Aaron and Tom are excited. It’s the launch of Zap magazine - ’the mag for all ZX Spectrum Users’. It is, as the tagline says, a magazine dedicated to people with a ZX Spectrum and Spectrum +. It has news and reviews and games that the lads have written the code for, ready for people to type in and Run. Aaron and Tom are the co-editors in chief and the main contributors. They have been working away at it for a few months now, in the college computer room and at Aaron’s house because his Dad, the Reverend Alan has just bought a new Amstrad word processor with its own printer. Aaron’s Mum Sheila says it’s a waste of money, looks ugly and that they could have put the money towards buying the little caravan she wants in Tenby. Alan said that he needed it for work, to compose his sermons and to make the parish newsletter look more professional. In some ways this advance into a brave new technological world is a shame because Aaron really loved the smell of the spirit duplicator and now he would have to spend hours teaching his Dad how to use the Amstrad ( for an intelligent man Alan could be incrediby slow learning new things). But in other ways the arrival of the computer heralds a bright future. He will no longer have to spend hours helping his Dad by turning the handle of the duplicator hundreds and hundreds of times every month to print the newsletter and, of course, he can use the word processor for his own projects.
The first issue of Zap includes drawings by Tom’s friend Miles who is a posh boy and lives at Castle Hall. Aaron hates Miles … he doesn’t have any real reason except that his parents are obviously incredibly rich and that he’s got floppy hair and that he’s brilliant at art and that he exudes a relaxed and unforced confidence that Aaron knows he will never have. Ever. And he wears glasses and looks good in them whereas Aaron wears glasses and looks uncomfortable and well … short sighted. Miles has drawn the front cover and has depicted the castle being stormed by alien stormtroopers and the sky full of explosions and futuristic fighter jets. He has also created a comic strip called ‘The Gits’ which features a lazy town family where the parents sit around watching tele all day while the son sits around playing games on his Spectrum on a portable tele in his bedroom. ‘The Gits’ communicate in grunts and shouting and the son escapes into a fantasy future world where he is an intergalactic hero. To make Aaron’s dislike of Miles even greater but even more insupportable he thinks ‘The Gits’ is really funny and clever. Bloody Miles.
Aaron and Tom have managed to get a few shops in town to stock Zap – Preedy’s, Abbots, The Bookshop and Micks the Butchers. They made an advert for Hilltop Radio last week. You might have heard it … Aaron’s making space zapping noises in the background while Tom describes what’s in the first issue. Most of their mates at college think they’re wierd but most of their mates haven’t created a magazine from scratch and got it into the shops.
