Well, the ballots are in and the survey says: the printed word’s preferred. That comes as no surprise to me—what was a bit surprising, however, was the overwhelming response I received. The very day the November issue hit the ’stands, emails began pouring in; 99.999 percent in favor of print. Kind of a nice readers’ reassurance, to say the least.
But R&C’s online entity is definitely a “source” to be reckoned with. While the website needs some serious tuning up, on the other side of the coin we’ve got our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/rodandcustom). There you can get up-to-the-minute magazine and general hobby-related info, including project updates and vital legislation news. I’ll be honest, I never thought Facebook was good for anything other than allowing ex-girlfriends and old schoolmates the ability to “reconnect”. While that’s still the case on a personal level, as far R&C’s concerned, it’s become a great tool.
As I’d mentioned in that particular editorial, we still have plenty of obstacles to overcome—externally and internally. Pleasing the readers is one thing; getting the magazine out to as many readers as possible, another. Both of those battles are fought behind the lines; the “pleasing” part is my duty, while the distribution aspect is someone else’s (wish I knew just who that was). If, in the last three to six months, you’ve noticed that R&C is no longer available wherever you normally purchased it, let me know, as this is indeed a fixable situation. Same for Little Pages—if you were unable to find it or it was sold out, shoot me an email.
There is one more thing that I recently brought to the table and need to address … again. Apparently there’s still a reader or two opposed to “lowriders” being featured in R&C. It completely blows my mind that any of the cars we’ve run could be construed as lowriders in the first place. Nothing—I repeat, NOTHING—about Jennifer Laosa’s gorgeous ’Bird, Erik Hernandez’s dynamic Olds, or Jack Fields’ stunning Starliner suggest they’re anything other than customs … period. And should you expect to see future-featured, similar-style customs? Absolutely.
Lastly, it seems as if a little statement I made in the Dal Porto lakester feature got misconstrued due to its “tense nature”. When I referred to Hop Up magazine as our “soon-to-be-sister publication”, that meant 60 years ago, not today. While I’d love to be able to call Hop Up an ink relative, as it stands now, there’s no relation whatsoever—we haven’t bought Hop Up, so let’s put that rumor to rest … for now.