1995: THERMAL LANCE ISSUE 24

From May-June 1995: the 24th issue of THERMAL LANCE.

With a punter-pleasing X-FILES cover.  Of course.

1995: THE SECRETS OF THE X-FILES VHS COVER

From 1995: More X-FILES. More VHS tape goodness.

From memory (it's a long time since I watched this) this was a compilation of clips from the show which was released (possibly only as a rental tape or store exclusive) to accompany the tape releases of selected two-parters (tarted-up as feature length installments) prior to their UK TV premiere. A nice little money spinner for Fox when the show was at its pop culture peak.

I have a hunch I might have picked this up from the HMV flagship store in London... but I can't be sure.

1995: STARLOG PRESENTS THE X-FILES AND OTHER EERIE TV

From December 1995: the lawyer-dodging STARLOG spin-off THE X-FILES & OTHER EERIE TV, a one-shot mag notable for apparently using every XF publicity still in the Starlog archive ... more than once in many cases. There's only so many times you can see Scully propping up a filling cabinet before it starts getting very dull very fast.

1996: COMICS INTERVIEW SUPER SPECIAL: THE X-FILES

From 1996: a squarebound special edition of COMICS INTERVIEW magazine with coverage of THE X-FILES.

The uninspiring coverage of the show focuses on the Topps comic book, merchandising and an episode guide. So, for the most part, no different to every other genre magazine of the time trying to boost circulation figures with some opportunistic coverage of all-things-X. Plus CI had the traditional disadvantage of black & white interiors which limited the potential for pages upon pages of Gillian Anderson (and an enigmatic filling cabinet) studio publicity shots. 

The one-shot  was a flip book with the reverse cover (and greater proportion of the page count) dedicated to the very 1990s trend in impossibly proportioned "bad girl" comics. 

This isn't a particularly fine example of the run but the COMICS INTERVIEW SPECIALS are generally worth grabbing it you stumble across them as they are good collections of themed material (and sometimes new interviews) from the main mag. 

1996: CINESCAPE PRESENTS THE X-FILES AND CONSPIRACY TELEVISION ONE-SHOT MAGAZINE

From 1996: one of the periodic CINESCAPE MAGAZINE spin-offs, this time dedicated to (surprise surprise) all things X-FILES and a smattering of the other aliens/ supernatural/ conspiracy shows that were doing the rounds in the wake of the success of Mulder and Scully. And, of course, mixing up the contents was a handy way of dodging Fox's (the studio, not the bloke) lawyers who may otherwise have been able to slap an unauthorised product pulping order on this unlicensed item. 

Unlike the regular Cinescape, these specials jettisoned the mag's regular features, carried a higher pave count and were squarebound with stiff card stock covers. 

2002: THE X-FILES UK MAGAZINE ISSUE 1 (Titan Magazines)

From April 2002: the first issue of Titan's THE X-FILES MAGAZINE.

This replaced their long-running comic/ magazine hybrid which was originally launched by Manga and subsequently acquired by Titan when the video distributor bailed out of publishing.

The show's older demographic, not to mention a lack of new Topps strips coming from the States, dictated that the format be changed.

Of course, by the time of the relaunch, the show was way past its cultural highpoint and had jettisoned audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.

Titan have just issued a new book that appears to pull together material first published in the magazine. The layouts are good and consistent (have they been reworked?) but the screengrabs look murky and blurred as if they were swiped (as they probably were) from an NTSC VHS. I picked up a copy from Forbidden Planet just before the Christmas break.

1997: THE BOX MAGAZINE (Haymarket)

From 1997: the brilliant, and sadly short-lived, THE BOX magazine.

Although it only lasted a mere three issues, over a span of six months, I still rate this as one of my favourite magazines. I loved the way it wasn't afraid to tackle diverse, and occasionally obscure, subjects related to all things Small Screen in a detailed and considered fashion. This was EMPIRE for telly... Before the internet changed everything forever. 

I almost missed the first issue on the shelf of John Menzies (another blast from the past... WH Smith bought the stores a few years later and promptly shut them all) thanks to the Paul Whitehouse cover. But, once I picked it up, it was an immediate purchase. And it was only a £1. 

