Crash is a re-launched Spectrum-specific magazine taking its lead from the original Crash publication that ran from 1984 to 1991. Fusion Retro Books (the publisher of all three bookazines reviewed here) brought back the magazine via Kickstarter and the current A5 format has been going since December 2020, published on a bi-monthly basis and has now reached issue 7.
ZZAP! 64 was the Commodore 64 equivalent back in the day, the original mag running from 1985 to 1992. As with Crash, this was brought back as an A5 format bi-monthly publication and is up to issue 6.
Fusion, an original title, is the longest running of the trio, having reached 29 issues so far, and is published on a monthly basis. As with the others, the price is £3.99 per 60-page issue. Postage per issue is £1.65 as of the time of this post. This covers retro and current generation gaming, indie releases, tabletop games and toys.
If that wasn't enough, there are two more publications from Fusion Retro Books: ZZAP! Amiga (2 issues so far on a bi-monthly basis) and AmtixCPC (2 issues now, a third due soon and on a quarterly basis) That's a serious range of publications which can be bought directly from the publisher's website or via a subscription on Patreon, links for which I'll add to the end of this post. But that's not why we are here today. Nope, we're here to talk about what you get when you pop into a national newsagents.
Priced at £9.99, each bookazine is 120 pages in length and in full colour. The editorials for Crash and ZZAP! 64 note that they each contain 90 pages of previously published material and 30 pages of new content. Fusion, however, is all new material. Together, they act as perfect gateway material for their magazine counterparts, but I'll get to that later.
As you will see below, I have added pictures of the contents page and the staff/contributors for each volume, and some brief comments on the contents. I'm not going to provide an in-depth guide (you'll have to buy them to find out what goodies lie within) but if you look closely, you'll see some very familiar names listed if you are a follower of the retro gaming scene. That gives some promise as to the quality of the contents.
Crash first and there are some nice pieces on Christmas issues of the old magazine, a handy feature on the effect of running Spectrum games on a Spectrum Next, and some very informative interviews. There are also reviews of old and new games. If you're a fan of the Spectrum, this is a great introduction to the magazine and what you can expect if you were to buy future (or existing) issues.
ZZAP! 64 is pretty much the same, but for the C64. I know, that's a cop out considering the amount of content in here, and I mean no disservice to the team behind it, but it's as good as its Spectrum counterpart and fans of the ol' chicken lips bread bin will not be disappointed.
Fusion is probably the one that I was most wary about. After all, it doesn't have the focus of the other two volumes, but I need not have worried. From the Philips G7000 (I so wanted one of those as a child) to the Camputers Lynx, via some weird He-Man toys and really bad videogame adverts of yesteryear, Fusion is a smorgasbord of retro fun.
The writing is each of the three volumes is of high quality and tremendously engaging, each author showing a passion for their chosen piece. I can't fault the production values either: screenshots and artwork pop out from each page and, all in all, these are a fantastic introduction to their respective regular publications. They have, however, left a question for me to answer.
I noted above that these volumes are gateway material, a way of reaching potential new customers who might not have found the magazines online. The question is, has this worked on me? Kind of. These magazines are also available on Readly. I've talked about this service before and I am a fan of it. However, publications gain more from you buying their work rather than using a service such as Readly. The counter argument is that without Readly, I wouldn't be able to read the range of publications I do - there simply isn't the spare money to buy everything I read on the service. In the case of Crash, ZZAP! 64 and Fusion, I will continue to read them via Readly. I know, it's not much, but it's the best I can do.
However, as I owned both an Amstrad CPC464 and a Commodore Amiga 500 in my youth, I really did like the Amiga and Amstrad CPC-themed magazines, so have purchased the two existing issues for each and, with the announcement that issue 3 of AmtixCPC is due out soon, I will subscribe to that one via Patreon going forward. The same will go for ZZAP! Amiga when its issue 3 is released.
What these bookazines (and the regular issues) prove is that the market for small scale, niche publications continues to be big enough to support a veritable cornucopia of titles. If any of this trio interest you, give them a try by picking up a copy. If you like them, show your support for the magazines, either using Readly, buying issues directly from the publisher or via the various Patreon subscriptions. That way, not only do you get to enjoy some great work by dedicated writers and artists, but you also get to support them so that they can continue to deliver said work.
You can check out the range of Fusion Retro Books publications here, including the magazines mentioned above and a range of books as well. You can also follow Fusion Retro Books on Twitter here.
Finally, the Patreon links for the various magazines are listed below:
Thank you for for your fantastic review of what we do. The Fusion Bookazine is all new material, we’ve yet to publish any “best of” compilations but we might do if they is call for it.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the kind words. Thank you also for correcting me on that. I have amended the post accordingly. :-)
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