3 out of 5

Emphasis on “magazine.”

I like Zach Soto.  I like the spirit of his Study Group imprint, which is definitely an independently spirited publisher that leans toward a zine type format, with appealingly more long-term storylines (or intended long term) than you see committed to in that genre.  While I didn’t read up on previous SGM’s to determine the gist, I was admittedly assuming – based on one line summaries in the Study Group shop and the names involved – that it would be a collection of unlinked shorts by different creators.  And maybe previous Study Groups are.  But #4 is fully a magazine, uniquely combining the open-ended format of Comics Journal – meaning articles / columns are expansive, and not boiled down for the masses – with damned high quality production.  So it’s a professional looking fan zine.  Some comics are scattered in, but they feel like support material to the text.  Issue 4 also comes bundled with a theme: Role playing games, as fully indicated by a gorgeous Levon Jihanian front cover (he also included an insert booklet for his own tabletop game), a fun Soto back cover, an awesome fold out print on stiff paper stock by Benjamin Marra and Soto (sadly two-sided, making hanging it a tough choice), and, of course, content that obsesses over RPGs in one way or another.  At 80+ pages, the twenty buck price tag might seem steep, but in terms of quantity of content, it’s worth it.

Unfortunately, despite the theme, allowing for the long-winded indie nature of things, SGM is desperately in need of some cotent editing, both to keep its focus, as well as typographically.  Some of the articles are just a pain to get through because they feel entirely without purpose until maybe a concluding sentence or paragraph, and the interviews (with Andrea Kalfas and Farel Dalrymple) tend to wander on and off a thread inorganically.   Some of the seasoned guys, like Dylan Horrocks, apply their own structure – a 20-sided die inspired ode to how gaming has influenced his life, for Dylan – which works well, but then you get to page-stuffers like Milo George and Tucker Stone’s discussion of Hawkworld, which served to make me want to strangle the cool bro jargon out of both participants.  It’s one of the few non gaming-centric features in the mag, and a cool comic-obsessed idea of having some guys shop-talk an in-depth analysis on a dated book, but the duo don’t accomplish a god damned thing with their conversation except to sound like what amounts to film students discussing Citizen Kane after taking their first film class, i.e. stuffing a lot of verbal excess between un-understood and / or borrowed ideas.  Which is weird, ’cause these guys probably know their stuff, but textualizing a bro conversation just makes them sound like prats.

Elsewhere some of the text is middling (like Joe McCulloch’s vague discussion on Otomo 13, and other similarly slim articles) but bumps into points, and then once or twice zine-tastic, like the in depth look into Dalrymple’s process (although it’s riddled with typos).  The comics work is all interesting and very mixed medium, but these definitely feel like offbeats, more a way to discover potential interests than to read someone’s best work.

So the final result is…?  If you’re looking for a casual browse, the price tag makes this not that.  Even if rpgs are your jam, I’m not sure what there is to push this over something else, so I think its more a fledgling interest in the creators or style is required, and then the fat stack of content delivered is worth it.