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Once again we made a few changes in the magazine. We try to do that at least once per year so the magazine is constantly improving. The cover design has been slightly modified and the inside layout has been seriously rethought in order to make the magazine easier to produce. Hopefully, this will help us keep our schedule, which fell behind again lately (the U.S. subscriptions mailing for last issue has been particularly late due to unfortunate technicalities). We hope you like this new look.
Another change: the subscription is now at $30. A subscriber will now pay the same price as somebody buying PA in a local store. It will not be faster, but subscribing ensures that you receive the magazine despite distribution problems (and comics distribution is experiencing lately quite an upheaval). We encourage you to harass your local store into ordering PA and to subscribe only in last resort.
Raising the subscription fee is necessary. Recently, there has been an important increase in production costs, mainly because printing has become more expensive (it is linked to a paper shortage), but also because of some changes in mail and custom prices. We are determined to keep the cover price of the magazine at $4.95, but we have to trim down a few things. Among other things, we have to make more room for paying advertising. It is not all bad and we are already thinking about more improvements. If the growth of the magazine continues as expected (and it surely will since the anime industry has never been so strong, particularly with all those shows coming on TV: SAMURAI TROOPER (RONIN WARRIORS) this June, SAILOR MOON and DRAGON BALL this Fall, etc.), we are planning for more pages before the end of the year!
Also, from now on, PA will offers more coverage on mecha-oriented anime, their related model kits, and we might talk (a little) about anime-related games. This kind of material was previously reserved to our sister publication, MECHA PRESS, but it has temporarily suspended publication for some economical and practical reasons. The magazine was not profitable enough for the resources it required and the undivided attention of its creative team (Dream Pod 9) was needed to oversee the first year of production (a delicate moment) of our new gaming line: HEAVY GEAR ROLEPLAYING & TACTICAL GAME. So all the anime-related material is transferred to PA. MECHA PRESS will resume publication in January '96 as a Modeling & Gaming biannual magazine (mainly dedicated to the support of DP9's game line) and each issue will be an over 100-page bound book. Subscribers who do not wish to wait that long could transfer their MECHA PRESS subscription to PA (or extend it if they are already PA subscriber) or have their subscription credited for gaming products or magazines back issues.
This issue offers you a BIG feature on STREET FIGHTER II animation and several smaller articles. It is heavy in information (those extra pages are really needed) particularly in the News Releases and in the Anime Review sections. There is so much stuff coming out! Enjoy!
Claude J. Pelletier
Publisher