Speccy mags having a pop at each other

Y'know, other stuff, Sinclair related.
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PeteProdge
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Speccy mags having a pop at each other

Post by PeteProdge »

Crash didn't like SU, as can be evidenced from the 'Unclear User' parody which has been very well covered.

Of course, there were other jibes. I've just picked up on this from Crash's December 1986 issue where they never name Sinclair User, although they print a photo of its editor and his name...

Image

Pretty ironic that Crash ended up in a merger with SU.

I've never read the main three Speccy mags in full, but I'm sure there are other examples of a magazine poking fun at their rivals.
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

Post by MatGubbins »

Your Sinclair, October 1986, Great Escape cover, page 88, Fanzine of the Year.

http://live.worldofspectrum.org/infosee ... lair/10#90

Read the paragraph under the picture, then look at the picture.
Pure YS humor.
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

Post by MatGubbins »

Crash, Issue 40, May 1987, Enduro Racer
features a CVG helmeted rider crashing to the floor

Crash, Issue 32, August 1986, Hannah Smith
features Hannah Smith (girlie tipster) fighting ugly trolls - another dig at CVG and their girlie tipster Melissa Ravenflame

Crash, Issue 16, May 185, Robot football
features the tagline 'Sports Scene, last of a dying genre?' a dig at Your Spectrum publisher Sports Scene.
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

Post by PeteProdge »

MatGubbins wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:17 pm Your Sinclair, October 1986, Great Escape cover, page 88, Fanzine of the Year.

http://live.worldofspectrum.org/infosee ... lair/10#90

Read the paragraph under the picture, then look at the picture.
Pure YS humor.
That's brilliant, never seen that one before! I don't recall any Crash-bashing from YS.
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

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MatGubbins wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:39 pm Crash, Issue 40, May 1987, Enduro Racer
features a CVG helmeted rider crashing to the floor
Well spotted!
Image
MatGubbins wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:39 pmCrash, Issue 32, August 1986, Hannah Smith
features Hannah Smith (girlie tipster) fighting ugly trolls - another dig at CVG and their girlie tipster Melissa Ravenflame
Ah, it's actually issue 31. There's a bit of a background to the story on various websites...

Issue 30 has Hannah explaining it in her own words...

Image

Which culminates in...

Image

Now that's Hannah fighting some anonymous alien creature. It was meant to be CVG's cartoon character (and tipster) Melissa Ravenflame, being pinned in a mud-wrestling contest with the aforementioned Hannah. It had apparently began with the pseudonymous Melissa insulting Crash's tipster. I'm not entirely sure of the full details, but inside the magazine, Crash illustrated the story with a clearly set-up photoshoot about Hannah training and beating an actual wrestler at a Ludlow nightclub...

Image

And Hannah used her section to fire back at C&VG's 'Melissa Rookhead'...

Image


Incidentally, this is what Melissa Ravenflame looked like...

Image
MatGubbins wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:39 pmCrash, Issue 16, May 185, Robot football
features the tagline 'Sports Scene, last of a dying genre?' a dig at Your Spectrum publisher Sports Scene.
Oh yes...

Image
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

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MatGubbins wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:39 pm features Hannah Smith (girlie tipster)
I have in the past, purely out of curiosity (ahem), tried to figure out if Hannah Smith was real or made up. I got conflicting answers on Twitter from Julian Rignall (he said she was a figment) and Roger Kean (he insisted she was real).

Still none the wiser. What you guys think/know?
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

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5MinuteRetro wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 3:48 pm
MatGubbins wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:39 pm features Hannah Smith (girlie tipster)
I have in the past, purely out of curiosity (ahem), tried to figure out if Hannah Smith was real or made up. I got conflicting answers on Twitter from Julian Rignall (he said she was a figment) and Roger Kean (he insisted she was real).

