Magazines

[SuperBacon]

Been thinking of this thread for a while and some lovely nostalgia in the retro gamer thread made me finally do it.

I have always loved magazines and still do. Chatting to someone recently about this recently and thinking of just how many a month I used to buy and where on earth we got the money for them. 

I was really conscious of this not just me listing magazines, and have tried to recollect them in the spoiler (I can't remember about 50 I reckon! And no point listing all the gaming ones as there were so many I bought) but some of my favourites.

From the countless rap magazines I bought ("Dad can I have £8 for an imported copy of Murder Dog?") Hip Hop Connection and Fatboss were my favourite.

Fatboss was run by Matty C aka Jaguar Skills, who was briefly featured on a short lived BBC documentary called Paddington Green, and I could only ever find it in Beggars Banquet (now Banquet Records) in Kingston.

It would feature mad articles about DMT and interviews with David Icke (yes I know but I was 17 and enthralled) and had brilliant covers. 

As you can imagine I bought lots of football magazines and 90 Minutes was probably my favourite as well as FourFourTwo when that came along (Match > Shoot by the way)

Film magazines were honestly such a good way of learning more about film back in the day. Both Empire and Total Film were vital in growing my appreciation and knowledge of film, but Hot Dog was the best one. Really wish it was still around.

I used to walk from Isleworth to Hounslow (not a mental distance but still probably about an hour) to get PWI and because it was an import it would never be out on the day advertised so it was often a wasted trip and I'd have to settle for one of the other random wrestling magazines they had.

LADSLADSLADS mags. God I had loads. Sky was probably my favourite as it had loads of genuinely interesting articles as well, but I can always remember my first Loaded.

I bought it in the airport on the way to Rhodes and my Dad flicked through it on the flight and told me to hide it from my Stepmum. I had no idea what it was, I just wanted it because it had The Simpsons on it.

I am sure the issue had a great article on The Spice Girls in Japan as well before they broke big.

These days I still have a subscription to FourFourTwo (3 issues for a quid deal that I never ever cancelled. The issues come through, I do the quiz and I never read them!), I buy Private Eye (again I never read a whole issue ffs), Sight & Sound, subscription to Mundial (of course I do) and I've bought a couple of issues of Byline Times (noticed one of the contributions last month was by that RussInCheshire bloke and now feel like a right "wankpuffin") and I'll occasionally pick up a Time or New Yorker if I have a train journey and have forgotten a book.

I'll also think nothing of picking up a copy of something if it generally looks interesting as well. Not long ago I fancied a read of a bit of history so got the BBC History mag which was great.

I love a mag. Please feel free to copy and paste your contributions from the other thread in, and it goes without saying that the best gaming mag was always CVG. 

Spoiler

Full list (as best as I can recollect) 

Football: Match, Shoot, 90 Minutes, When Saturday Comes, The Onion Bag, FourFourTwo, World Soccer

Wrestling: Raw, PWI, Observer, Powerslam.

Other sports: Slam, Total Sport, another basketball one I can't remember

Rap: Hip Hop Connection, Fatboss, Fatlace, The Source, XXL, Murder Dog, Rap Pages, Vibe, Ego Trip, Scratch

Music: NME, Q, Select, Kerrang, Rock Sound, Metal Hammer, Big Cheese, Mojo, Record Collector

Kids: Beano, Dandy, Buster

Film: Empire, Total Film, Neon, Hotdog, Sight and Sound

Lads: FHM, Sky, Maxim, Nuts, Zoo, Esquire, Loaded, The Face, Front.

 

[Carbomb]

4 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

a short lived BBC documentary called Paddington Green

Sorry for the tangent, but I remember this, and, IIRC, it had quite the impact at the time, mainly because of Jackie, the transgender sex worker - it was probably one of the first times on British telly that a trans person was given sufficient screen time to tell their story as a human being and talk about their struggles, so it reached a lot of people.

 

As regards mags, I used to get Sega Power as I had a Game Gear at the time, and also got Mean Machines Sega on occasion. They both did a good line in sarcasm (at least, it felt like it at the time as a cynical teenager), and MMS' reviews were quite detailed, to the point I always felt confident buying or ignoring a game. 

