RE FanMagazine Issue 1.1

REFanMagazine

REF Volume 1 Issue 1

HOW IT STARTED How I Was Introduced to The World of Resident Evil

MEMORY CARD Favorite Moments Throughout The Series

WORTH THE WATCH YouTube Content Creators Worth Watching

DRESSING THE PART A look at cosplay and prop making efforts

IT’S NOT A PHASE MOM!!

Life-long Fandom of Horror and Gaming

NEXT GEN What It’s Like Being a Resident Evil Fan and Teacher

By the fans For the fans #REFanMagazine

A Letter from the Creator

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF SURVIVAL HORROR FANDOM… GOOD LUCK! There’s really no point to this. I’m bored at work, missing when I taught Journalism as an elective class, and was looking at the past issues I worked on for a Tom Clancy’s The Division fan magazine, SHD…and it made me think: Wouldn’t it be fun to do something similar for the game franchise that I’ve followed faithfully the longest as well?

So that’s what this is. Just a random fan project done to stave off a sense of boredom.

Likely, it will be a one-off, but who knows?

Perhaps it will grow into something more, or inspire the filmmaker part of me that’s out of practice to get back into it and make a video essay/documentary like those that I watch repeatedly about the Resident Evil series.

Whatever this ends up being in the end, for those that take the time to check it out, I hope there’s something in it that you enjoy. I hope it makes you think back fondly to your own memories with the series and that you fall in love with it all over again in your own way.

Cover of SHD Magazine Issue#4

Otherwise…go punch a boulder. :P ~Keelan562

Table of Contents

1// Welcome to the World of Survival Horror: How It Started // 03 2// Memory Card: Favorite Moments

// 05

3// Worth the Watch: YouTube Channels Worth Checking Out

// 06

4// Dressing the Part:

// 09

5// It’s Not a Phase, Mom!!

// 11

6// Next Gen

// 13

All content written by Keelan Grace

GENERAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Whether directly part of creating this or simply a source of inspiration or encouragement, I’d like to thank everyone in the Resident Evil community, from the developers to content creators to the simplest of fans. Without all of us together, this series wouldn’t be as special as it is.

Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

YOU HAVE NOW ENTERED THE WORLD OF SURVIVAL HORROR… How It Started It was the summer of 1996.

One of my closest friends at the time had moved to a different city, still a short travel from our hometown, so we would only get to hang out occasionally on weekends. This was about to become routine for nearly an entire summer.

I get a phone call after school on a Friday. He’s asking if I’d be able to come over and stay the weekend. He rented a game for the new console his father had purchased, and it was freaking him out. My mom agreed to drop me off.

I was not prepared.

The game this friend rented was none other than Resident Evil.

According to him…the music was putting him on edge and he couldn’t get his head around the controls and the first zombie was really, really freaking him out because no matter what he couldn’t kill the thing. Thus, his need to call in back up; I’ve been a horror fan since a young age when I shouldn’t have been, so he knew if anyone would keep their shit together and play through the game with him, it would be me.

For the next two and a half days, almost the entire weekend, we played the game. I got a handle on the tank controls fairly quickly, and he started to pay attention when he wasn’t in control to the layout of the sprawling Spencer Mansion and where certain items were located.

We both fell in love with the game and the series.

Thus began our summer of Resident Evil. We would get together nearly every weekend (and sometimes during the week, since it was summer vacation) and play the game.

We were also idiots. For whatever reason, while we could very easily find all of the ink ribbons around the mansion, we thought that the Memory Card was another item we had to find in the game in order to save our progress and could not for the life of us locate them! We got so familiar with the game that eventually we were able to get to the underground laboratory without a single save. We memorized the layout of the mansion and item locations, and we even thought we were geniuses in a few instances; my favorite is when I decided to walk backwards in the L-hallway on the first floor of the mansion so that I was already facing the right direction when the first Cerberus leapt through the window to attack.

