Thank you for picking up our second Anniversary
issue! To celebrate we bring you a Giant-themed issue. Inside you'll find a
six-page story by Adrienne Reynolds about the biggest toy show of them all: the annual
American International Toy Fair in New York. Also, David Milner, a noted Godzilla writer,
introduces our readers to the models and toys available for collectors of Japanese Monster
Movies. You may wonder at the lack of illustrations for his article; unfortunately, Toho,
the owners of Godzilla, have interesting policies regarding use of their publicity photos
and the use of photos taken of Godzilla products available on store shelves. Strange
New Worlds readers will have to rely on their imaginations to visualize the rampaging
toys described in the article. (I decided against running a computer-distorted photo of
Godzilla, similar to the blurring effect tabloids use for Michael Jackson's companions.)
Bennet Pomerantz's column highlights the giant collectibles now available. This will be
Bennet's last regular column in our pages, but we look forward to his feature articles in
future issues.
Our Models and Miniatures columnist Archie Waugh is busy preparing for
Dragon*Con in Atlanta. Archie will be involved in the Star Trek panels and will be riding
solo for two presentations. He will display and discuss many of the models reviewed in Strange
New Worlds. Archie asks that any modelers attending the convention to bring your own
models to share at these panels. He'd love to see the work of our readers and would be
happy to either make suggestions or learn from your efforts. Dragon*Con is July 15 -17 at
the Atlanta Hilton and Towers. Stop by the Strange New Worlds table and meet
Archie and me.
Thank you so much to all our readers who responded to our first reader
survey. Congratulations to the winners of the drawing. Steven C. Austin, Jani Fleet, Wendy
Hyers, Gary R. McElwee, and Nelda Porter won two-year subscriptions to Strange New
Worlds; Helen Quinby won the Grand Prize, a limited edition Playmates Star Trek
Classic Collector Figure Set donated by Mark Kulenich of Toyz 4 Boyz. I am amazed so many
of our winners were women, since mostly men responded to the survey. I'm curious about the
two respondents who didn't answer the gender question — perhaps I have two
extra-terrestrial readers.
According to the survey, two-thirds of our readers are male. Most of you
are between the ages of 31 and 50, have completed at least some college, and a staggering
95 percent have never been married and have no children. With these numbers, I was
surprised at the strong interest you expressed in our Collectible Kids column. Adrienne
thinks her column may be addressing the "Crazy Uncle Walt" market. I think we
have a lot of doting aunts and uncles among our readers (of course, I'm "Crazy Auntie
Jo" to my niece and nephews). My mother, upon hearing how many eligible single men
read my magazine, decided that I need to meet more of my readers. Look for more survey
results in the next issue.
Thanks for supporting our publication through the terrible twos. I'm
looking forward to an exciting third year of publication.
Jo Davidsmeyer
Publisher
