Tales of the Reaching Moon availability

[svensson]

Doing a quick search, I'm having trouble finding Tales of the Reaching Moon issues anywhere. Well, other than the odd issue here and there that shows up on eBay at 'your nostalgia will be monetized' prices, anyway.

Is there a source where we can download some of the old magazines a reasonable prices? I'm aware of Different Worlds being available.

Thanks all.

[Bill the barbarian]

Colour me interested as well... Maybe when I finally get out of the economic doldrums perhaps I will join you in dishing out cash... let me try a summoning svennson. What do you say @Rick Meints? Any good news now or in the future for us.

[Nick Brooke]

There is no legitimate source for digital versions of “Tales of the Reaching Moon” magazine, which was never released commercially in PDF format. There are significant hurdles to creating them (because whoever made them would need the agreement of every writer and artist whose work is in an issue, or their estate), and it is unlikely ever to happen. Sorry about that.

[JRE]

I fully understand the difficulty, but I wonder if it would be possible to do so as volunteer work to get them freely available, at least the parts where you can get an agreement for free use, and skipping the parts where the author / artist does not agree or cannot be found. A lot of work, compounded by scanning and polishing the files. But feasible if the main copyright holders agree and enough volunteers can be found. I would imagine most living authors / artists could be tracked by the different people in this board, as shown with Ian's results with his Pavis work. I would expect that to do it free would be easier than to set-up a payment scheme for all the people involved.

In my very small part, I guarantee free use of the one or two pages of mine published in it. I think I am missing only the first issue, but I would need to find the right box. However, as I suppose is the case for most of us, the real problem is time available.

 

[soltakss]

I am happy for everything I write in fanzines to be used to reissue those fanzines.

However, many authors/artists just can no longer be found, so cannot give consent.

[Nick Brooke]

I plan to reissue some of my old Tales work on the Jonstown Compendium, enhanced and expanded and revised. So I don't want to make the old versions freely available, because I already have enough problems with strange folk who ask: "A Rough Guide to Glamour? I already own the 1997 edition, it's hard to imagine there's anything new in the massively-expanded 2020 hardback edition. A History of Malkionism? I skim-read the 1994 text on your website / in Tales, so why would I want a gorgeously-illustrated artbook of your best Gloranthan article, bulging with Katrin Dirim's mediaeval illuminations?"

People are the worst. (Except my customers: they're all lovely!)

Edited September 30, 2022 by Nick Brooke

[svensson]

8 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

I plan to reissue some of my old Tales work on the Jonstown Compendium, enhanced and expanded and revised. So I don't want to make the old versions freely available, because I already have enough problems with strange folk who ask: "A Rough Guide to Glamour? I already own the 1997 edition, it's hard to imagine there's anything new in the massively-expanded 2020 hardback edition. A History of Malkionism? I skim-read the 1994 text on your website / in Tales, so why would I want a gorgeously-illustrated artbook of your best Gloranthan article, bulging with Katrin Dirim's mediaeval illuminations?"

People are the worst. (Except my customers: they're all lovely!)

I was a cook for many, many years. Cooking would be a great job if it wasn't for customers..... 🤣

So yeah, I know what you mean.

[JRE]

That makes sense, if you plan to reuse all that great material.

I was thinking of some people doing something like Wyrm Footprints did for the Wyrm Footnotes material, but doing it all on a volunteer basis to minimize the discussions that money always brings to the table. I certainly do not have the time or inclination to do so and I do have already my issues, but I remember when it was the only light in the darkness, till its example brought the lightbringers together. I would like others to appreciate that, as well as maybe a different approach to Glorantha.

[Akhôrahil]

6 hours ago, svensson said:

I was a cook for many, many years. Cooking would be a great job if it wasn't for customers..... 🤣

So yeah, I know what you mean.

A fellow player told me this about driving a bus. If it wasn’t for the passengers…

[Brian Duguid]

I think there'd be far more mileage in reviving the idea of a Best of Tales than there is in trying to digitally reprint the originals, which I think is impossible as the owners of too much content can't be traced / are no longer with us / etc. Even that would (in my view) need the blessing of the main publisher/editor, and be a huge pile of work.

[Nick Brooke]

Years back I championed that idea, but back then none of the former Tales editors was interested. So I’m doing other things instead.

[Nick Brooke]

To be clear: I thought collections of “Tales of Prax,” “Tales of Sartar” and ”Tales of the Lunar Empire” would be eminently do-able, with easily-contacted authors for all the stuff we’d want to include. But nobody bit, and the caravan has moved on.

[Revilo Divad Of Dyoll]

Personally, I am looking forward to Wyrm's Footnotes 16.