Finally came September. School started the following week and as an early birthday present my mother asked me what I wanted.

There was only one thing I could answer with.

Without hesitation, she took me to Circuit City (anyone else remember them?) where I bought the PlayStation console, the long box version of the game…and a Memory Card!

This time, it was my friend’s turn to come stay over. We knew that this was going to be the playthrough where we finally beat the game! And it was glorious.

We were hooked. We scoured every gaming magazine article we could find just for the tiniest little bit of information to learn about. I can’t tell you how many times I would have my mind wander in class and I would end up sketching out the first or second floor maps to the mansion by memory.

When we heard news that a sequel was in development, our weekends became searching online (this was back in the days of dial-up, by the way) for anything; articles, screenshots, concept art. You name it, we found it!

Then came another phone call, much like the phone call that started our fandom.

Only this time, it wasn’t a call for backup. This time, it was an announcement of excitement.

“Bro…Director’s Cut. I’m holding it.

There’s a demo disc for Res 2!”

Guess what I did that weekend?

To Be Continued…?

MEMORY CARD I asked Resident Evil fans from around the world (via Twitter…that’s right, TWITTER! Suck it, Elon!) about what are some of their favorite moments from the series…

But no one responded, so you get stuck with my list of moments instead >:P • The original PlayStation start up. I get chills and thrills just hearing that sound!

• The image of the first zombie in the original turning to look over its shoulder at you.

• The first Cerberus jumping in through the hallway window, and how they played into expecting that to happen in REMake but went against repeating the moment.

• Finally escaping the rear of the mansion…only to learn there was a whole other area to the game!

• Resident Evil 2. Just…just everything about it. The first time experiencing the game is life-changing.

• There was a moment during Resident Evil 3: Nemesis where I was able to dodge 3 Cerberus attacks in a row from 3 different doggos attacking all within less than 5 seconds! I giggled like a child when I realized what I’d done. :) • Watching the intro for Code: Veronica for the first time. Claire dropping the gun then doing the quick drop to catch it was badass personified.

• Seeing the opening cinematic of REMake and knowing that I was in for a much more serious, horrorcentric experience than ever played before.

• Greatest Hits version of Director’s Cut for all the wrong reasons #IYKYK

• Seeing the different animated icons when looking at Memory Card files and freaking out to see that RE2 had different icons for Leon and Claire • Going to the premiere of Resident Evil: Degeneration and meeting many of the voice actors (and being invited to attend workshops with one of them!)

• The first time you pop a zombie’s head off. There’s something special about that moment.

• The thrill of chasing any new information from RE1.5 before it was canceled.

• That moment you realize the voice for Claire Redfield is Jubilee from XMenTAS. I had a giddy nerd moment when I saw the name in the credits that first time.

• The first time playing Resident Evil 4 and knowing the genre was going through a second revolution not seen since the first game.

• Learning the identity of the masked female antagonist in Resident Evil 5.

And the final memory to share, which may in some ways be the most special…

• Having a life-long friendship to this day that has it’s foundation in playing the first game in the series during its release If any future issues of this little project get made, I would love to have others share their memorable moments. I think it would make this sort of article that much more interesting to read.

Worth the Watch One of the few positive things that came out of the COVID-19 pandemic (other than surviving it) was that I discovered channels on YouTube that I hadn’t previously seen. I don’t have a huge online presence, nor put importance into being tied in with social media, so there’s a lot that I’m not aware of. However, these few channels and their content creators immediately captured my attention, and their videos helped make the online digital workdays more tolerable.

THE SPHERE HUNTER

This was the first YouTube channel that I became a serious fan of during the pandemic. It was by random chance that I found Suzi “The Sphere Hunter”’s video essay on the REmake; she expressed all the thoughts and love and passion for the game that I have had for years but never articulated. From there I started to watch all of her Resident Evil content, and that lead to understanding her true passion and love for the Survival Horror genre, and really the video game industry as a whole. To this very day I’m excited when I see she has released a new video, or gives us a heads up she’s working on one or about ready to release it, and it’s been wonderful to see her creativity in those videos grow. Watch one of her videos, just one, and you too will instantly fall in love with her channel and become a fan.

