Better than Life

Zine
Title:	Better than Life
Publisher:	The Official Red Dwarf Fan Club
Editor(s):	Nic Farey (1990–3); Maxine Lehmann (1993–7); Den (2001–2); Caroline Gould & Sharon (2003–7), with Paul (2005–6)
Type:
Date(s):	1990–2007
Frequency:	quarterly
Medium:	newsletter/magazine
Fandom:	Red Dwarf
External Links:
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Better than Life (BTL) is a gen Red Dwarf newsletter that includes fanfiction.

It was the club magazine of The Official Red Dwarf Fan Club, a UK-based international fanclub for the show.

Founded in 1990, it ran to 52 issues, and was still being advertised in December 2007. It was officially published quarterly, though early and later issues were less frequent.

The earlier issues were fanzine like; later issues had a more of a professional magazine appearance, with colour covers. Contents in the 2000s included interviews with cast/crew ("The Red Interview"), news, opinion, reviews of episodes, books, videos and other merchandise, competitions, fanfiction, fan art/cartoons & readers' letters ("Post Pod"). There were several regular features including "Gazpacho Soup Day", where readers recounted embarrassing experiences; "Marooned", a Red Dwarf Desert Island Discs; "Bay 47", for most-disliked features; and "Pen Pals".

History

In 2011, the zine's second editor Maxine Lehmann described the early days of producing the zine:

It was a hell of a lot of work. Although we had DTP software, we didn’t have a scanner, and the computer (A Macintosh Performa 475, fact fans!) was a bit weak and feeble when it came to handling large documents. Getting images into the fanzine involved taking slides from Grant Naylor, getting Boots to create photographs from them (for which purpose we had a signed letter from GNP saying they were the copyright holder and we did have permission to do this), then cutting and pasting in the traditional sense, with scissors and glue. We had a printer from which we created the master copy, but it took a minimum of three minutes to print a page and there was no form-feed, so it had to be done manually, for each individual side of the 60-page ‘zine. As it reached the bottom of each print I’d inevitably notice the typos, so I’d spend nearly a full day on just printing the bloody thing. Most people didn’t have computers, so submissions were hand written. While some things arrived on floppy disks there were still conversion issues, and we had no OCR software, so there were hours and hours of transcription and copy editing, plus we had regular calls and meetings to discuss the club in general.
...To be honest, though, after I stopped running BTL I didn’t particularly like the direction it took (more UK-centric, lots more reference to pop culture, lower editorial standards with more typos and spelling mistakes, less focus on the direct fan interaction in the letters pages), and the team size seemed to keep growing unnecessarily.

Issue 1

Better than Life 1 was published in autumn 1990; it contains 23 pages with a black-and-white cover. Contents include:

cover of issue #1

• Editorial
• Groovy Channel 27 News
• Better than Life: the press release
• Grant Naylor Speaks! (Rob & Doug interviewed)
• I-Spy
• Season 1 Episode Guide
• Bob the Skutter
• Ask Uncle Arnie
• Competition
• Reviews
• Post Pod
• Pen Pals
• Birthdays
• Diva Droid International (Red Dwarf merchandise)

Issue 2/3

Better than Life 2/3 was published in Winter 1990/Spring 1991 and contains 42 pages.

• 

  cover of issue #2/3

Issue 4

Better than Life 4 was published in Summer 1991 and contains 27 pages.

• 

  cover of issue #4

Issue 5

Better than Life 5 was published in Autumn 1991 and contains 24 pages.

• 

  cover of issue #5

Issue 6

Better than Life 6 was published in Winter 1991 and contains 31 pages.

• 

  cover of issue #6

Issue 7

Better than Life 7 was published in Spring/Summer 1992 and contains 62 pages.

• 

  cover of issue #7

Issue 8

Better than Life 8 was published in Autumn 1992 and contains 68 pages.

• 

  cover of issue #8

Issue 9

Better than Life 9 was published in 1993 and contains 66 pages.

• Special Delivery by Theodore (reprinted in The Small Rouge One #1)
• other unknown content

• 

  cover of issue #9

Issue 10

Better than Life 10 was published in November/December 1994 (was planned for August) and contains 64 pages.

• 

  cover of issue #10

Issue 11

Better than Life 11 was published in February 1994 and contains 60 pages.

The editors are listed as CMA and Rory Daniel, the editorials are CMA and Steev.

front cover of issue #11

back cover of issue #11

• Contents & Other Boring Bits (2)
• Editorials by CMA and Steev (3)
• a reprinted letter from Helen Norman, who was Rob Grant and Doug Naylor's P.A. ("grant naylor productions ltd" letterhead, dated January 17, 1994, it includes what looks like fanart by K.M. on the second page)
• "A Message to All Red Dwarf Fans All Over the Galaxy" ("Thank you for six and half years of faithful following. I have great respect for you all. The help with my single, the lifts, the gifts, the compliments, and of course the six and a half million viewers. I’ve met most of you somewhere, and you know you can ask me anything, any time. (One must never bite the hand that feeds him.) You guys have been part of keeping us guys in clothes, so if no one has thanked you before, I have now done so - OFFICIAL! -- Danny J-J")
• Special Feature: Grant Naylor (4)
• Groovy Channel 27 News (6)
• Special Feature: Danny J-J (8)
• A Smeggy's Guide to the Galaxy by Matthew Parry (10)
• All About Us (11)
• A Step by Step Guide to Biting Your Toenails by Les (13)
• Red Dwarf Poll: Centre Pull-Out
• Reviews (episode reviews, book reviews) (17)

