| Subscribers: When you get your copy of issue #47, keep the yellow insert with subscription resolution options and instructions to fill out and return. Also note the "Last=#__" on your mailing label, which shows how many issues were remaining in your subscription. |
Editorial Spacefrom 3D Artist issue #473D Artist magazine is closing with this issue [#47]. 3dartist.com will remain an important online resource, and a place where readers can continue to buy back issues. An inescapable reality is that advertising support for print magazines everywhere, and especially in the 3D graphics field, has declined precipitously. Even if readership numbers were growing, our readers, through increased subscription and cover prices, couldn't be expected to take over from advertisers the enormous costs of printing and distribution. The historical changes underway in publishing dwarf the rip tides that have roiled the 3D graphics field. I had long believed that 3D Artist, with its successes to date, was a prime candidate to ride all this change into an era of new publishing technologies and business models, but, to do that, we first had to remain profitable through the end of the old era. It is the norm, when magazines close, to transfer subscriptions to other magazines, or to just disappear with the money. Not here. 3D Artist subscribers will find enclosed with this issue [#47] a special form with their options (resolution must be taken care of before March 2003). Subscribers can continue to post free classifieds and 3D Artists Directory listings on 3dartist.com through June 2002. We didn't have room to print all the articles accepted for this issue, and we would like to finish one or more multi-part articles in progress. If the writers agree, a free 3DA#47 PDF supplement will be posted sometime this Spring (watch the site). Good luck to everyone. Big thanks to the readers and advertisers who stayed with us for so many years. And special thanks to all the 3D artists who ever made the effort to write one or more how-to articles for these pages. You're a terrific bunch. Please use mail or E-mail. We have got to get busy with new efforts, so we will stop taking calls immediately, and the phone/fax lines will be retired by July. --Bill Allen & Sally Beach, Co-Publishers |