Article: PLUGGEDIN PRESS Online magazines offer more than chit-chat; A quick guide to best, worst e-zines Suck, Feed, Addicted to Noise and Mr. Showbiz are all top-notch, but there's so much else out there. Here are a few more of the best and worst of the e-zine scene: Best: Wheeze (http: www.concentric.net rcade wheeze.html). Mainly a Suck parody, this site is screamingly funny and really dead-on. Lately the Wheezers have trained their sights on Point Communications, which does the "Top 5% of the Web" rating system. Wheeze applies sarcasm with all the finesse and class of Tonya Harding. Wheeze may not be the most tactful kid on the block, but it's certainly the most entertaining. Echo Base (http: members.aol.com pfletzer echobase.htm). Started as a way for editor Peter Fletzer to advertise his freelance writing, this site has evolved into one of the better non-official Star Wars fanzines. It just went through a redesign, and huge graphics and photos make for a download time that's positively agonizing. It features laudatory essays on Princess Leia, convention news, toy reviews and the occasional interview, making it a modestly hot spot for Lucasfilm groupies. Salon (http: www.salon1999.com). Most pages are slow to download, its design is inconsistent and its links need some bugs worked out. But the articles on this media culture commentary magazine are fabulous, worth every second of the wait. With sections updated daily and weekly, Salon chooses its subjects carefully and has the guts to bark at the big dogs, like its recent swipe at Bob Woodward's "insider" journalism and the godlike status the media business awards him. Eclipse (http: www.eclipsemagazine.com). The trouble with most Web magazines is they don't explore the medium they're in. They try to be like print magazines, cramming their content into print parameters to keep their readers comfy. Not so with this "Generation X" zine. Granted, it isn't the prettiest one out there. But its separate areas for political debate; video game, film and music reviews; and fiction-writing forums give this one a lot of potential. Worst: Serendipity (http: uptown.turnpike.net S Serra). The operative part of the title being DIP. This site is so New-Age, field-of-flowers silly, it almost reads like a parody. Colored in harmless, aura-friendly pastels, this British mag celebrates the finding of wonderful things by accident. And boy, let's hope this site was an accident. The most offensive part of the whole overly inoffensive bunny-hug of a site is its feedback area, which reminds readers, "Remember, these are YOUR pages, too." BlenderWeb (http: www.blender.com). This site's motto is "Stick Your Head in a Blender," and after 10 minutes of viewing it, you'll begin to wish the creators had taken their own advice. The backgrounds are bright red and yellow or a mottled purple that makes the content, even if it was profound and useful, impossible to read. The huge, ugly graphics look more like Ren and Stimpy than Ren an

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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee, WI)

Article date:

July 22, 1996

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