Space Squid

Space Squid is an internationally-reviled, award-winning scifi/humor publication and paid market that publishes experimental and speculative content, including cartoons, short fiction, and mixed-media work. Although it publishes non-scifi humor, their specialty is "funny scifi." The publication's motto is "Your Puny Planet's Finest Scifi Stories & Hijinks." It is primarily web-based after being initially paper-only. Some of the older issues are not available in any form.

Their "About" page says, "Space Squid is an award-winning hybrid publication of hand-scrubbed scifi, fantasy, and humor. Surely you've seen the 'zine at your local zine superstore? Of course you were amazed at our snarky, outrageous stories, comix, and art. We've published work from Bruce Sterling (father of cyberpunk), Chris Roberson (Clockwork Storybook), Jay Lake (John W. Campbell Award winner), Jennifer Pelland (Nebula nominee), and a lot of other cool people."

The current editorial board consists of Elle Van Hensbergen, Matthew Bey, and D Chang, all residents of Austin, Texas.

Notable Activities

In October 2010, the editors published a special edition of the magazine in clay tablet form, using molds written on with a cuneiform stylus. Several copies of the tablet were offered and remarkably purchased on Ebay. The exploit created some buzz, including coverage at WIRED and the blog of science fiction novelist and futurist Bruce Sterling.

In January 2011, one of the clay tablets was inducted into the climate-controlled Science Fiction and Fantasty Collection at the Cushing Memorial Library at Texas A&M University. The curator also inducted a complete collection of Space Squid's paper issues.

Space Squid won a "Best of Austin" award from the Austin Chronicle in 2008.

Space Squid has shared editors with the Drabblecast, a Parsec-award-winning podcast, and the scifi website RevolutionSF.

External Links

• Space Squid website