1994: STAR WARS ADVENTURE JOURNAL 1 (West End Games)

From February 1994: the first edition of STAR WARS ADVENTURE JOURNAL, published by West End Games.

This was probably the oddest of the myriad of officially licensed Star Wars "magazines" published during the pre-prequel boom years. For a start, it wasn't really a magazine at all... And yet contained some of the same contents you would expect to find in a magazine. 

The Adventure Journal were a series of soft cover, square bound, books spun off from the Role Playing Game (so essential in revitalising the moribund franchise after years in the culture wilderness by demonstrating how much fun and expansive that particular galaxy could be) which contained new scenarios for use with the game, original fiction, interviews, features and even news about other aspects of the saga, particularly merchandise. 

Fifteen editions were published through to November 1997.

Because of their publisher, and target audience, the Journal (along with the other parts of the West End Star Wars empire) was mostly sold through hobby and game stores with less exposure through traditional comic book stores (unless they also catered to the gaming fraternity). I bought a few of these at the time (this is a battered replacement copy I bought for the purposes of STARLOGGED), often from branches of the now defunct Virgin Games chain (which may have been taken over by, or somehow evolved into, the current Game chain as some of their branches occupy former Virgin locations) which combined computer games with role playing. I remember buying West End product in their branches in Colchester and London Oxford Street (a brief walk westward from the main Virgin Megastore).

The ironey was that I was never interested in Role Playing itself but the various source books (of which there were many) were enough to satisfy my inner geek. Even through they tended to be pretty expensive.