If you could work on your favourite magazine...

[PeteProdge]

If you could go back in time to be a writer on your favourite computer magazine, what kind of era and what section/genre would you like to write in?

[PeteProdge]

Obviously, for me it's Your Sinclair, post-1987 and I'd happily helm the letters page and/or do the occasional review. That's me as I am now, rather than the me at the age I was, 'cos I was a terrible writer back then.

[Mpk]

Cover artist for Newsfield, replacing Oli Frey masterpieces with frankly terrible scrawls in crayon and Bic pen ink.

Spoiler

[PeteProdge]

Cover artist for Newsfield, replacing Oli Frey masterpieces with frankly terrible scrawls in crayon and Bic pen ink.

This is an unpopular opinion, but one I hold sincerely. The over-the-top ubiquity of Oli Frey's art in Crash (and its sister mags) really ruined it for me. He can draw, yes, he can paint, yes - a tremendously skilled artist, but there wasn't any need for him to supply the same style on, like, nearly two thirds of the pages. It was Groundhog Day in paper form. He should have let writing 'breathe'.

The other mags would have a few favoured artists, but would try out loads of other freelancers too. Newsfield was way too much dominated by Oli Frey's airbrush and palette. He could have took some time off, he must have spent 100+ hours a week doing all that for Crash/Zzap/Amtix.

While the early 90s Crash was a terribly written pamphlet trying to be all 'yo dude, we're totally bodacious with the Turtles, WWF and the Simpsons, cowabunga!', at least the design was dragged over to its present day. It looked a lot better. For much of its time, Crash was like The Dandy of computer magazines, looking awfully dated.

(Also I don't understand Fusion's reboot of these magazines reusing the exact same cover paintings that were used on covers back in the 1980s.)

[worcestersource]

Ha, good question! Yes, I used to daydream about writing for YS. I had no idea how one went about getting into a magazine but I guess you’d just submit copy and see if they liked it? Wish I’d have thought of that back then. This’d be 1990s YS. I started reading as T’zer had just handed over the reins to Matt Bielby. I remained a fan until the very end.

I’d either review the games, write stories or do their DTP. In a bizarre twist of fate, I became handy with PageMaker in my mid teens. I suspect they used Quark Xpress, though.

Still, all that daydreaming got me making a digital fanzine of my own whilst in sixth form in the mid-90s. Even better, I wrote an embryonic browser to display the pages and, having learned those programming skills, I ended up spending a third of my life in the software industry designing the stuff.

You can join the dots…

[SteveSmith]

On a similar subject, there seems to be hardly any interviews/videos/blogs about or from the people who worked on the magazines. You can pretty much find an interview with any developer from back in the day, but nothing from old journo's.

[bluespikey]

Cover artist for Newsfield, replacing Oli Frey masterpieces with frankly terrible scrawls in crayon and Bic pen ink.

Spoiler

I'm sure you'd have fitted right in at Sinclair User.

[Andre Leao]

I would do... write Tzers...

[Vampyre]

On a similar subject, there seems to be hardly any interviews/videos/blogs about or from the people who worked on the magazines. You can pretty much find an interview with any developer from back in the day, but nothing from old journo's.

I've always found that really unusual. I'm really struggling to think of anyone other than Dominic Handy who admitted to being Paul Sumner as well (https://www.crashonline.org.uk/99/handy.htm). I know some other reviewers didn't exist either - YS's Gwyn and Racquel was John Minson IIRC.

But there's tons of others who absolutely exist as they're all over Facebook/Linked-In/etc. Robin Candy, Nick Roberts, T'zer, Ben Stone, Matt Bielby, Richard Eddy. Loads of 'em. I know some do Twitter (Jaz Rignall) and maybe that's enough for them.

I do wonder sometimes if they are users on WoS or SC but simply aren't letting on. But I don't think they are. It seems like that part of their life is over, and it must have been a pretty huge part, and they're simply not interested. I would love to chat with some of them on these forums. Like when Joffa appeared on WoSF and he was gobsmacked that everyone remembered him vividly and were very interested in what he had to say.

[clebin]

Your Sinclair probably would've been the biggest laugh to work at. I get the feeling that most magazines spend all their time in the pub, which would be great - I do love a pub - but I'm not sure I'd have survived to my present age. Plus, I'm horrific on a hangover and can't string a sentence together, so the thought of trying to write a witty review of yet another monochrome US Gold game with a banging headache doesn't bear thinking about.

If would be safer on my liver to work on something like the "serious" Amiga magazine, Amiga Shopper, where I'd get to play around with expensive hardware like and software, and do geeky techy stuff like coding tutorials and troubleshooting someone's Workbench problems.

Failing that, it would be quite cool to work for a car mag and scoot around in Ferraris. I probably shouldn't mention in the interview that I'm not acutally that into cars.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

The guy who chose the programs that were included in every issue of Microhobby Cassette

Not, really, being a game tester and/or reviewer at Crash magazine in 1984-86 seems cool.

[PeteProdge]

On a similar subject, there seems to be hardly any interviews/videos/blogs about or from the people who worked on the magazines. You can pretty much find an interview with any developer from back in the day, but nothing from old journo's.

The 'final' issue of Your Sinclair (yeah, 'issue 94' - a rebooted final issue given away free with Retro Gamer around the late Noughties - some don't count this as canon though and stick with Sep 1993's issue 93 BIG FINAL ISSUE as the true end) was full of 'where are they now?' features on just about everyone.

Plus there's this, although the interviewer seems to think the Unclear User spoof of SU was done by YS (when in fact it's by Crash)...

[5MinuteRetro]

If you could go back in time to be a writer on your favourite computer magazine, what kind of era and what section/genre would you like to write in?

100% Crash. 100% 1984-85. 100% reviews (because what teenager didn't want to be an influencer, even if we didn't call it that back then?).

As it happens, a few years later I did enjoy a career in consumer magazines stretching well into the 2000s, on titles with much bigger circulations than Crash et al -- and in the centre of Cool Britannia London, not sleepy Ludlow. But in a heartbeat I'd have swapped it all for a a shot working at Newsfield during its heyday.

[5MinuteRetro]

On a similar subject, there seems to be hardly any interviews/videos/blogs about or from the people who worked on the magazines. You can pretty much find an interview with any developer from back in the day, but nothing from old journo's.

It's a bit scattergun in both content and style, not to mention increasingly infrequent, but one of the hosts of the Maximum Power Up podcast is a little obsessed with old magazines/journos -- and those episodes happen to be my favourites. Check the one with Julian Rignall, for example.

[Vampyre]

I'm probably being naive here but I was just reading the Dominic Handy interview on Crash Online. This bit:

"Here’s an insider fact to whet your appetite... The access code for the door to CRASH Towers was 2169! I still remember it now, as when someone explained why it was 21-69, I was disgusted !"

I get the reference to 69 with Roger/Oli's history. I like to think of myself as a man of the world but what the hell is the "21" reference?

[PeteProdge]

I get the reference to 69 with Roger/Oli's history. I like to think of myself as a man of the world but what the hell is the "21" reference?

21 would be the age of consent for homosexual males in the UK at that time. (It's now in line with heterosexuals, as it should be.)

Anyway, that could be the reference, or it could be something else.