Don't know if it counts as a magazine, but I used to get Logic Problems as well. I remember feeling quite grown up when I started getting them - probably similar to how people feel when they graduate from regular crosswords to cryptics.

[SuperBacon]

4 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

probably similar to how people feel when they graduate from regular crosswords to cryptics.

Arseholes!* Quick > Cryptic always.

 

 

*Only because I can't do them.

[DavidB6937]

As my dad used to own a newsagents, I pretty much read everything, so it'll take me a while to put my thoughts together.

However one random thing - I love looking on https://archive.org/details/texts as they've got loads of old magazines on there.

[cobra_gordo]

21 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

 the best gaming mag was always CVG. 

One million percent this. I remember picking up my first copy of it mainly because it was cheaper than Gamesmaster. The features were always great and it was always my sense of humour. I bought it for years.

[SuperBacon]

5 minutes ago, cobra_gordo said:

One million percent this. I remember picking up my first copy of it mainly because it was cheaper than Gamesmaster. The features were always great and it was always my sense of humour. I bought it for years.

I liked how the middle section was differentiated as well (was it different paper?) 

And yes, very funny and irreverent. 

Edit: Oh god, I've gone down a quick rabbit hole and am going to end up buying these again aren't I? 

Edited Friday at 11:04 AM by SuperBacon
I suppose its cheaper than football shirts

[wordsfromlee]

They had magazines in my schools library and the latest copy of CVG was always fought over every lunch time. That, and some Downhill Mountain Biking mag for some reason.

The only magazines I would buy every week without fail were Power Slam and Kerrang. I'd buy the odd Rock Sound and Total Film if there was something on the cover (or Rock Sound's free cover CD) that interested me. I went through a phase in the early-00s of reading Q quite a lot for some reason. I think it was mainly to do with the free CDs again.

I remember when I first got my Playstation and would often buy the Official UK Playstation Magazine just for those brilliant demo discs that came with it. I didn't really give a fuck about the rest of the mag. I played that Spyro The Dragon demo for hours.

These days I still buy the odd issue of Wax Poetics off eBay if they come up cheap.

[simonworden]

Magazines are brilliant things. From I don't know what age until my late 20s I used to regularly go and pick up a magazine that got my interest in Borders, Smiths or another independent newsagent to have a read on a wet Sunday afternoon. 

Most of the time that was a wrestling one, Powerslam most notably but also WWF/E, Raw and fighting spirit as well as a few apter mags. It was one of those early purchases that led me into ROH and TNA in 02. When I was visiting last year I enjoyed picking up the Inside the Ropes mags which looked like Powerslam but the writing and articles just weren't my cup of tea anymore. 

Going way back to my mid-teens, the playstation mags were a regular purchase for the demo discs mostly. I preferred the other off brand one that gave demos over the official Playstation magazine. Possibly as they had bigger demo discs.

Other types of mags were bought too infrequently or just won't be interesting to recall (not those types you dirty buggers!).

 

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

I'm partial to the occasional (a lot less than before though) purchase of GQ. I'm not quite sure which category it would fall into as it's usually found near the 'lads mags' bit but its definitely not like the old favourites of FHM and the like. 

 

Another vote for Private Eye here. Ian Hislop deserves a LOT more credit than he gets for the investigative journalism him and his team carry out. I remember reading about the Horizon and Post Office scandal years and years ago but noone took much notice, but Hislop and his publication didn't let it drop. As much as I love HIGNFY and the banter between him and Paul Merton, I watched it when the inquiry published its report and Merton was incredibly complimentary about Ian and his work and it was clearly a 'being serious for a minute here' moment. 

Edited Friday at 01:53 PM by Tim Healys Chutney Spoon
Just because #bacon

[SuperBacon]

1 hour ago, wordsfromlee said:

These days I still buy the odd issue of Wax Poetics off eBay if they come up cheap.

This sounds fantastic, cheers.

Over the last hour I've remembered that I never missed an issue of 2000AD for about 5 years, used to buy SFX, the odd Starburst, very occasionally Edge, T3, Computer Act!ve, and when I could find them Graphotism and Sidewalk Surfer.

I repeat, how did I afford any of this? 

Edit: @Tim Healys Chutney Spoon I am a massive fan of Hislop. I don't always agree with him (in fact I rarely do) but he is always entertaining and addresses most things in an equal handed manner.