INK RIBBON The next YouTube channel that I found was Ink Ribbon, run by Kai Morgan. I wish I had the opportunity to have found this channel earlier, as Kai used to live in my area early on and seems like an amazing person who would have been wonderful to get to know on a personal level.

From what I’ve seen, he is very much the type of person I would have become fast friends with. Very much my type of nerd, loving learning every little detail about the series he loves and taking that love one step further with creative endeavors like cosplay, prop making, and even creating models and environments for games.

Much like Sphere Hunter, I am always excited to see a new video posted from Ink Ribbon show up in my feed.

RESIDENCE OF EVIL Occasionally, there’s a channel that pops up that I wish I had the foresight to have been a part of or creates something similar myself way back when.

Residence of Evil is one of those channels, combining aspects of being a fan of Resident Evil and filmmaking, especially with the upcoming release of “The Keeper’s Diary,” a short film not only inspired by a famous document found in the first game, but also starring one of the original cast members (original Chris Redfield actor Charlie Kraslavsky!). I love how this channel is accomplishing things that a fan/filmmaker such as myself only once dreamed of. I like to think if we lived anywhere near the same area, I’d be a part of the action (if you all ever film in the Los Angeles area, you for sure have an eager crew member waiting). The energy of the hosts (J.J., Tony, Andrew, and I’m sure many others) bleeds off the screen and as a fan I can’t help but sometimes feel like I’m sitting right there next to them during live-streams laughing and enjoying the games. Also of note, their “ROE” logo heavily inspired the cover text of this fan magazine, if you couldn’t tell!

These are but a few of the YouTube channels that either feature or focus on Resident Evil for their content that I am a fan of. One of the most nerdgasm moments I had was seeing across all of their channels and social media posts was that they all gathered together to attend a showing of Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (Fuck Umbrella! :P). I would have absolutely jumped at the opportunity to have been in that theater with them! But knowing that they collaborate and are in contact behind the scenes, it makes me excited for what they will all release in the future, both individually and together in whatever combinations may happen.

These three content channels in particular have my undying support and appreciation. If there is every an opportunity to work with any of them in any capacity, I will not hesitate to help them.

If you haven’t seen any of their content yet, you’re missing out and you need to fix this. It’s a homework assignment. As a high school teacher, I have that sort of authority, so…get to it! There just might be a quiz later…

THE SPHERE HUNTER YT: youtube.com/spherehunter Twitter/X: @TheSphereHunter Instagram: the_sphere_hunter INK RIBBON YT: youtube.com/inkribbon Twitter/X: @InkRibbongames Instagram inkribbongames RESIDENCE OF EVIL YT: youtube.com/roenework Twitter/X: @ROEnetwork Instagram roenetwork

Dressing the Part

Anyone who bothers to look at any of my social media posts knows that I love cosplay. While I don’t indulge in the hobby terribly often or even close to a professional level, I always enjoy building my costumes, be it for fun, for a project, or for the greatest holiday of the year.

My cosplay journey originally started with creating an original character based on the video game Tom Clancy’s The Division. This even got me on the radar of the developers at Ubisoft/Massive! In the years since that first costume, I’ve done more than a few: Arrow (from the CW series), Spider-Man (in his homemade costume from Homecoming), myself as a Ghostbuster, an original Witcher character, and a few others or combinations of things, such as the first cross between a SHD/Division Agent and a Mandalorian! And of course, I’ve also had multiple iterations of my SHD/Division Agent, including a medieval take on the concept.

But something I’ve always wanted to do, ever since I first saw the character and my friend made a comment about the physical similarities between us, was to cosplay as Leon S. Kennedy from Resident Evil 2.

