What brought you here to Retromags?

[Liquidd]

Being an artist, I actually came to Retromags searching for specific old issues of PSM, PlayStation Official, and EGM. Back in the day I submitted art to various contests and forums these mags featured.  I only won a few controllers, but at the time I was young and just stoked about seeing my art within the pages. 

[BlitzFitness]

Hi Liquidd, 

I heard about RetroMags from an article on either Kotaku or RockPaperShotgun, and love the work they've done and the organizing behind it.

You mention being an artist and looking for old PSMs.  It just so happens, that was the only mag I ever subscribed to.  I recall for a while there they were hiring artists to do their (the artists') own version of game characters and so on for the covers, rather than the somewhat more standard use of official art.  I bring it up because I'm curious if that was something that was important to you given your art inclination?

Also, great question, hope plenty of others reply as well. 

[JimJam78]

Mostly, looking for issues of magazines I followed that I missed when they came out.  It was frustrating missing things, and now I can fill the gaps in.

[Liquidd]

@BlitzFitness 

Thanks, Blitz. I hope others reply as well, I'm very curious if anyone else has a similar reason for coming. As to the importance of cover art, I was still wet behind the ears as far as actually trying to get my work on their covers, but I was inspired by seeing artists such as Jim Lee and Andy Park grace their covers and pages. I eventually went to college, honed my craft, and became a freelance illustrator/Graphic Designer, but that was years after PSM became defunct.

I remember a particularly humorous event though - which occurred in the forums of either PSM or EGM - where a reader complained about all the scantily clad female game character art stating that she would be happy to see just a pic of Cloud Strife (FF7) in his underwear. So I drew a pic of Cloud in his skivvies and sent it in. They printed it under the headline "One Reader Comes Through For Another" lol. Unfortunately, I'm still looking for that issue, but I'd love to see how much my art has improved since that piece.

 

[Liquidd]

@JimJam78

Yeah, I can see how it would be frustrating. I spent a small fortune monthly collecting every magazine, so I never missed one, but over the years I had to get rid of them. I kept the ones with my art in them, but again after years of moving around they were lost.

[BlitzFitness]

@Liquidd

Oh man, I really hope that issue gets uploaded here at some point, I would love to see that artwork!  

[Robo184]

On 11/20/2023 at 7:55 PM, JimJam78 said:

Mostly, looking for issues of magazines I followed that I missed when they came out.  It was frustrating missing things, and now I can fill the gaps in.

Yes, and game magazines such as Nintendo Power and Electronic Gaming Monthly were pricey for kids. So, we only had money to buy one or two magazines each month. It is also good to have digital backups when people change residence.

[fransbjorkstam]

looking for old swedish gaming magazines from my childhood! i am also trying to buy them at auctions, but lately, retro gaming related items tend to go for extreme overprices in the swedish auction sites

[kitsunebi]

10 hours ago, fransbjorkstam said:

looking for old swedish gaming magazines from my childhood! i am also trying to buy them at auctions, but lately, retro gaming related items tend to go for extreme overprices in the swedish auction sites

Not just Swedish sites.  eBay is pretty absurd lately.  I haven't used eBay in decades, but back then, you used to have to pay a fee to relist unsold goods every week, so people tended to price things to sell.  I can only assume something has changed, because now I see the same mags listed at ridiculous prices, going unsold week after week for months, or even years.

I remember when I first decided to sell off some of my mags.  This was maybe 20 years ago, and I sold off all of my GamePros, since I never cared for that mag.  I put them all together in one lot - maybe 20 issues or so - and the whole thing sold for $5 LOL.  I guess I should have waited 20 years.

[tutastar2]

I Love the retro magazines,retro strategies guides and video games of course.  I'm from brazil .  I have searched a Pokémon guide and find retromags on the internet archives 

[OutworldArcade]

I've been visiting the site for old gaming magazines for a long time now but never thought to create an account until now. I've desperately been searching for a specific magazine with a specific article for years. Unfortunately, I don't remember what publication it was lol. So I created an account and posted here in the forum hoping someone familiar may see it. 
That said, I love browsing through old magazines I looked at as a kid. 

[Areala]

On 11/21/2023 at 8:48 AM, Liquidd said:

I remember a particularly humorous event though - which occurred in the forums of either PSM or EGM - where a reader complained about all the scantily clad female game character art stating that she would be happy to see just a pic of Cloud Strife (FF7) in his underwear. So I drew a pic of Cloud in his skivvies and sent it in. They printed it under the headline "One Reader Comes Through For Another" lol. Unfortunately, I'm still looking for that issue, but I'd love to see how much my art has improved since that piece.

Oh my gosh, I remember both that letter and the Cloud In His Undies artwork that showed up a couple of months later! That's freakin' HILARIOUS! Good on you for making her wish come true! 

For anyone else wanting to check this out, the letter appeared in EGM #100, page 16, written by someone using the pseudonym "Terra" from Springfield, MA. EGM's response was that after all the controversy surrounding them publishing the info about the Nude Raider website, they couldn't possibly show such a thing.

The responses came in issue 102, on page 12, first with a letter from "Celes" excoriating EGM for printing a picture of Lara in a bikini on the page immediately following "Terra"'s letter (in EGM's defense, that was an ad, not internal artwork or a reader-submitted piece) and asking for said Cloud in Undies picture. Right below that is @Liquidd's letter and artwork.

As another amusing aside, the letter just below that is about the secret message EGM ran in issue #100 about GamePro. The response from the editor tells readers to keep an eye out for other hidden messages from EGM, because sometimes they just throw one in there for the heck of it. Which they actually did right there, since the first letter of each sentence spells out the word 'THANKS'. Cheeky buggers...

*huggles*
Areala

[Liquidd]

On 11/21/2023 at 10:07 PM, BlitzFitness said:

@Liquidd

Oh man, I really hope that issue gets uploaded here at some point, I would love to see that artwork!  

Thanks to Areala that issue has been found (EGM issue 102 on page 12)

[Liquidd]

On 2/15/2024 at 7:26 PM, OutworldArcade said:

I've been visiting the site for old gaming magazines for a long time now but never thought to create an account until now. I've desperately been searching for a specific magazine with a specific article for years. Unfortunately, I don't remember what publication it was lol. So I created an account and posted here in the forum hoping someone familiar may see it. 
That said, I love browsing through old magazines I looked at as a kid. 

Lol. Yeah, it's a daunting task to find specific issues when you don't really remember which issue, so I can imagine it is even more daunting if you don't know which publication. What was the article?

[BlitzFitness]

Haha, that is great!

[tearatherflesh]

For like a decade, I'd have a recurring dream of finding a box full of 90s video game mags for sale, mostly Game Players (funny, check it out if you never have, namely the issues from 1995 onward. Chris Slate was the editor, of later PSM and Nintendo Power fame) and Next Generation, which were my favorites as a kid and are notably harder to find than other mags. I'd wake up soooo upset.  

This website made those dreams a realty. A HEARTFELT THANKS TO ALL WHO MADE THIS POSSIBLE!

[twiztor]

i originally joined this site because i was wanting to DL all the Nintendo Power magazines. I had a bunch of them saved from when i was a kid, but there were gaps. I ended up selling off the lot of them at some point, so these digital copies became my only source of that info. I've since bought back way more than i ever had before, so i guess it's a moot point. But i love the convo here, and i'm glad that i've even contributed some of my own scans (can't remember if they were Nintendo Fun Club News issues or Nintendo Power Flash. Also check out both issues of Where's Waldo magazine!) to make this place just a bit more complete.