''Cryptych'' was a bi-monthly magazine first published in July 1993 by

ILM International Inc Ilm or ILM may refer to: Acronyms * Identity Lifecycle Manager, a Microsoft Server Product * '' I Love Money,'' a TV show on VH1 * Independent Loading Mechanism, a mounting system for CPU sockets * Industrial Light & Magic, an American motion ...

. It lasted eight issues.

Description

''Cryptych'' edited by JM White, featured articles on fantasy, speculative fiction and roleplaying games and interviews with writers and notable people in the games industry, including

Ed Greenwood Ed Greenwood (born July 21, 1959) is a Canadian fantasy writer and the original creator of the ''Forgotten Realms'' game world. He began writing articles about the Forgotten Realms for '' Dragon'' magazine beginning in 1979, and subsequently sol ...

, RA Salvatore,

Wes Craven Wesley Earl Craven (August 2, 1939 – August 30, 2015) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and editor. Craven has commonly been recognized as one of the greatest masters of the horror genre due to the cultural imp ...

Terry Brooks Terence Dean Brooks (born January 8, 1944) is an American writer of fantasy fiction. He writes mainly epic fantasy, and has also written two film novelizations. He has written 23 ''New York Times'' bestsellers during his writing career, and has ...

John Carpenter John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, actor, and composer. Although he worked in various film genres, he is most commonly associated with horror, action, and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s. He ...

Garth Ennis Garth Ennis (born January 16, 1970) is a Northern Irish–American comics writer, best known for the Vertigo series ''Preacher'' with artist Steve Dillon, his nine-year run on Marvel Comics' Punisher franchise, and ''The Boys'' with artist Dari ...

William Gibson William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as ''cyberpunk''. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, hi ...

Frederik Pohl Frederik George Pohl Jr. (; November 26, 1919 – September 2, 2013) was an American science-fiction writer, editor, and fan, with a career spanning nearly 75 years—from his first published work, the 1937 poem "Elegy to a Dead Satellite ...

, Dave Duncan,

Dennis Muren Dennis Muren, A.S.C (born November 1, 1946) is an American film visual effects artist and supervisor. He has worked on the films of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron, among others, and has won nine Oscars in total: eight for Be ...

Jaron Lanier Jaron Zepel Lanier (, born May 3, 1960) is an American computer scientist, visual artist, computer philosophy writer, technologist, futurist, and composer of contemporary classical music. Considered a founder of the field of virtual reality, ...

, and

Richard Garfield Richard Channing Garfield (born June 26, 1963) is an American mathematician, inventor and game designer. Garfield created '' Magic: The Gathering'', which is considered to be the first collectible card game (CCG). ''Magic'' debuted in 1993 and i ...

. Original cover art included three works by

NeNe Thomas Nene Tina Thomas (born August 31, 1968) is an artist living in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She specialises in fantasy art, particularly faeries. Career Her first professional job was in 1994 when, according to her website, the publisher Wizards of the ...

. The magazine also included games company newsletters, including the

Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. It is currently a subsidi ...

newsletter that contained some of the first information on ''

Magic: The Gathering ''Magic: The Gathering'' (colloquially known as ''Magic'' or ''MTG'') is a Tabletop game, tabletop and Digital collectible card game, digital Collectible card game, collectable card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards ...

''. Later issues of the magazine would contain extensive coverage of ''Magic: The Gathering''. Eight issues of ''Cryptych'' were published before the magazine folded in the fall of 1994.

Reception

In the December 1994 edition of '' Dragon'' (Issue 212),

Allen Varney Allen Varney (born 1958) is an American writer and game designer. Varney has produced numerous books, role-playing game supplements, technical manuals, articles, reviews, columns, and stories, as well as the fantasy novel ''Cast of Fate'' ( TSR, ...

found the magazine unfocussed, calling it "a fascinating mess — a lunar mountain range of articles, starkly uneven, weirdly arresting." Varney concluded "Anyone can find ''something'' worthwhile in this magazine, and it will certainly find a focus over time, but for now I find this brilliant hodgepodge quite cr — uh, baffling."

References

External links

''CRYPTYCH'' 1/I {{ISBN, 1-883773-00-8 Photos of all Eigh
''Cryptych'' Magazine Covers
Bimonthly magazines published in the United States Defunct science fiction magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1993 Magazines disestablished in 1994 Science fiction magazines established in the 1990s Wizards of the Coast magazines