Don’t ask me why, but after decades of wanting to do it, I finally found myself having both the courage and means.

Not only did I do this way back in 2012 (finally!), but I also dressed as the version of Leon from Resident Evil 6 the day after and then years later at work I upgraded to the Resident Evil 2 Remake RPD uniform (which was perfect timing, as I started to use the vest for my SHD/Division Agent cosplay shortly before they did the anniversary crossover to celebrate Resident Evil).

Some ideas I’m still trying to figure out how to make, or they’re just concepts that I’ve sketched out but have yet to explore the “how” in terms of making them a reality.

There’s something freeing about dressing up as your favorite character, or creating your own character that exists in the world of one of your favorite game, movie, or book series. I love seeing how creative others can be with their creations, and am always amazed at those who go above and beyond to bring their thoughts to reality. Because I don’t want ALL of this issue to be just about me (trust me, I do not have that type of ego or self-confidence), below are some cosplays that I’ve found connected to the Resident Evil series. Where possible I will include the creator’s name; for those that I find and I can’t, I wholeheartedly apologize and hope that one way or another you get the recognition and credit you deserve.

PearlHar8or

AnnieApple

AnnieGraves

Stray Wind

The Kitbasher Sinauu

Gai

Charlie Kraslavsky

Greptyle

Maicou Maniezzo

Leon Chiro

Julia Voth IKitCat

It’s Not a Phase Mom !!!

I was accidentally raised on horror movies.

My mother always had a Stephen King or Dean Koontz book around the house or in her hands. My older sister, in her first time babysitting me by herself, thought it wise to invite our cousins, all around the same age as her, but all of them older than me, and watch A Nightmare on Elm Street…then proceed to get scared and go to her room to hang out, sort of forgetting I was there until I entered (scaring the shit out of the whole group) to tell them the movie was over and I was hungry. I was around four when this happened:; standards for what not to expose a child to were different in the 1980s.

Thus began my life-long love of the horror genre in all its forms.

I was the nerdy kid in high school who was somehow not-as-nerdy on weekends.

I was smart, but also very introverted and some might even say “mysterious” as I didn’t connect to many people in school, just a select handful. So when the friends I did have and I connected with something, it was solid. With Resident Evil, it became forever. Not only that, but it made my appreciation for the zombie subgenre of horror rise to a whole different level than before. I started to see the brilliance in even the lowest budget efforts rather than see them as lesser imitations of the more “mainstream” zombie films. Resident Evil was a game that came out at the perfect time in my life. I would play games with friends but it was never a true hobby of mine until playing the first game. It was truly my gateway into becoming a “gamer,” and it was the start of a golden error for horror games, especially on console. Resident Evil and Silent Hill, even the shitty games and films and other projects, are things that I will always put my support behind.

I had wanted to be a paleontologist since age six or so, but when the first Jurassic Park film was released on video and I got to analyze the animatronics, and look at the behind the scenes photos in the official Making Of book, I suddenly started to think that instead I would like to pursue special effects. I started to teach myself basic make-up effect skills something that comes in handy now with cosplay!), and even started to look into scriptwriting and basic editing in my teenage years. I remember during one holiday break I played the original Resident Evil trilogy and took a ton of notes, using those to adapt the games into feature-length film scripts. I’m sure I still have those files on my old computer, even.

This love of horror, and Resident Evil, carried over when I finally went into film school right after graduating high school. I somehow made horror or zombies an aspect of every project I worked on, flexing my skills in production design or simple effects, though I grew to understand that my passion lied with writing. For my final project to earn my bachelor’s degree, I wrote, storyboarded, budgeted/produced a short Resident Evil fan-film…at least, that’s what it was supposed to have been. As stated before, I was focused on being a writer, and though I could have directed the short I instead asked a classmate to do so. They started to make changes, but all those would to would be to omit any direct connection to the games: it was still a short film about escaping a city infested with zombies.