Two months later, issue two smartly rode the paranormal wave (no... Not the you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it BAYWATCH NIGHTS) with the obligatory X-FILES cover. Although THE BOX was classy enough to cough up for the UK rights to the ROLLING STONE cover shoot rather than just regurgitate any number of studio publicity stills ala Visual Imagination.

Did the cover of issue three seal its fate? You have to wonder. Amidst hundreds of cover stars gathered from the ranks of the beautiful people, Father Jack in all his disgusting glory was closer to FANGORIA than TV QUICK. 

The third issue heralded great things to come: the fourth issue, due that September, was to feature THE SWEENEY and Michael Palin. And, best of all, the frequency was going to be bumped up from bimonthly to monthly. Surely the sign of early success.

Except. September came. And the Box didn't. For a long time after I continued to check the shelves but, after a while, it began to be clear: rather than expanding...It had been cancelled. Michael Hesiltine, Haymarket's top guy, had got his chopper out.

Months later, its passing was briefly noted (and mourned) in the pages of the Media Guardian (in the days when Monday's paper was still an essential read).

Others, noteably CULT TV, came later. And TV ZONE soldiered on. But there was little chance they would cover the same ground (except when Andrew Pixley was writing for TVZ). 

Apologies for clipping the right-hand text on each of these. The page size is slightly wider than my bog-standard scanner. 

1995: CINEFANTASTIQUE: THE X-FILES

From October 1995: CINEFANTASTIQUE magazine (volume 26, issue 6) devotes its in depth coverage to THE X-FILES to-date.  

There was certainly no shortage of coverage, in magazines and books, devoted to the show during this period where any tie-in seemed to fly off the shelves but (as usual) CFQ (along with SPECTRUM) offered the most sensible and detailed coverage rather than simply gushing about the relative sex appeal of the two stars.  

I watched, for the first time since the initial theatrical release, the first X-FILES movie (originally FIGHT THE FUTURE although any such title was conspicuously absent from the DVD release) yesterday (I got it for a £1 at the weekend) and although it was better than I remembered (and I remembered very little... the whole last part was something of a revelation as I'd forgotten it entirely) it still wasn't much cop.  I always thought the show was at its weakest when it indulged in the alien conspiracy mythology (creating a straight jacket that constricted the show's creative process and became increasingly difficult to sustain over the long haul) and the movie was very much along those lines.  It was basically an extended, better resourced (but still relatively cheap) episode which crammed a lot in but made very little sense of any of it.  And ended, pretty much as it had begun, with not much having changed.  

I prefer the far more low-key sequel (which seemed to pass the world by) because it sensibly ignored all the alien stuff which made it far more accessible to someone like me who bailed on the TV show about half way through the extended run.  I hope the new show takes a similar approach despite understandable audience expectations that The X-Files = alien conspiracies and lonely men oblivious to smoking regulations.  

1995: THE X-FILES SPECIAL COLLECTORS EDITION (Manga)

From 1995: THE X-FILES Issue 1 "X-Files Bureaus Special Collectors Edition".

Not another double post?!?  Nope!  It's another subtle variant.  I've featured this, the first issue of Manga's UK reprints of the Topps strips, before (see: here) but, it turns out, that was the bog-standard edition.  This is a hitherto unknown (to me) fancy variant (well... it did appear in the mid-nineties) with gold ink cover.

Amazingly, this was being flogged for £1.95 compared with a mere £1.25 for the normal version (posted below).  I have a hunch that the badge that was mounted on the standard version had a silver version of the logo... but I can't be certain of that.  The contents were identical in both.  

What were The X-Files Bureaus?  Good question.  If my memories are correct, they were dedicated sections in Forbidden Planet (and possibly another chain...?) selling the burgeoning selection of officially licensed merchandise.  The New Oxford Street branch of FP had their bureau on the ground floor, adjacent to the magazine racks.  That said, I don't ever remember seeing this edition.  Maybe it sold fast or maybe I failed to spot the (subtle) differences with the mainstream edition. 

1996: THE X-FILES SPECIAL EDITION Issue 1 (Manga)

FROM WINTER 1996: Manga's THE X-FILES SPECIAL EDITION Issue 1.

