1997, STARBURST VIDEO HOUSE AD (VISUAL IMAGINTION)

From late 1997: a house ad for STARBURST VIDEO VOLUME 3, the last in the series of straight-to-tape 'editions' of the magazine released by publisher Visual Imagination.

I've never seen the first volume (fronted by Jon Pertwee and released to celebrate the 200th edition of the magazine) but I do have copies of the second and third (albeit long since dubbed onto DVD and the original VHS tapes dumped).

They both follow the same formula: various short (and not very candid) interviews with genre types (often snatched on location... presumably during conventions or promotional appearences) linked together by a celeb better known for acting than presenting. There's plenty of links that flow with all the confidence and spontaneity of someone reading from cue cards.

George Takai beamed in for the second tape, shooting his links at the STAR TREK exhibition staged at London's Science Museum (I went!) whilst - for this tape - BABYLON FIVE's Bruce Boxleiter wandered the halls of The Sci-Fi Channel's new London base. That location choice was clearly one that seemed better on paper than it looks on the screen. The sad fact is thst most TV stations, except for the studios (if they have any), galleries and (sometimes) edit suites, look just like any other pokey office building once you pass the fancy reception. And it's clear - in the case of this low-budget start-up, they didn't even have a fancy reception.

I have a strong suspicion that Visual Imaginatiin were simply taping the rushed interviews that turned up across their range of magazines (which was pretty much at their peak at this point) so a canny viewer with time on their hands would probably be able to spot where the print versions of all the content here appeared. Possibly several times as VI seemed to spread suspiciously similar content across the whole range.

Visual Imagination are now defunct (although STARBURST lives on) so these tapes are long unavailable. They were never issued on DVD and it's unclear what happened to both the finished masters and the original rushes once the company folded.

If anyone has a digital copy of the first volume, I'd be very interested in seeing it.

1984: GHOSTBUSTERS IN STARBURST MAGAZINE (MARVEL UK)

From December 1984: STARBURST, from Marvel UK, covers the making of the original GHOSTBUSTERS movie in a special issue of the title's regular run. Marvel even threw in (literally, it was loosely inserted in the magazine and easily lost) a free GB logo sticker (did they get a license for that?).

I saw the new GB movie at the weekend and I have to say I thought it was jolly good. It certainly surpassed my expectations. Even if, I times, I thought I was watching history's most expensive FRENCH AND SAUNDERS sketch.

Forget about the hopeless trailer (which made it look like a beat-for-beat rehash of the first flick) and go with an open mind. I'm pretty confident you will enjoy it. There is already talk of the inevitable sequel. I hope it's better than the original sequel.

This issue inadvertently started a long and prosperous relationship between the British Bullpen and the franchise. THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS animated series became a cash machine for the Annex Of Ideas, spreading out from their own title to numerous annuals, specials, spin-offs, a SLIMER solo title, a strip in comedy horror weekly IT'S WICKED and a residency in the anthology MARVEL BUMPER COMIC.

1981: STARBURST POSTER MAGAZINE ISSUE 2: ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (MARVEL UK)

From 1981: the second STARBURST POSTER MAGAZINE, published by Marvel UK and this time an officially licensed tie-in with the John Carpenter classic ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK.

These STARBURST spin-offs are a lot harder to track down then issues of the regular magazine but, from separate sources, I've recently been able to get hold of copies of each of them.

1981: STARBURST POSTER MAGAZINE ISSUE 1: EXCALIBUR (MARVEL UK)

From 1981: another, along with the annuals and the short-lived CINEMA MAGAZINE, of MARVEL UK's abortive attempts to grow the STARBURST brand beyond the core magazine. Visual Imagination managed, once it dropped into their hands, to use it as the basis for a whole publishing empire. Albeit one where quantity often seemed to trump quality.