• Local Group Reports (Lister's Monopoly Board Pub Crawl II by Pat Lennon, August 7, 1994) (24)
• Editorial (27)
• Post Pod: Letters of Comment (28)
• Competition (trivia about Quantum Leap, winner would get a copy of "Quantum Leap: The Wall" by Ashley McConnell) (39)
• Yum, fiction by Catherine Hodges (40)
• The Android, fiction by Daniel Smith (45)
• Listings (56)

• 

  cover of issue #11, second page of the letter by Helen Norman

• 

  cover of issue #11, art, not credited

• 

  cover of issue #11, "All About Us"

• 

  cover of issue #11, "All About Us"

• 

  cover of issue #11, a page from the fan poll

Issue 13

cover of issue #13, Andrew Ellard

Better Than Life 13 was published in 1994 and contains 65 pages.

None of the artists are specifically credited so these names are taken from their signatures. There are also many small illos whose artists cannot be deciphered: Andrew Ellard, Marianne Harper, Andrew Waugh, Sarah Farmer, Emma Dollimore, Andrea Machay, and Alex Collier.

From the zine:

IMPORTANT: TO BE READ BY EVERYONE

There are two things that unfortunately are going to have to change regarding correspondence with this fan club. Firstly, if you want a reply to a letter, you send an SAE and if writing in regarding several different subjects (eg change of address, merchandise order, Post Pod Letters, advert, general enquiry) please put them all on separate pieces of paper. On several occasions ow we have asked members when writing in to abide by these rules. Unfortunately a lot of people seem totally Incapable of following very simple rules and thanks to them we now have to say that if you want CMA or Steev to reply to your letters send an SAE, if you want more Information on apiece of merchandise, send an SAE -it really is that simple. If you don’t send an SAE you don’t get a reply. Also, If you send everything on one piece of paper only the most important part regarding your membership will be dealt with and everything else will be ignored. We are sorry it has had to come to this but due to the constantly huge growth of the Club we do not have time to spend copying out bits of information and addresses and sending them on to people. In case nobody realises yet, we all live In separate parts of the country.[...] a private address. In fact, It’s where Sean and I live with our children. We open the Club letters (hundreds and hundreds every week) and pass them on to the other team members. For Kryten’s sake, I was even doing unnecessary BTL work (thanks to some of our members) whilst in labour! Could you all please remember when writing in to the Club that a thousand other people are also writing in?

Having said that, most of you are wonderful, It’s just -as always- the minority that causes the headaches. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

• Boring Bits (2)
• Balance of Power, editorial by CMA (3)
• Balance of Power, editorial by Steev (4)
• Queen of Spain, editorial by Dave (5)
• News (6)
• Lucky Dip, contest (7)
• Recipe Corner, recipes for Triple Fried Egg, Chilli Sauce and Chutney Sandwich, and Sheek Kabab (8)
• The American Way, about Red Dwarf in the U.S. (8)
• Robert Llewellyn on The Emma Freud Show, transcription of an interview on Radio 1, Kim Stephenson was the fan who transcribed it (11)
• Reviews (13)
  • The Net and Red Dwarf by David Fraser
  • Trek/Dwarf, a con report by "The Crew"
  • Booksigning
  • Dimension Jump, con reports by several fans
• Competition, write a drabble ("For those of you not in the know, a drabble is a short story which comprises 100 words exactly. This does not include the title. The theme is Red Dwarf (obviously) and you can explore any aspect of it.") (19)
• Paper Dolls by Matthew Parry (20)
• Featured Episode (21)
• Poll Results (22)
• Post Pod, letters of comment (25)
• Dimension Jump Photos (32)
• four pages from a fan-made calendar (33)
• Damage Reports (40)
• Comic/Graphic story by Alex Collier (42)
• Aftermath, fiction by Trent Reznor (47)
• The Android, part 3, fiction by Daniel Smith (49)
• Listings (57)

• 

  from issue #13, Andrew Ellard

• 

  from issue #13, Andrew Ellard

• 

  from issue #13, Andrew Waugh

• 

  from issue #13, Sarah Farmer

• 

  from issue #13, Emma Dollimore

• 

  from issue #13, Andrea Machay

• 

  from issue #13, Alex Collier

• 

  from issue #13, paper dolls by Matthew Parry

Issue 21

Better than Life 21 was published in summer 1997

Issue 22

Better than Life 22 was published in autumn 1997

Issue 23

Better than Life 23 was published in christmas 1997.

Issue 43

Better than Life 43 was published in spring 2003. It has a colour cover depicting the series II DVD. Contents include:

• review of the series II DVD (Andrew Ellard)
• the history of Smegazine (Chris Howarth & Steve Lyons)
• WomanWizard tour (Robert Llewellyn)
• In Focus: review of Pete
• Top Ten Red Dwarf Deaths
• news on upcoming Dimension Jump X convention

Issue 44

Group shot of various issues

Issue 48

Better than Life 48 was published in summer 2004.

Issue 49

Better than Life 49 was published in spring 2005. It has a colour cover and includes a special on series 5.

Issue 50

Better than Life 50 was current in summer 2006.

Issue 52

Better than Life 52 was the final issue; it was current in 2007.