It was with great sadness that we noted the message from Kell Black that he could no longer continue to publish the Card Formation news letter. This news letter was the first publication about card modeling in the United States. I was introduced to Card Formation when there was only one Internet mailing list which contained less than 100 people.
The news letter was produced before there was much interest in the Internet. It still served the purpose of keeping those who did not have access or interest in the Internet in touch with the hobby of card modeling. The sad part about this is that those people now become isolated from the mainstream of this hobby.
Those of us who have a computer and access to the Internet are very lucky. There are three large mailing lists, lots of web pages and this magazine to help us keep abreast of what is happening around the world in card modeling. Unless someone comes up with another printed newsletter or decides to bring Card Formation back to life those that do not have this these access are out of luck.
It is much easier and cheaper to produce the magazine on the Internet than it is to publish a printed version. With a print version it would be way to expensive to do the reviews we do in the magazine because of the cost of reproducing the pictures. Even in the newsletter format that Card Formation maintained it is still expensive to produce. This is why a subscription fee had to be charged for the news letter.
I understand Kell's reasons for giving the publication up. If I were not retired I would not have the time to spend that it takes to publish this magazine. Many thanks to Kell for keeping the publication alive as long as he could. The publication will be missed but we hope that Kell will not. We will be looking forward to seeing his contributions continue on the mailing list and hopefully in this magazine.
Saul