STARBURST POSTER MAGAZINE ISSUE 1 was devoted to the movie EXCALIBUR. Marvel obviously had a lot of faith that this one was going to have a bit of mainstream success as they also packaged up some US reprints as, rather cheekily, the MERLIN AND EXCALIBUR SPECIAL. I don't remember knowing anyone who went to see this at the cinema (or expressed any desire to do so) so I think Marvel's confidence was misplaced.

The Starburst Poster Magazine did, however, continue. And we'll get to that.

1997: STARBURST MAGAZINE CELEBRATES 20 YEARS IN PRINT (VISUAL IMAGINATION)

From September 1997: STARBURST MAGAZINE celebrates its 20th anniversary with a bumper issue and free cover-mounted CD (something of a luxury for the usually gift-free Visual Imagination titles). Sadly the CD has parted company with this issue that I acquired recently. 

1987: STARBURST WINTER SPECIAL/ SPECIAL #1 (VISUAL IMAGINATION)

From the Winter of 1987: the first ever (annuals and occasional poster mags not withstanding) special spun off from STARBURST MAGAZINE.

Marvel UK never quite "got" Starburst when they owned the title... their attempts at brand extension were limited and uncoordinated and they didn't seem to do much to leverage the parent company's distribution to make it a serious rival to STARLOG in the States. It just sat awkwardly alongside their move into licensed kids titles and offered little in the way of synergy. 

When Marvel offloaded the title to Visual Imagination the new owners used it as a launch pad for various other even more niche ongoing titles like TV ZONE and SHIVERS. And those in turn launched subsidiary magazines like CULT TIMES. And their acquisition of long-runner FILM REVIEW begat more opportunities. 

This WINTER SPECIAL was the first of 85 (!) specials published on a quarterly basis. The release pattern formed the template for similar schedules for spin-offs from TV ZONE, XPOSE, CULT TIMES and FILM REVIEW.  The spin-off, along with the monthly, ground to a halt in 2008 when the company hit financial difficulties. 

The main magazine has returned but, to date, it has not spawned any spin-offs.

1979: ALIEN ON THE COVER OF STARBURST MAGAZINE ISSUE 14 (MARVEL UK)

From October 1979: another outing from the STARLOGGED Random Scans file: the 14th issue of MARVEL UK's STARBURST MAGAZINE puts ALIEN on the cover. 

1979: BUCK ROGERS COVER ON STARBURST ISSUE 13 (MARVEL UK)

From September 1979: the key art from BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th CENTURY graces the cover of the 13th issue of MARVEL UK's STARBURST MAGAZINE.

This issue, as the cover testifies, has a good line-up of Star Age greats including SPACE: 1999, Bond's MOONRAKER and ALIEN. And, although TV's AVENGERS falls outside the Star Age, Steel and Mrs Peel would be inducted a few years later when episodes appeared as part of the early Channel Four schedules (my first exposure to the show... although I didn't become fully immersed until the first Lumiere VHS releases in the early 1990s... then I was hooked). 

The cover is, I'm pretty sure, whiter than my scan suggests. I think the predominance of green text has prompted my scanner to give it something of a sickly green tinge. 

1982: DRAGONSLAYER POSTER MAGAZINE (MARVEL UK)

From 1982: another scarcity from the STARLOGGED vaults... The DRAGONSLAYER movie tie-in Poster Magazine published by Marvel UK.

This is a pretty beat-up ol' copy that I stumbled across recently. It still had the original owner's blue tac attached. And its quite badly creased. But worth getting (especially as I paid pennies for it) because, thanks to the format and the relative (un)popularity of the film, it ranks highly amongst the Marvel UK rareties. 

This was, officially, the third issue of the STARBURST POSTER MAGAZINE series. ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK was one of the other two. And I'm stumped for the third at the moment. Any ideas?

I've never actually seen the movie. Although I have a hunch that I do have a copy somewhere. It was part of the post-CONAN fantasy fare push of the early Eighties (if only Marvel had waited a bit longer to launch VALOUR: they might have had a minor hit rather than another flop) which, at the time, passed me by entirely. I was still living the Star Age. 

