Notes
Phantasm,
vol.
1,
no.
1,
issue
1,
1976
Independent
literary
journal
of
original
poetry,
fiction,
artwork,
articles,
features,
photos,
commentary,
book
reviews,
interviews,
and
announcements.
 |
Phantasm required authors to be subscribers to the magazine in order to build the readership of this new magazine. Subscriptions were five dollars a year for six issues. The policy was discontinued after four issues. See History for more information about the development of Phantasm. |
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Larry Jackson printed the pages of the first issue of Phantasm on six different colors of paper to see which, if any, would be used for subsequent issues. Future issues were printed on 70 lb. exact matte offset ivory stock. The logotype on the first issue was printed in reverse type, the only issue with that style and white paper. There were twelve subscribers to the first edition at five dollars a year for six issues, or two dollars a copy. |
Jackson typeset the poetry with a Sperry Remington SR101 typewriter, which Jackson borrowed money from Jennifer Rowe to buy. He made the headlines with handset lead type, which he reproduced using a Heidelberg 10 x 15 windmill letterpress. He cut and pasted the headlines onto a layout sheet with the typewriter copy. All subsequent issues of Phantasm were done this way, except starting with the second issue Jackson paid to have the type for nonpoetry set in galleys with a phototypesetter, which he cut and pasted onto layout sheets with the poems and headlines. In the last few issues Jackson did the phototypesetting himself.
After the camera-ready copy was pasted up, Jackson photographed it with a process camera to make lithographic negatives for aluminum printing plates. Photographs and continuous tone artwork had to be shot separately as halftones, then combined with the line copy film for the plates.
The plates were mounted on an A. B. Dick 360 duplicator offset press. Two pages on an 11 x 17 sheet were printed at a time on one side of the sheet. Jackson would clean the black ink off the press and use color ink for some of the pages--requiring a separate printing plate and press run.
When the ink set Jackson folded, collated, and stapled the sheets, then trimmed the edge with a paper cutter to make it even. He inserted the finished magazine into an envelope, addressed it, and mailed the issue from Chico, California, to subscribers and others. Each issue of Phantasm was produced this way. In those years there were no personal computers.
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An announcements column was started with readers invited to submit materials about events "related to poetry or art." This inaugural column's first announcement states, "This is the first edition of Phantasm. Heidelberg Graphics thanks everyone who contributed poetry or artwork. …" |
The announcements column was to be useful for leads on feature articles that would be published in Phantasm
