The rise and fall of Sinclair User
Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2017 9:47 am
The 8-bit computing scene had a 'holy trinity' - three major computers that dominated it - Spectrum, Commodore and Amstrad.
Likewise, the Spectrum magazines that were mainstays throughout the machine's life, were simply three titles - Sinclair User, Crash and Your Spectrum/Sinclair.
Whether Crash or Your Sinclair was best, has always been a topic of debate. It's widely regarded that Crash was very well respected during the era before the covertape wars, but by the late 80s, Your Sinclair's use of offbeat humour and superb freebie cassettes, ensured it stayed on top of the ABC circulation figures.
Going through the old magazines that you can now have as PDF from archive.org, I was surprised at how in-depth, cerebral and comprehensive Sinclair User was in the early 80s. I had only come to the Spectrum in late 1987, back when Sinclair User - then then best selling Speccy mag - was entering its Kamikaze Bear phase and YS started its ascension through early covertapes like Batty and Blind Panic. SU and YS were both trying to be cool and hip, both channelling the tirade of colours and crazy asides that Smash Hits became famous for, although T'Zer's offering nudged it for me, as SU just seemed a little bit disorganised, with some of its articles poorly laid out.
Sinclair User was heavily wordy in the early years, with covers that laid out Sir Clive's vision for the Speccy to be taken seriously as a computing device. Its approach to the gaming scene was to give it a few pages, almost as if it was a niche interest. When Crash landed (no pun intended), this was a wake-up call and games became the focus of all three magazines.
Newsfield didn't have the marketing budget to propel Crash to the top of the circulation figures, but Crash was pretty much the superior product in the eyes of gamers.
A distinct gear change occurred with the first cover-mounted cassettes. Sinclair User entered its Kamikaze Bear phase, went a lot more game focused and committed to a regular 'megatape', that had some pretty damned good games. It tried its hand at humour, but this often was clumsy - especially the time the magazine was featured on BBC's Watchdog because one writer cheekily suggested glue sniffing as a great thing to do in the description of a model aeroplane prize. (Oh, and it seems one SU writer caused an almighty C-word calamity when writing for EMAP's multi-games title ACE)
In this era, Sinclair User really was playing catch-up with YS, and that became reflected as Dennis Publishing's outlet eclipsed SU, quite justifiably in my opinion.
The guys at Farringdon Lane did more tinkering - playing with the Kamikaze Bear character to be a shell-shocked hippy, before replacing him with a weedy nerd entitled Wayne Smedley. I thought a lot of this humour at the time was more 'punching down' and had that kind of school bully sneering tone to it. The SU Megatapes became shovelware pretty quickly.
As the Spectrum's commercial decline kicked in, many SU writers would be featured on other EMAP titles, and the magazine just seemed to be treated as something done in a lunch break. The graphic design just became more shoddy, like they really couldn't be arsed. The covertapes became a competition to shove as many things on it, regardless of quality.
In its final years, as pagination declined across all titles (especially Crash, which had pretty much became a tape attached to a pamphlet), you could feel the desperation from EMAP, as a rough black-and-white only sugar-paper insert was stuck in the middle to keep printing costs down.
Despite superior writing and a fairly decent cover tape, Crash was wiped from newsagents shelves because of Newsfield's hubris at trying expand into other areas of publishing. It didn't last long with the resurrection backed by Europress, and ended up 'merged' with SU, although this was EMAP simply plastering the logo onto the cover and taking Graeme Mason's covertape pokes. Very little of Crash actually ended up in the waning Sinclair User.
From my point of view, both SU and Crash tried very hard to imitate YS's parade of leftfield humour and superb covertapes, and although SU certainly had done well commercially, it really flopped spectacularly in later years. Have I got any of this wrong?
Likewise, the Spectrum magazines that were mainstays throughout the machine's life, were simply three titles - Sinclair User, Crash and Your Spectrum/Sinclair.
Whether Crash or Your Sinclair was best, has always been a topic of debate. It's widely regarded that Crash was very well respected during the era before the covertape wars, but by the late 80s, Your Sinclair's use of offbeat humour and superb freebie cassettes, ensured it stayed on top of the ABC circulation figures.
Going through the old magazines that you can now have as PDF from archive.org, I was surprised at how in-depth, cerebral and comprehensive Sinclair User was in the early 80s. I had only come to the Spectrum in late 1987, back when Sinclair User - then then best selling Speccy mag - was entering its Kamikaze Bear phase and YS started its ascension through early covertapes like Batty and Blind Panic. SU and YS were both trying to be cool and hip, both channelling the tirade of colours and crazy asides that Smash Hits became famous for, although T'Zer's offering nudged it for me, as SU just seemed a little bit disorganised, with some of its articles poorly laid out.
Sinclair User was heavily wordy in the early years, with covers that laid out Sir Clive's vision for the Speccy to be taken seriously as a computing device. Its approach to the gaming scene was to give it a few pages, almost as if it was a niche interest. When Crash landed (no pun intended), this was a wake-up call and games became the focus of all three magazines.
Newsfield didn't have the marketing budget to propel Crash to the top of the circulation figures, but Crash was pretty much the superior product in the eyes of gamers.
A distinct gear change occurred with the first cover-mounted cassettes. Sinclair User entered its Kamikaze Bear phase, went a lot more game focused and committed to a regular 'megatape', that had some pretty damned good games. It tried its hand at humour, but this often was clumsy - especially the time the magazine was featured on BBC's Watchdog because one writer cheekily suggested glue sniffing as a great thing to do in the description of a model aeroplane prize. (Oh, and it seems one SU writer caused an almighty C-word calamity when writing for EMAP's multi-games title ACE)
In this era, Sinclair User really was playing catch-up with YS, and that became reflected as Dennis Publishing's outlet eclipsed SU, quite justifiably in my opinion.
The guys at Farringdon Lane did more tinkering - playing with the Kamikaze Bear character to be a shell-shocked hippy, before replacing him with a weedy nerd entitled Wayne Smedley. I thought a lot of this humour at the time was more 'punching down' and had that kind of school bully sneering tone to it. The SU Megatapes became shovelware pretty quickly.
As the Spectrum's commercial decline kicked in, many SU writers would be featured on other EMAP titles, and the magazine just seemed to be treated as something done in a lunch break. The graphic design just became more shoddy, like they really couldn't be arsed. The covertapes became a competition to shove as many things on it, regardless of quality.
In its final years, as pagination declined across all titles (especially Crash, which had pretty much became a tape attached to a pamphlet), you could feel the desperation from EMAP, as a rough black-and-white only sugar-paper insert was stuck in the middle to keep printing costs down.
Despite superior writing and a fairly decent cover tape, Crash was wiped from newsagents shelves because of Newsfield's hubris at trying expand into other areas of publishing. It didn't last long with the resurrection backed by Europress, and ended up 'merged' with SU, although this was EMAP simply plastering the logo onto the cover and taking Graeme Mason's covertape pokes. Very little of Crash actually ended up in the waning Sinclair User.
From my point of view, both SU and Crash tried very hard to imitate YS's parade of leftfield humour and superb covertapes, and although SU certainly had done well commercially, it really flopped spectacularly in later years. Have I got any of this wrong?