1982: STARBURST ANNUAL Number 2 (Marvel UK)

From 1982 (I think): the undated second, and harder-to-find, STARBURST ANNUAL from MARVEL UK and Grandreams.  

As the cover suggests... this was dedicated to vintage horror, monsters and scare-fare.  It's nigh-on-impossible to image a book like this slipping onto the annuals section of WH Smith these days.

The relative scarcity of this one, coupled with the fact that they never did a third, suggests that sales were soft. 

1978: STARBURST Issue 4 (Marvel UK)

From 1978: The fourth issue of STARBURST magazine.

Although it barely rates a mention inside, this was the first issue to be published by MARVEL UK.

Head Office agreed to buy SB as well as the services of its editor/ publisher (Dez Skinn) as part of their plan to revitalize the struggling British branch (by shifting the day-to-day centre of power from New York to London and significantly bolstering the range).  

They clearly saw potential in a Marvel SF mag during the Star Age boom (although Marvel NY don't seem to have tried to distribute SB stateside in any quantities and didn't try and re-purpose the editorial material for a US edition) but passed on acquiring Skinn's HAMMER mag (then, after several name changes over two years, known as HALLS OF HAMMER), making the 23rd issue the finale (at least for a few years).

This was the first issue to appear with the new, standardized, cover design for the UK monthlies... part of Skinn's much-hyped 'Marvel Revolution'.  The new house style was adopted by all the UK monthlies and also used (surprisingly) on Marvel's US mags.  Presumably the thought process was that it would allow copies from both ends of Stan's empire to crisscross the Atlantic and be virtually indistinguishable (save for the spellings and the small print) to buyers and the trade.  The Green Goliath was, appropriately enough, the first cover star of the Marvel era.  

Skinn bowed out of Jadwin House (Marvel's new ramshackle British base) in 1980 but the Annex of Ideas continued to publish Starburst until they sold it (apparently for a song) to upstart Visual Imagination in 1988.  The last Marvel issue was 87.  

Marvel used SB to build a line of magazines: the one-shot TV HEROES tried to replicate the SB formula as a general TV magazine in 1979.  DOCTOR WHO (another Skinn launch) started to evolve into a magazine (partly because text is a lot cheaper to publish than comic strips) from 1980 onwards.  The DWM formula was replicated for BLAKE'S SEVEN MONTHLY in 1981.  CINEMA debuted as a one-shot in 1981 and returned (briefly) as a regular magazine the following year.  The all-but-forgotten MONSTER MONTHLY also scared up a brief run in 1982.  

By the mid-Eighties, M-UK was retrenching as an extension of toy maker's marketing departments and a genre magazine was starting to look out-of-place in the portfolio.  DWM endured thanks to still healthy sales (despite the declining fortunes of the show itself) and strong internal lobbying which saw the bigger benefit to the company of having a BBC-licensed title in the portfolio... and the access it gave them to BBC Enterprises.  Starburst however was deemed surplus to requirements... and flogged-off on the cheap.

Visual Imagination used their new acquisition as a springboard to grow a large range of genre mags throughout the nineties. 

1978: STARBURST Issue 3

From May 1978: STARBURST issue 3.

This was the last issue to be published solo by Dez Skinn.  In addition to publishing this and the Hammer mag, Dez was also undertaking a spot of consultancy work for Stan Lee re: the future direction of the Annex of Ideas.  That landed him the job of the British Bullpen's boss man... and he made Starburst part of the deal. 

1982: STARBURST/ CINEMA HOUSE AD (Marvel UK)

This is an October 1982 House Ad for MARVEL UK's two regular (although CINEMA proved short-lived) film mags.

Cinema was apparently abandoned because the microscopic Magazines team were overstretched and needed to drop a title.  Cinema, the lowest seller, was selected for the chop.

