Monday 21 March 2022

Nostalgic For My Childhood - Poster Magazines part 3

When I blogged about "poster magazines" before (you can read the 2019 post here and the 2020 post here), it certainly struck a chord but I was surprised to find people my age had never heard of them.  So, here's a few more...

Me, in 1978, with my hero
Poster magazines were essentially A4 glossy colour magazines which folded out into a (large) A1-sized sheet.  One side would be the magazine (with articles and plenty of photographs) while the reverse would be a giant poster and, depending on what you’d bought, the image might be a person, an action scene or the film poster.  I had several and most kids I knew had at least one huge poster on their wall.

The possibilities were endless.  Dez Skinn (before he created Starburst magazine)  produced Monster Mag which featuredgory movie stills from the likes of Hammer Films and Amicus.  Music was a big draw (singers and bands alike, as well as musical styles - my friend, the writer Mark Morris, remembers having punk ones on his wall).  You could pick up magazines devoted to TV series like Star Trek (a whole run of them), The Six Million Dollar ManDoctor WhoSpace: 1999The ProfessionalsThe HulkBattlestar Galactica and Planet of the Apes.  Film tie-in's were especially popular - if it was a blockbuster (and the 70s and 80s were full of them), there'd be a poster magazine on the newsagents shelves sooner rather than later (featuring the likes of Star WarsSuperman and James Bond).

spacemonstersmag reckons the magazines died out in the 1990's, which is a shame.  I still have a few in my collection (though not on the walls of my study) and think they’re great fun, another nostalgic item for film and TV fans of a certain age.

Did you have any?  Which ones were on your wall?
1974
1978
1978
1978 (clearly a bumper year for Poster magazines!)
1979


1980
1981
1982
1984
1984

You can check out the previous posts, from 2019 and 2020 here

2 comments:

  1. And wouldn't you know it? I never had any of those poster mags - don't remember ever seeing them. I've got Spider-Man and a Hulk poster mags, but they're replacements, not my originals. And why was there never a Caroline Munro poster mag? I'd have been sure to buy that.

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    Replies
    1. That's a very good question! I'd even buy one now!

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