CyberAge is a British fanzine, produced by fans of the cyberpunk anime Cyber City Oedo 808, which, to everyone's chagrin (well, to mine, anyway.....), only consisted of three episodes. (For more information on the anime, and to see what the fans have been getting up to, visit Cyber City Oedo 808.) CyberAge explores the world created in the anime.
The content is variable, as I'd expect of a 
newly-established fanzine, ranging from the 'excellent' (the majority) to the 'room for improvement'. That being said, there is a distinct improvement from Issue 1 to Issue 2, both in terms of content and in its visual qualities. Issue 2 has much subtler use of shading, and the darkness of the background in some of Issue 1's fanfic - which made the stories very difficult to read - has been greatly lightened. The fanzine review pages are interesting: objectively written in the main, and therefore very useful for anyone thinking of trying another title. Mary Jones' ongoing fanfic, Pearly Yanagawa, shows promise (I was suprised to hear she's only 14: her style is appealingly idiosyncratic and comes across as somewhat older!). The 'Oddities' section is amusing, while the fan art pages (Your Own Creations) have a good assortment of styles and characters (I can imagine some of these turning up in later stories.) Paul 'Chili Emperor' Johnson's mini-stories (if you can call them that. They're not so much 'stories' as small bites of complete lunacy.....) had me chortling into my breakfast coffee - not something many people have managed to accomplish! But my primary reason for buying the fanzine (and I would imagine it was the same for quite a lot of other people) is the main story, Open Circuit, written and drawn by Vanessa Wells. The story picks up where the last OAV of the series left off....... (And no, I'm not going to give a summary. Those of you who know the series will have some idea of what to look forward to; those of you who don't wouldn't find it much use anyway.)
Vanessa is a very good artist. Her depictions of the four central male individuals (SenGoku, Gogul, Benten and Hasegawa) of the anime is excellent, and she has avoided any hint of character-rape (i.e. forcing someone else's characters to behave as you want them to behave, regardless of whether it rings true or not.) And Feral in particular is shaping up to be a fascinating new character - I love her asides and sense of humour (To Benten - "Wake up! Your apartment is on fire! Look out for that car! Your mascara has run!!!....... So panda eyes really are a life or death situation......" Well, can anyone actually imagine Benten willing to appear in public with less than perfect makeup?) My only complaint would be that some of the dialogue is a little stilted: as it's mostly Benten's dialogue it may well be that this is deliberate, but it does make the story a little difficult to follow in places.
But don't let that put you off buying the fanzine! It's a great deal of fun, and professionally put together. Personally, I can't wait for Issue 3.........