This was a boom period for Marvel magazines with STARBURST, CINEMA, DOCTOR WHO, BLAKE'S SEVEN and MONSTER MAGAZINE all in print.  

1980: STARBURST SUBSCRIPTION ADVERT (Marvel UK)

This MARVEL UK House Ad was omnipotent around 1980, appearing pretty much across the whole British line.  It boasts a nice selection of recent covers from STARBURST the venerable SF Media monthly. 

Marvel continued to publish it (and a few spin-offs along the way including a couple of annuals and poster magazines) until the middle of the decade when they flogged it to Visual Imagination.  

1989: TV ZONE ISSUE 1 (Visual Imagination)

Here's another start for a long-runner: a (slightly battered) copy of Visual Imagination's Starburst spin-off TV ZONE, launched September-October 1989.

The TV Zone column (with the same crappy logo) had been running for a while in Dez Skinn's pre-Marvel creation and, with the boom in new small screen SF (and home video tentatively making some archive material, notably Doctor Who, available for the first time), a spin-off (albeit initially bi-monthly) must have seemed a no-brainer.

Forget the IDW WHO/ TREK crossover extravaganza: all you need is sharp scissors and a Pritt-stick to cobble together your own Timelord-meets-Trek blockbuster.

The contents were also similarly primitive but - at the time - were pretty cool.  The News page was just that: one page of big-fonted type revealing that Robin of Sherwood was coming to tape, War of the Worlds was being retooled for season two and fan-favourite Beauty and the Beast wasn't cancelled after all.

The articles followed Visual Imagination's (the clue is in the name) tried-and-tested formula of minimal words accompanied by as many nice pictures as possible.  It's a slim read, both in terms of page count and words.  Several pages were even filled by the unwelcome (and swiftly dispatched) comic strip Star Seven: The Next Degeneration.  A feature - ahem - better suited to a fanzine.

The first featured Fantasy Flashback was SPACE 1999's opener: Breakaway.  The feature's initial formula - which continued for years - was a verbose summary of the episode followed by minimal background/ making-of information.  Over time (especially under the auspices of Andrew Pixley), it evolved into a far more detailed account of production with the summary itself reduced to a sidebar.

This was a bit of a boom time for cult screen magazines: Marvel UK inexplicably decided to get back into the game with FANTASY ZONE (see here) at the same time, the almost-professional fanzine DOCTOR WHO BULLETIN had broadened its remit (partly to boost sales, partly to avoid accusations from the BBC and Marvel that it was encroaching into DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE's officially-licensed territory) to become DWB (latterly DREAMWATCH) whilst, of course, STARBURST under its new owner was still going strong.  And copies of STARLOG, THE OFFICIAL STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION MAGAZINE, THE STAR TREK FAN CLUB MAGAZINE and others were crossing the Atlantic if you knew where to look.

TV ZONE enjoyed a long, and occasionally illustrious, life: clocking-up 231 issues (and numerous specials) through to the end of 2008.  The last months saw publication, and distribution, becoming increasingly patchy, coupled with a noticeable decline in quality.  Visual Imagination succumbed in early 2009 although Starburst eventually emerged from the wreckage.

TVZ spawned, directly or indirectly, several spin-off of its own: the long-running CULT TIMES was basically a TV guide for cult TV (although the realities of TV scheduling made it all but impossible to include the terrestrial channels) supplemented by features published in the largest possible type size.  X-POSE started-out as a Fortean Times wannabe before happily settling into yet another outlet for pictures of Gillian Anderson.  ETV (Emergency TV, apparently) attempted to capitalise on the success of folks-in-uniform type shows... but it didn't last long.

1979: MARVEL MONTHLIES HOUSE AD (Marvel UK)

This is a 'Marvel Revolution' House Ad, extolling the virtues of the revitalised UK monthlies, from May 1979.