[jajagappa]

11 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

I plan to reissue some of my old Tales work on the Jonstown Compendium, enhanced and expanded and revised. So I don't want to make the old versions freely available

The same here as I work through my Imther & related material (scattered across Tales, Enclosure, Codex, and New Lolon Gospel as well as never published content) and recast to align with RQG, the Guide, etc.  

[MOB]

On 9/29/2022 at 5:09 PM, Nick Brooke said:

There is no legitimate source for digital versions of “Tales of the Reaching Moon” magazine, which was never released commercially in PDF format. There are significant hurdles to creating them (because whoever made them would need the agreement of every writer and artist whose work is in an issue, or their estate), and it is unlikely ever to happen. Sorry about that.

The editorial policy of Tales was that copyright of all the material published in the magazine (artwork & articles) is retained by the original authors.

[Bill the barbarian]

1 hour ago, MOB said:

The editorial policy of Tales was that copyright of all the material published in the magazine (artwork & articles) is retained by the original authors.

Always has been and always will be in projects I do. It shows respect for those you work with. Actually, it just shows respect!

[Rick Meints]

On 9/28/2022 at 10:32 PM, svensson said:

Doing a quick search, I'm having trouble finding Tales of the Reaching Moon issues anywhere. Well, other than the odd issue here and there that shows up on eBay at 'your nostalgia will be monetized' prices, anyway.

Is there a source where we can download some of the old magazines a reasonable prices? I'm aware of Different Worlds being available.

Thanks all.

Different Worlds has a handful of old issues for sale on Tadashi's website. They are not available in PDF, as they were printed in the late 70s and early 80s. Any PDFs of Tales or DW would thus be bootleg pirate copies. Like Nick said, both Nick and I lobbied to get Tales available a while back but the Megacorp leadership declined to make that happen. Thus, I wouldn't hold your breath for legitimate Tales PDFs ever getting done. Even if a group of fans took on the task of scanning in the originals and creating PDFs from them, they still could not be sold or even given away for free. That's not how copyright works. I can guarantee you that a bunch of the content is owned by Moon Design, and while we love getting old things back into print this isn't something we would of approve when it comes to a third party, no matter ho well intentioned, would like to do it.

[svensson]

6 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

Different Worlds has a handful of old issues for sale on Tadashi's website. They are not available in PDF, as they were printed in the late 70s and early 80s. Any PDFs of Tales or DW would thus be bootleg pirate copies. Like Nick said, both Nick and I lobbied to get Tales available a while back but the Megacorp leadership declined to make that happen. Thus, I wouldn't hold your breath for legitimate Tales PDFs ever getting done. Even if a group of fans took on the task of scanning in the originals and creating PDFs from them, they still could not be sold or even given away for free. That's not how copyright works. I can guarantee you that a bunch of the content is owned by Moon Design, and while we love getting old things back into print this isn't something we would of approve when it comes to a third party, no matter ho well intentioned, would like to do it.

Yeah, I understand that. As a publisher, guarding your copyrights/franchise/IP is naturally a major concern. SOME game magazines have allowed old material out into the aether but not everyone can be so generous, and there's nothing wrong with protecting what's yours.

Am I disappointed? Of course I am. TotRM and HiG had some of the absolute best 'approved for use with' writing ever done by anybody. And at least some authors [MOB for example] are returning to their older works and expanding on it.

[Bill the barbarian]

Just now, svensson said:

Yeah, I understand that. As a publisher, guarding your copyrights/franchise/IP is naturally a major concern. SOME game magazines have allowed old material out into the aether but not everyone can be so generous, and there's nothing wrong with protecting what's yours.

 

Publishers may want to keep their work and the rights to their work in hand and protect them and quite rightly as you say. That said, in this case It seems (my opinion only, and hats off to them if so) Rick and crew are also looking out for both the copyright laws their rights, and the rights of their contributors who took time out of their lives to make TFtRM as successful and sought out decades later as it is. I think you will find that the concern is as much for the article writer who would be difficult to find and get correct permission from as it is for rights held by the folk behind TFtRM.

 

[MOB]

19 hours ago, svensson said:

Am I disappointed? Of course I am. TotRM and HiG had some of the absolute best 'approved for use with' writing ever done by anybody. And at least some authors [MOB for example] are returning to their older works and expanding on it.

We (Chaosium) will give every encouragement to Tales of the Reaching Moon authors and artists who'd like to reprise and expand on their work via the Jonstown Compendium, and our wonderful community content ambassadors are here to help.

[Nick Brooke]

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Rick, MOB and Jeff, three of Chaosium’s principals, could not have been more supportive when we were getting A Rough Guide to Glamour into shape for the Jonstown Compendium.

[Robert S.]

On 9/30/2022 at 11:03 AM, Akhôrahil said:

A fellow player told me this about driving a bus. If it wasn’t for the passengers…

For over 20 years, one of my most repeated comments in the classroom was, "students? As if teaching wasn't already hard enough ..."