Still none the wiser. What you guys think/know?
I mean, obviously... there're all the above photos. I'm aware of those and have seen them before. But photos captioned 'Hannah Smith' don't make Hannah Smith a real person. Those could be photos of anyone -- an office assistant, a writer's sister, a local schoolgirl, a hired model. Who knows? Certainly she seemed to disappear off the face off the earth (well, Google) post-Crash...
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

Post by PeteProdge »

5MinuteRetro wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 3:53 pm
5MinuteRetro wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 3:48 pm I have in the past, purely out of curiosity (ahem), tried to figure out if Hannah Smith was real or made up. I got conflicting answers on Twitter from Julian Rignall (he said she was a figment) and Roger Kean (he insisted she was real).

Still none the wiser. What you guys think/know?
I mean, obviously... there're all the above photos. I'm aware of those and have seen them before. But photos captioned 'Hannah Smith' don't make Hannah Smith a real person. Those could be photos of anyone -- an office assistant, a writer's sister, a local schoolgirl, a hired model. Who knows? Certainly she seemed to disappear off the face off the earth (well, Google) post-Crash...
Well, here's the kicker. She joined EMAP, it seems.

December 1991 (issue 118) Sinclair User...

Image

Image

I'll take a look at later issues to see any more evidence. Unfortunately this means having to read late-era Sinclair User. My retinas will never forgive me.
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

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Well, here we go with January 1992 (issue 119) of SU...

Image

Incidentally, going back a bit, issue 60 of C&VG seems to have their mention of the feud, on the letters page...

Image
Image
Image

History does not record who had to apologise to who when Hannah reached Farringdon Lane in 1992.
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

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Of course, while researching, I've come across this eye-opening response from the SU editor in which he instils a sense of unity with Your Sinclair and educates the reader on ELSPA and magazine advertising economics...

Image

Wow!
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

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PeteProdge wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:10 pm
Well, here's the kicker. She joined EMAP, it seems.

December 1991 (issue 118) Sinclair User...

I'll take a look at later issues to see any more evidence. Unfortunately this means having to read late-era Sinclair User. My retinas will never forgive me.
Well, I didn't know that, but then I sure wasn't reading SU by that stage. I've just gone through those late-era SUs and she appears up to and including 127...

Image

...and then she just seems to disappear, with nary a goodbye. I'm still not convinced she was a real person!
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

Post by Morkin »

Holy carp, I'd almost forgotten how much they milked the "girlie tipster" thing... :lol:
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

Post by PeteProdge »

Well, there's some kind of mention of her departure in issue 128, when Garth takes over the playing tips...

Image
Image

And wow, as you can see, SU's attempt at humour always was painful.
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

Post by PeteProdge »

That car in August, btw...

Image

Well, it's been educational.
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

Post by 5MinuteRetro »

PeteProdge wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:41 pm That car in August, btw...
That number plate is pretty much the noise I'm making right now. ;)
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

Post by Wall_Axe »

whats wrong with hudson hawk and final fight? lol

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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

Post by mjwilson »

There was some back-and-forth around 3D Game Maker, summed up at https://twitter.com/CrashOnlineUK/statu ... 9839370241 and including CRASH saying "Who's the April Fool now, eh YS?"
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Re: Speccy mags having a pop at each other

Post by MatGubbins »

I've been reading my stack of The Games Machine mags and found this...

The Games Machine - Jan 1989, issue 14 (ninja cover) page 103

Mercy Dash cartoon,

Third line down, box 2 - Where's our Future?
Fourth down, box 1, 4 dwarfs singing about magazines moving to Bath.

https://archive.org/details/the-games-m ... /page/n101

Your Sinclair don't mention the move to Bath until April 1990, issue 52 (Stormlord 2 cover) pages 4 and 5
Also, the publisher changes Dennis to Future in this issue
http://live.worldofspectrum.org/infosee ... clair/52#4


I've also noticed that a lot of articles in The Games Machine stop halfway through a sentence, leaving the reader searching for the ending that is not there.
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