Edited Friday at 01:55 PM by SuperBacon
Ian Hi Slop

[Ironic Indie Lad]

I already mentioned in the Retro Gaming thread but I bought CVG and ONM  for years.

I think the magazine I bought for the longest was Power Slam for sure. The first one I can remember buying was an early '99 one that had Hogan on the front. I always remember it for the iconic image inside of Vader sitting having a tiny little plastic cup of beer after beating Akira Taue for the Triple Crown. I would specifically walk to the shops on release day to buy it as soon as possible every single month. I acquired most (or perhaps all) of the 97 and 98 issues from a school friend. Between my brother and I we had almost every single issue. My dad binned them all without asking a few years back which was nice of him. 

Massive amount of football mags in the 90s. Obvious ones like Match and Shoot and I had a huge amount of The Celtic View and The Alternative View as well. My dad was always more than happy to get the Celtic ones as they were definitely more for him to read first.

I started buying Kerrang! in maybe 1998 or 1999 but was never a guaranteed weekly purchase for me. I would usually see what was in it and only buy it if I was interested. If there was no bands I was particularly into I would just leave it. I would buy Metal Hammer without fail every single month for years and years. Terroriser was an occasional buy depending on content. I used to buy any music magazine that had a review of a gig I went to. This was annoying as if it was something really big like Metallica at Wembley in 2007 I would end up with Kerrang, Metal Hammer, Rock Sound, Classic Rock, Q etc. Madness.

Thinking back over these magazines, it amazes me that my enjoyment mostly came from looking at stuff that was out of reach for me. When I was a kid there was obviously way more games I wanted than I could possibly afford. Similarly in like 2002 I used to think Puro, ROH and CZW reviews in Power Slam were the coolest things ever and I didnt have a clue how I could even go about acquiring those tapes. With football I would be going to Celtic games most weeks and watching the very limited amount of football on terrestrial telly so reading about European football always really interested me.

 

 

Edited Friday at 02:36 PM by Ironic Indie Lad

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

In the early 90s I used to get a cricket magazine called Johnny Miller 96 Not Out, which started off as a proper fanzine but was eventually sold in WH Smiths. There was some proper cricket stuff in it buy also lots of taking the piss, which not all of the Counties were amused by. It fizzled out after a few years but was really ahead of its time. 

Mark me down as another Private Eye reader, have read pretty much every copy since I was 15, which is longer ago than I am comfortable with. 

[TibBo]

I miss the days of finding copies of Bizarre magazine stacked up in rehearsal studios.
I used to have a football one called Big Shots (i think?) which used to be good for posters.

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

1 hour ago, SuperBacon said:

This sounds fantastic, cheers.

Over the last hour I've remembered that I never missed an issue of 2000AD for about 5 years, used to buy SFX, the odd Starburst, very occasionally Edge, T3, Computer Act!ve, and when I could find them Graphotism and Sidewalk Surfer.

I repeat, how did I afford any of this? 

Edit: @Tim Healys Chutney Spoon I am a massive fan of Hislop. I don't always agree with him (in fact I rarely do) but he is always entertaining and addresses most things in an equal handed manner.

I know people usually go 'so and so would make a great PM or MP' but I think Hislop would be fantastic in Parliament. Problem is he'd be ineffective as he couldn't do much as he'd be on his own. He'd certainly do great on committees concerning standards and behaviours in public office.

[Bellenda Carlisle]

6 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

Film:  Neon

I used to love this one, it had the best posters. There was one issue that had a black and white poster of Juliette Lewis with black tape over her nipples and pouring milk over herself, it was on my wall for many years. Now I've been looking online for that pic for like half an hour and can't find it 😪 

I used to love Sky as well, it's very nostalgic and i have much better memories of it than the lad mags like fhm and loaded. Wasn't sky unisex? I remember a poster of robbie Williams pubes. I always thought it was cool that it was a raunchy mag aimed at all genders.

 

Edit: found the pic, not black & white (maybe it was in the magazine)

https://kinoimages.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/22nd_juliette-lewis-photographed-by-michael-muller.jpg

Edited Friday at 04:42 PM by Bellenda Carlisle