FUCMonline

Fresh Underground Culture Magazine, you see. FUCM.

Nick Vasey, the interminably sardonic wordsmith behind Please Spike My Drink (Lifestyle section), is in person just as he writes. The intellectualisations, theories and arguments never end, but the passion and articulation of his delivery necessitates your inclusion, guaranteeing non-stop entertainment.

And Nick's passion is typical of the FUCM bunch, the rest of whom I've just been reading for the first time as I delved a bit deeper into the zine beyond his column. There's some entertaining stuff in there -- such as the comic strip Apartment 210 by Chris 'Cap' Karaffa. A slightly left-of-centre look at your typical group of guys sharing an apartment, where the timing and words of the cartoonist from frame-to-frame are spot on. Love it.

Do not miss the Global section either. Some brilliant and enlightening writing from around the world on global issues that matter with the unifying perspectives of age and passion. Excellent writing, excellent reading, check it out.

That said however, the site as a whole seems to be severely lacking in direction. Not navigational devices-type direction, (although again, that could be significantly improved with some method of jumping between the sections, currently impossible), but more of the what-is-this-all-about? kind. Perhaps mystery adds excitement in some places -- but here is definitely not one of them.

I've never visited the front page of FUCM before, having only ever really checked out Nick's pieces, but when I finally did take a look I was disappointed to see not a scrap of a peep of an inkling about what delights I could expect to find inside this online mag. Instead, just a single, wordy editorial is offered there, sharing the page area with only the standard nav and side bar. Top that off with some in-yer-face political evangelism, as is in the article, and I was turned off quickly. (Not that I don't like politics per sé, just not a six-million-and-eight-word essay about on the front page of a lifestyle magazine, please. Even if it is hip and underground.

Nevertheless, if you persevere with the entre article, you will discover that FUCMonline is actually the online version of a street mag, currently available in Melbourne and Sydney and soon to hit the world. Now this is the sort of thing that could be in a little feature-box, instead of buried in the second-last paragraph of a ranting editorial on another country's election. It's important in understanding the Why-factor: why is this website here and what is it all about? And besides that, boasting over seventy reporters from across the globe, surely there are at least a few other items in the latest issue of FUCM that could be slapped on the front page to tempt us further into the site? Apart from a rant on US/global politics? A few more tidbits of insight here are desperately required - the web is not the printed page. You can be cool and helpful.

Couple of other niggly things:

• The font size is tiny in good browsers. FUCM, get with the program! ;)


• The navigation is entirely Flash-based. Ok, now this may look cool, but not in any way that couldn't be replicated without Flash, and therefore also without the disadvantages that come with Flash nav's. Take the statusbar. People use the statusbar, however most Flash sites do not seem to be able to get statusbar text happening for links. Now, in boring, old HTML, even if you script-it-up to say simply "yep, click this one" over every link, it is still useful for visitors in deciding where to go next. With the FUCM menu, however, you get none of this. Nothing, nada. Very annoying, as browsing then becomes a matter of click-and-miss.

In summary...
Despite the UI flaws, the site offers up thought-provoking writing and viewpoints from around the globe to keep you arguing into the wee hours. Hopefully one day the FUCM web team will take another look at that nav and spend some time on a decent homepage template to give the excellent FUCMonline brood a decent chance of being heard and seen.