All things "X" were blistering in the mid-nineties (Visual Imagination even managed to keep their magazine X-Pose going for years) so spinning-off a magazine from Manga's regular XF comic must have been an obvious no-brainer.

The regular UK edition had always carried some new text pages (articles, news coverage, merchandise plugs etc) but this spin-off dumped the (already in finite supply) strip element altogether.  

I'm not sure how long this title lasted (I think there was at least one more edition) but I assume it was spiked when Titan took over the license.  They then evolved the comic (possibly because the supply of new strips dried up when Topps shuttered their entire comic book operation and retreated back to trading cards) into a magazine anyway, effectively replacing this one. 

1995: THE X-FILES COMICS DIGEST Issue 1 (Topps Comics)

From December 1995: THE X-FILES COMICS DIGEST issue 1, published by Topps.

The main US broadcasters are busy announcing their new 2015-16 schedules at the moment, confirming what shows will return, which pilots will go forward to series and where everything will sit in the schedules.  At least for the first few weeks until poor ratings - and executive nerves - start to take their toll.

One of the shows confirmed to be returning, albeit with a very finite run, is the one-time ratings juggernaut (and the show, more than any other, that defined a Cult TV era: THE X-FILES.  It will return next January.  

I always thought the show worked best when it jettisoned the making-it-up-as-we-go arc (DARK SKIES, king of the wannabes,  had a much better one) in favor of the self-contained scares in the KOLCHAK tradition.  That's why I liked the second feature film far more than the first.  

Topps, the long-time trading card folk, probably couldn't believe their luck when they bagged the comic book rights... and (as any visit to a well-stocked 50p box will confirmed) milked 'em for all their worth.  

In addition to the core book (41 issues between 95-98), they also published adaptations of first-season episodes (a curiously old-fashioned concept, even at the time), an adaptation of the original novel GROUND ZERO, two annuals and (best I can tell) sundry specials and compilations.  

They also published three issues of THE X-FILES COMICS DIGEST, of which the first issue is above.  The digest, which ran original extended stories, appeared for three issues between December 1995 and the following September.  

The first issue, and possibly the other two, appeared with a choice of art or photo covers.  The interiors are the same in both.

There are oodles of reprint volumes available... the story from this edition apparently appears in volume 2 of the Checker Books run of trade paperbacks, published in 2008.  All three strips from the digests had, it seems,  previously appeared in DEAD TO THE WORLD, a 1996 compilation by Titan Books.  

There was a long-running British edition of THE X-FILES comic.  Although I have a stash (somewhere) I don't know if it reprinted the digests (entirely possible as Topps struggled to get new material approved by deadline, which must have left overseas publishers, with their own schedules, scrabbling for material).  If it did, it would have presented the art far larger than the original US editions.  

Topps Comics was open for business between 1993 and 1998. 

1995: DREAMWATCH Issue 9

Everyone has a first issue... and for DREAMWATCH MAGAZINE readers this may well have been it.  

DREAMWATCH, the rebooted former fanzine (and future Titan Magazines acquisition), launched earlier in the year (see my previous post) but it was still only sold via subscription and through specialist comic book stores.  From issue 9 (May 1995) it nabbed national mainstream distribution and no doubt found a brand new audience, previously blissfully unaware it even existed.

Over those previous eight issues the magazine had come a long way: fixing the crappy masthead and cleaning-up the interior layouts.  For a good few years, Dreamwatch and TV Zone were invaluable monthly reads.  

Of course, it helped that this coincided with the moment that THE X-FILES ceased being that obscure NIGHT STALKER-type show tucked away on satellite TV (it's easy to forget that its first British outing on Sky One went pretty-much unheralded.  It was only when BBC TWO repeated the show that it began to build any momentum) and into a zeitgeist-capturing cultural phenomenon.  This wouldn't be the last time that Dreamwatch (and every other magazine in search of a sales lift) would splash it across the cover.  

BABYLON FIVE was also proving to be the little-show-that-could, building a bigger (so it seemed) fan following in the UK than in the States. 

1995: THE X-FILES Issue 1 (Manga)

Manga were a spin-off of the VHS/ distribution company of the same name who, if my memory is correct, had expanded into publishing by taking over Dark House International's Manga title when they withdrew from the UK market.