1980: BLAKE'S SEVEN VFX in STARBURST MAGAZINE (Marvel UK)

Continuing my occasional series of behind-the-scenes articles on the special effects of TV shows that begin with the letter "B", here's a nice article, from the 20th issue of Marvel UK's STARBURST, covering the SFX of BLAKE'S SEVEN.

It's a show with a (sometimes deserved) reputation for ropey visuals which - I think - makes this piece even more interesting as it shows these things weren't always just thrown together at the last moment.

The BBC Visual Effects Unit is long-since defunct, the victim of changing technology and the multiple restructuring within the Beeb.

1979: STARBURST ISSUE 5 HOUSE AD (Marvel UK)

This is a Marvel UK House Ad for STARBURST's 5th issue, published in January 1979.

It's notable for being a rare (but not unheard of) appearance of a DC Comics character on the cover of a Marvel title.

1989: FANTASY ZONE MAGAZINE (Marvel UK)

FANTASY ZONE was STARBURST redux: an attempt by Marvel UK to re-enter the SF/ Fantasy/ Horror media magazine market only a few years after flogging their previous monthly to Visual Imagination.

The logic of such a move is lost in the mists of time.  Maybe Marvel had seen that VI had managed to keep Starburst in business and coveted a piece of the action.  Maybe they wanted to get a spoiler onto the market to counter the launch of Starburst's first regular spin-off, TV ZONE (which launched in September 1989), even through VI wasn't directly competing with M-UK and Fantasy Zone had a broader editorial catchment than the new VI magazine.  Perhaps Marvel saw the glut of new fantasy movies, spearheaded by BATMAN, and thought the time was right.  Or, just maybe, they sensed the DOCTOR WHO TV show was faltering badly and wanted to try and get a new magazine out which could - if need be - replace DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE in the future.  

Marvel seemed to be pretty keen to make FZ work.  The magazine was well written and contained a fair amount of text, especially compared with its main UK rival which often resembled a scrapbook.  It also benefitted from some good layouts.  The indefinable problem was simply that it didn't feel very engaging.  It was - somehow - hard to get excited about the new issue when it appeared.  The commitment was there, but the emotion seemed lacking somehow.

M-UK used FZ as a (brief) spearhead for an expansion into SF movie tie-ins: they signed-up to publish UK editions of Starlog's officially licensed STAR TREK V and GHOSTBUSTERS II one-shot magazines, making them FZ specials in the process.  

Fantasy Zone shuttered suddenly (and the spin-offs halted) after only six issues.  The seventh (although misleadingly billed as the sixth) was previewed but never appeared.  TV ZONE, in comparison, continued until 2008 (and spawned a number of other magazines, all revolving around similar material).

As we've already seen (and will see again), Marvel UK didn't abandon the idea of media-based magazines (although they wouldn't attempt another Starburst wannabe): the next decade saw the DOCTOR WHO magazine franchise expand and contract (Classic Comics, Poster Magazine and Yearbooks), the (brief) return of BLAKE'S SEVEN (two specials and a poster magazine), a regular Hammer Horror magazine and the BIZARRE and PLAYBACK one-shots.

1978: THE FIRST MARVEL UK STARBURST HOUSE AD

Here's a MARVEL UK house ad, from November 1978, heralding the arrival of STARBURST MAGAZINE into the Mighty Marvel Magazine ranks.

When Stan Lee recruited Dez Skinn to head the UK operation, he also acquired Dez's just-launched SF/ Fantasy magazine as part of the deal.

Dez didn't last long (he was shown the door, by mutual consent, in 1980) but his magazine lasted longer.  Marvel eventually grew bored of it in the mid-eighties and sold it on to publisher Visual Imagination.  They turned it into something of a cash-cow, spawning numerous spin-offs, until the age of the web finally overtook them.  The magazine's been revived in recent years and its great to see it back on WH Smith's shelves.