And where better to get all this gossip, than a good magazine? So whether you’re reading this section because you live here, or you’re reading it because you don’t, here’s the lowdown on magazines that might interest you.
The Official Buffy Magazine
Produced by the same company as the US Buffy Magazine, Titan Magazines, the UK Buffy magazine has been running for longer – four years now – and is released monthly, rather than quarterly. Every issue is packed with news, interviews with cast and crew both old and new, competitions, and often lots of lovely pictures for you to drool over. Generally speaking this is a good magazine to get, as the editors are clearly fans and rarely get their facts wrong. The downside for me, however, is the fact that a good deal of the magazine is taken up with a comic strip. The stories are usually set over eight issues or so, and are similar to – and often taken from – the Buffy graphic novels produced by Dark Horse. If you’re a fan, then that’s great – but if you’re not, with around ten pages out of fifty taken up with this section, it can cut a big chunk of uselessness into your £2.95 for even the biggest of Buffy-holics.
Thirteen issues a year – one each month and an extra “summer” issue.
The Official Angel Magazine
The first issue of this is released in August, so for the moment all I can really tell you is that it’s produced by Titan Magazines again, and will therefore probably contain a similar selection of goodies. This frees Buffy Magazine up to concentrate solely on Buffy, and means that no longer will we have to cope with the all-too-small amount of Angel info in the above magazine!
Dreamwatch
Dreamwatch regularly contains interviews and features on Buffy and Angel related matters, be it in the news section, or as one of the longer, cover features. The news section is usually correct and always detailed, and if you’re a fan of ‘cult’ television then you’ll probably love the first twenty pages or so of this particular tome. As well as Buffy and Angel, the folks at Dreamwatch provide us with features on shows such as Stargate SG-1, Charmed, and Smallville, and often provides in-depth features on upcoming movies. X-Men 2 and Spiderman are just two examples of films that Dreamwatch has covered in past months, interviewing cast, crew, writers and so on, to provide the reader with a magazine that’s well worth buying.
SFX
The news section in SFX doesn’t compare to Dreamwatch, but it’s still good and not to be sniffed at. SFX is much more reader-interactive than Dreamwatch, with many features that involve the reader. Examples would be the “six degrees of” and “separated at birth” sections, along with the excellent “Ask the SFX-perts” section. The experts really are just that, and rarely can’t answer a question posed by a reader. Although once they thought a man who wrote in was kidding when he asked if Mercedes McNab is related to the ex-Arsenal footballer Bob McNab and replied with a sarcastic ‘no’. Their inboxes were flooded, as many of the public had seen her interviewed in the build up to the FA Cup final one year, talking about her Dad’s career. Yes, her Dad. But this is irrelevant. SFX really is an excellent magazine, complete with the snarky captions on photographs that you can’t help but laugh at. At 130 plus pages, it’s also well worth the almost £4 the magazine costs. The Spoiler Zone includes detailed episode guides, although they’re all too often biased towards the reviewer’s own tastes when they get to rating the episode.
Overall, SFX is an excellent buy for any fan of Buffy or Angel, and a huge array of other cult shows.
Cult Times
Cult Times is, as the name suggestions, once again heavily focussed on cult television. It’s worth noting that in all of these magazines, some issues there’ll be nothing but Buffy information, and other times hardly any. But they’re usually still worth a read, even if you do just stand in the shop reading instead of buying! In my opinion, Cult Times is an SFX produced on a lower budget, with shorter interviews and probably aimed at a less obsessed fan-base than SFX. It’s for people who are interested, but not quite that interested. The people who don’t already know everything. Its interviews are still always a good read, and the most useful section of the magazine is often the 20-plus listings section at the back of the magazine, naming, describing, and giving times and stations for any cult show or movie for the whole month.
Starburst
Starburst is generally a magazine that I only pick up and skim through if I see a Buffy or Angel star on the cover, or mentioned somewhere on it. I don’t feel that it’s the highest quality magazine out there, nor is it worth over three pounds. There are a lot of adverts taking up space in the eighty page magazine, and the facts are often wrong. Episode titles and numbers, descriptions, and character names are often wrongly stated. They often include top ten or worst ten lists, which is clearly biased to the one specific reviewer writing, and not an accurate representation of public opinion. It’s not all bad, though, the interviews they do have are usually an interesting read, but as a rule, not really worth the money.
There are a number of other magazines out there that you might like to take a look at – Shivers and TV Zone are just two. I feel I’ve covered the main magazines in this article, and I’d like to make it clear that the opinions here are only my own, and do not represent the entire Apocalypse Monthly staff in any way. If anyone would like to disagree, agree, or just comment, they can contact me at rach@apocalypse-monthly.com and I’d love to hear from you!
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