They got (exceptionally) lucky in 1995 by picking-up the UK comics rights to THE X-FILES just as it was exploding into the zeitgeist. The main contents were lifted from the US Topps Comics tie-in, supplemented by newly originated text features.

I wasn't a regular reader of this (but I have acquired the hardback compilations of the main Topps run) at the time but I believe Titan eventually took over the rights and, partly because Topps were beginning to struggle and the flow of new material was starting to dry up, rebooted it as a magazine.  

This first issue came with a free cover-mounted metal pin badge (long since lost unfortunately).  

1996: STARLOG COVERS DARK SKIES

More JFK-SF-conspiracy shenanigans: this time the deliberately tabloid (and rather nicely done) cover of STARLOG MAGAZINE (cover-dated November 1996), pegged to the launch of NBC's ultimately short-lived DARK SKIES.

Confession time: I liked (and still like) this show a lot.  Sure, it was obviously made - ahem - possible by Mulder and Scully and often wasn't quite as well executed but it seemed better thought through than Chris Carter's sprawling epic and the "history as we know it is a lie" hook really appealed to the geeky historian side of me.

The, admittedly improbable, conceit of the show was that pretty much ever significant event in post-WWII history was somehow connected to a covert alien invasion plan and the attempts by the top secret Majestic 12 organisation to, using all means necessary, to keep it in check.

It was a bonkers premise which frequently strained (or snapped) credibility but, at its core, was a really neat idea.  The show's first (and only) season spanned the sixties but the master plan was that each subsequent season would have covered subsequent decades until the show came right up to date with the millennium.  It would have been awesome.

The critics were, not unsurprisingly, pretty harsh and most dismissed it as another in the succession of FILES knock-offs that cluttered the mid-nineties schedules (heck, even BAYWATCH NIGHTS went supernatural in its seldom-seen second season) but I think they were a little too quick to dismiss a show that had the power to get you thinking a bit.

The ratings were never good so the producers were - ahem - encouraged to make some mid-season course changes (notably adding Jeri Ryan, as a Russian Mrs Peel) to the existing ensemble but these, for the most part, did lift the show by challenging the viewer's perceptions of the format and suggesting that no one was safe from the unfolding battle with the alien Hive.

Eric Close managed to shrug off the failure and carve out quite a small screen career, most recently on the far-better-than-it-should-be NASHVILLE.

By all means seek out the DVD box set.  Once dismissed as being 'unreleasable', because of the copious amounts of expensive-to-clear period music, the show has now been released on R1 and R2.  If you have the choice, plump for R1 as it has a much better set of really rather good extras.  The show deserves no less.

1994 - THE PHAROS PROJECT 2 FANZINE (CUDWATS)

THE PHAROS PROJECT 2 (I'm not sure if that indicates that there was some sort of predecessor... or whether this was just a nod to the original on-WHOscreen incarnation) was a great fanzine from the mid-ninties which I really enjoyed at the time.

At the masthead says, this was published by - deep breath - Cambridge Universities' Doctor Who and Television Society (Cudwats for short) but available to anyone who mailed away for it.  Including me.  I'm struggling to recall how I knew about this - and how I knew when to order the next issue as I didn't subscribe.  I'm assuming they advertised in the classified section of TV ZONE or DREAMWATCH.  

TPP2 focused on the two big mid-decade shows, THE X-FILES and BABYLON FIVE, which - at the time - suited me just fine as they always seemed to do a better job than the equally obsessed professional magazines (and this was around the time that every magazine spotted the opportunity to boost circulations by bunging Mulder and Scully on their cover).

As you'll see from the covers below, they also ran well-written (and fun) pieces on other shows (The Wanderer! The Equalizer!  The Night Stalker!  Even - puttup Friends!).  What's not to love?

Each issue was technically superior to the last: boosting page count, grappling with new-fangled desktop publishing, adding colour covers.  All told, it was a slick package which was (and is) a pleasure to read.

Issue 5 (Spring 1996) was the last issue I ever saw advertised.  I have no idea whether any more appeared but I'm pretty sure they didn't (or, if they did, they didn't advertise them) as I would have ordered them in a shot.