ha! I was a sh*t Ziner.

It was great though. Certainly allowed me to see that there were more interesting things to talk about than football, computer games or who was a 'knobber'/'p*ki'/'English c*nt' (my friends back were primed racists/homophobes at 10, and not much has changed). Definitely opened up the world of surreality and humour to my young mind, helping me find some direction for someone who knew they didn't belong with the people I was with, but didn't really know where to go from there. So thank you all!

I should say, I was B*ckch*tter first of all. No writing, I swear, but I did read it constantly. It warped my mind a little, as the first time I went on Zine (always, always, ALWAYS pronounced 'zeen' by the way) I thought everyone was an annoying weirdo. It took a while to realise that was just Spiky Stuy.

So big well done to everyone who made it great. Colin, Alex, Martin, other Martin, Alice etc for the genuinely brillaint letters, WLW for the hard editing and (sometimes) amusing comments, David-James and Strawberry for what they've done for Zine on here (and anyone else who has ever typed up letters and such), Andrames/Neen/whoever for getting VR on the go, and anyone who reads this.

Now to weep.

(Requiem for a 'Zine)

Aw, that was a lovely post. It was like an acceptance speech or something.

i always feel like Zine was and is ours as well. And i feel like that about VR.