INTRO

Fathoms Below is a little "zine" I did during a few of my college years (1990-1992). It was mostly a one person project that consisted mainly of personal writings. The FULL set of Fathoms Below (3 digest and 2 magazine size issues) consist of over 115 8.5 x 11 pages. Through its two year FIVE issue history the zine covered a variety of subjects but never became clear cut enough to be "labeled" like many other zines. Some issues were typed while others were laid out on a computer (MAC) with quality remaining consistent. Subjects/topics covered included: fictitious stories, poems (a couple), art, comics, "IQ" questions, editor's notes, music/zine reviews, questioning of the unknown, pondering of life, quotes, collages, fables, letters, one friendship book, interviews, humor, and pictures. Though not the complete list it should give you an idea of what Fathoms Below was all about. Maybe the zine is best summed up saying it was a zine about the confusions in life, the exploring of doing, and the attempt to make sense of mine and others presence on this planet.

All of the Fathoms Below issues exist here in Adobe's PDF format. If you are interested in reading the paper version of this zine then send $7.00 (which includes 4th class postage--$8.00 for 1st class) my way. The package includes all five issues in a protective bag and a 3.5" HD IBM disk with some demos and more writings of mine. Only two of these "collectors set" remain.

ABOUT

Fathoms Below is a zine that grew out of my desire to express myself in a more artistic manner. I took mine and others writings, art, etc and put them together to create this small press publication. On average each issue had a pressing of about 100 issues. Over the two years I produced FB five issues and under 500 total copies were printed. I am putting the issues on-line for those of you who never got a chance to see the originals as they came out.

FROM PRINT TO PDF

To port each Fathoms Below (in paper form) to the Adobe PDF format required a few purchases--I bought a scanner (UMAX Astra 600s) and Adobe Acrobat 3.0. My P90 with 32 megs of RAM handled the task quite well. It does, however, take the better part of a day to convert each issue. With Acrobat I have the option of converting each page (graphically stored) to text by using the Capture plug-in. The trade off is about a meg more of disk space if I keep everything in graphical format. So for each issue if the text could easily be converted I used the capture plug-in. Not only does this take up less space but it also allows the zine to be searchable--a nice feature. On the bad side the Capture plug-in does have problems and on the OCR pages you can often see font changes (size, spacing, and other weirdness). I did what I could to keep the original page layout intacted. If there was a severe compromise I chose not to covert the page from its graphical format. Adobe's plug in could definitely use some work but did an okay job (two out of five star job) for what I was trying to accomplish. Acrobat did crash on me several times but nothing major although crashes can get very annoying. You will require Acrobat Reader 3.0 (which is freeware) to view the issues though.

I do have a couple copies of the print version for sale if you would rather not read the PDF versions of the zine. E-mail me (dmw @ this website) if you are interested.

REVIEWS

Books, zines, movies, records, etc. all tend to generate different opinions from different people. So when reading the reviews (both good and bad) below keep this in mind.

FATHOMS BELOW #1

A mix of diverse material. There are brain teasers, comics, a weird short story, and music and zine reviews. Reprinted fables and thoughts on whether UFOs exist also share these pages with a medley of graphics swiped from mainstream sources. No focus, but enough of interest to make it worth reading. --Factsheet Five

I'm not real sure how to classify Fathoms Below, but there is a lot of good reading and fun within. The best part is definitely the "Ignorance Test" and the Brain Teasers (I remember this question from elementary school: "If three cats can kill three rats in three minutes, how long will it take 100 cats to kill 100 rats?") You'll also find essays, cartoons, poems, and humor but the editors also give space to magazine and record reviews (mostly rock-n-roll reviews). Good and interesting graphics, too. --Assault With Intent to Free

FATHOMS BELOW #2

A medley of all manner of personal writing and snippets of lowbrow culture. War worries, jury duty, brain teaser, Weinman poetry, short quotes, reviews and Dave Szurek are all part of the package. Dan is still exploring what he wants to do with this zine, but he clearly does not lack for talent. --Factsheet Five

FATHOMS BELOW #3

A zine of essays and personal writing from the fringes. This issue has stuff on government madness, Dave Szurek's very own phobia, the nastiness of habit, and more. Also includes the transcripts of a "friendship book" that Dan sent out to a batch of underground types. Fun and thoughtful. --Factsheet Five

Pointless articles and stories dealing with phobias and habits, an individual's experience on LSD, and excerpts from the editor's friendship book. There are also statistics derived from the production of this zine, comics on the tribulations of zine production, an extremely basic article on anarchism that my little sister could have written, and an extremely disturbing editorial on "thinking, acting and doing" which makes me highly doubt the editor's sanity. Nothing exceptional. --Profane Existence

Dan Wright spent part of his Florida youth making home-made bombs out of bottle rockets, so we're happy to see he's channeled his energies into something a whole lot safer these days--Fathoms Below, a 40-page quarterly zine in the old-fashioned personal style, kind of a hodgepodge of anarchist essays, letters, cartoon art, random observations, zine reviews, and a little poetry, and essays from fanzine veterans like Dave Szurek and Jacob Feuerwerker, the prison rabbi. Dan could use a little more focus, but he's getting there. --Joe Bob's We Are The Weird

FATHOMS BELOW #4

Another brilliant piece of work by mastermind Dan Wright. Less comics in this issue but the personal rants, interviews and other self-serving masturbations make this a nessity on coffee tables all over the world. Unfortunately, Dan has few left but will send you #5 if you order it. Do it now. --Second Guess

Very clean formatted zine put out by Dan Wright, an engineering student in Florida. I didn't find anything very spectacular in this offering, nothing warranting the high production cost anyway. The Dave Szurek piece on male feminist sexual mores didn't really have a point and maybe you shouldn't have dismissed your friend's mom's commentary regarding it so quickly. The brain tests were stimulating, kind of like the stuff you can find in OMNI. --Maximum RockNRoll

34-packed pages of writings, mixing humor with seriousness from the perspective of a frustrated punk in collej. People from a similar outlook will probably get the most out of this, but the diverse selections of topics for articles can appeal to more than collej geeks. The interview with Joe Franke was interesting, as well as the various rants. Topped off with some brain teasers, fables, and a good article entitled "Pitfalls in Printing." A quality read for the price. -- Profane Existence

FATHOMS BELOW #5

OK, so this guy owns a Mac and knows how to use it. He numbers his pages. It's a joy to look at. But that just doesn't cut it. This guy cranks out mediocre cartoons (that's being kind), and follows each strip with a detailed analysis of how fucking important he thinks he is. Hey, no doubt a lot of work went into this, but you've gotta be kidding me. The reason no one publishes these cartoons (except him) is because they suck. Sorry, but someone's got to tell him sooner or later. "Cutting edge" my asshole. --Maximum RockNRoll

As comic magazines go, Fathoms Below is a lose. The issue we received was a compilation of comics drawn by Dan Wright, the editor. Unfortunately, this "best of" compilation amounts to nothing more than an ego trip for Mr. Wright. He introduces his efforts by saying, "Artwise, I can't compare with many of the people out there, but humor wise I feel I can be quite witty." Unfortunately, he has crossed the line between being cynically witty and being offensive (and often just dumb). However, we admire his fortitude. [address info] However, credit should be given where credit is due, and Mr. Wright should be applauded for tipping us off to the following two zines: Funny Pages and Life is a Joke. -- VooDoo Magazine (MIT Journal of Humour)

ONLINE ISSUES

[Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.0 or newer is required to view the zines below]

Issue #1 -2.5M	Issue #2 - 1.9M	Issue #3 -2.1M

Issue #4 -4.2M	Issue #5 -3.9M