Looking over VFX shot list before set-up

“The Infected” trailer…what’s left of what could have been…

However, in the end that friend held on to some of the core footage for the narrative, forcing me to continue to edit around the missing footage until all I was able to deliver was a trailer rather than a short. To make up for this and fill in the time slot I was allotted, I went back to my documentary class project and re-edited the project I had done for that class.. Both of these projects are still on my YouTube channel, though they are fairly ancient in comparison to modern videos one could see. Re-uploaded documentary for 20th anniversary Life has taken me through many journeys, and little-by-little my aspirations within the film industry started to take a backseat to my necessity to obtain a stable and steady income.

Eventually, while still doing work as a PA or grip on the side (though it’s been some years now since the last project I’ve been on), I was encouraged by co-workers and supervisors to pursue a career in education. I was always that student willing to help others in class after finishing my own work, even unofficially co-teaching the screenwriting courses while in film school. Educating seemed natural.

Now, that’s what I do. But every chance I get, I bring horror in all its forms to my lessons, and my love for the horror genre (and definitely Resident Evil) can be seen proudly on display in how I decorate my classroom, along with sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book elements.

Many of the people I knew and grew up with went in and out of their fandoms. Goth kids became conservative, athletes let themselves go, gamers stopped gaming.

But not me. I never stopped.

I’m a gamer.

I’m a horror fan.

None of it was ever a phase.

It’s just what I am.

Last looks for make-up effects on set for “The Tessera Project” Effects for last minute ‘snacked on’ shot for “NicoFun”

Teacher of the Year photo (2022)

Next Gen

What it’s like being a Resident Evil fan and a high school teacher

This past school year has been special in a handful of ways. One of those is that I happened to be gifted a few students that, as it turned out, were Resident Evil fans. They immediately noticed the little influences that were all around my classroom, from the subtle blue medallion from Resident Evil 4 dangling in a corner, to the small red, green, and blue plants on a bookshelf, and of course the very obvious reference of an antique Royal typewriter with an ink ribbon case and first aid spray next to it.

Loving our discussions and wanting to give them a special experience, I went into my storage unit and grabbed a few things: My old Samsung GX Gaming TV, my original PlayStation, and my spare copies of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2. They were in awe at the technology and that I trusted them enough to allow them to play the games, to let them hold in their hands the old controller, to hear the original PlayStation startup sound and have that moment of goosebumps that I remember fondly growing up with.

It’s a special kind of feeling seeing the smiles as they play the games and work their way through the puzzles, using pieces of scrap paper to write down passcodes or equations for later.

Some of the lessons we go over in class, these students have even managed to connect to the games or characters. That ability to make connections between academics, interests, and real-life is what teaching is all about, and the fact that I’m able to have students find those connections through one of my favorite video game series is an amazing feeling. I often connect how I present lessons to other things, such as songs or films/TV shows the students are familiar with, and I present lesson units as “quest chains” similar to the format found in Final Fantasy XIV. But this feels different. It’s unique.

Thank you, BV S.T.A.R.S., for making the last quarter of this school year something I’ll always treasure.

EDITOR’S NOTE This was a rather fun little exercise!

I’m glad that I was able to share some of my fond memories and experiences connected to the Resident Evil series this way. I might even explore other options of sharing these memories in the future. For now, this was nice and did the trick.

If you actually read this, thank you for your interest. If you’d like to share any feedback or just talk shop about the series, don’t hesitate to reach out. I would love to hear from you.

If there’s enough interest in doing a second “issue,” I’d be more than happy to work on it (in fact, I already have some ideas for articles). And if anyone would like to be involved or contribute, it would be greatly welcomed and appreciated.

Until next time, fellow RE veterans, stay safe in the streets, use those ink ribbons wisely, and conserve your ammo.

All the Best, Keelan Grace @Keelan562