In 2018, to mark it's 40th anniversary, I blogged about Starburst magazine (
you can read the post here) and included some cover scans. This seemed to go down well, a pleasant nostalgic nudge to a great magazine from back in the day (and some of our formative years) and so, because I need little excuse for this kind of thing, here are a few more.
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| issue 3, April 1978 |
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Mark Hamill enjoys a read of issue 22,
June 1980 |
Starburst magazine was created in 1977 by Dez Skinn, who published the first three issues himself. When he was taken on as Editorial Director by Marvel UK in late 1978, they inherited Starburst and began to publish it from issue 4 onwards. He edited the magazine until early 1980 (issue 19) when he left Marvel and Alan McKenzie, who already worked on the title, took over the reins. Marvel sold the magazine in 1985 (issue 88) and Visual Imagination published it until 2009 when they went out of business (issue 365). Starburst continued as an online zine and was revived in print in 2012 with issue 374 by Starburst Magazine Ltd, who still publish it today (making it “the world’s longest running magazine of Sci-Fi, Horror and Fantasy”).
Starburst was perfect for me, not only keeping me well informed but also acting as an important stepping stone, bridging the gap from
Look-In (
which I wrote about here) to my later discoveries of
Photoplay and
Premiere (and then
Empire and
Total Film beyond those). Even now, 40 years after the fact, the issues are as fresh and exciting as they were then with news sections, articles and book reviews, in-depth features and film reviews where the writers (John Brosnan and Tony Crawley among them) were absolutely not afraid of saying exactly what they thought.
Reading Starburst through the late 70s and early 80s made me feel as if I belonged to a group of like-minded folk, in the same way reading early Fangoria would do later in the 80s and to my mind, you can't ask for more than that.
Enjoy...
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| issue 6, January 1979 |
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| issue 21, May 1980 - look at all those effects people being interviewed! |
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| issue 26, October 1980 - no idea about "Thongar" and I don't remember this version of "Dr Strange" either. I wonder what the author of the 'Comic Heroes On Screen' article would think about the cinematic landscape now? |
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| issue 28, December 1980 - win a sweatshirt! I like how they managed to squeeze "Dressed To Kill" in |
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| issue 30, February 1981 - not a lot of items on this cover have remained vibrant over the years, have they? |
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| issue 31, March 1981 - bit chummy with Chris Reeve here... |
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| issue 35, July 1981 - yes! Condorman! |
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| issue 43, March 1982 - a terrific still from Star Wars, that doesn't appear at all in the finished film! |
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| issue 42, April 1982 - Starburst, never afraid to be gory (this was a magazine you picked up in the newsagents, don't forget) or to wear its heart on its sleeve ("Ghost Story" is 'low on suspense'...) |
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| issue 48, August 1982 - more gore! |
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| issue 50, October 1982 - what a line-up! Still not a fan of the new logo though... |
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| issue 57, May 1983 |
scans from my collection except issue 3 from Dez Skinn and 63 (Internet Archive.org)
sources:
Dez Skinn on Starburst
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