Again, we managed to unearth a completely forgotten cracking scene magazine. Criminal was a papermag published by the famous C64 & Amiga group Red Sector Inc. This issue came out only two months before the group’s merger with Tristar into TRSI, an even more legendary team which is still active in today’s demoscene. According to the editorial, the mag had a precursor in early 1990 under the name Business, which had to be renamed due to a different scene magazine being published under the same name. Another note states that the “2nd issue […] will be released at some time in June”, thus one can assume that this is issue #1, even though the cover does not feature an issue number. However, to make things more confusing, Red Sector Inc. released a diskmagazine called “Criminal #1” two months earlier, in February 1990, with completely different content.

The magazine is rather slim; it appears that most of the texts were written by its two editors, Sir Mighty and Irata. Compared to many scene magazines of the time, it has a relatively “grown up” feel to it, and carries a number of copyparty reports and news items. Thanks to Hamster/TRSI, who found several pristine copies of the mag in the basement, we can present you with an extraordinary clean scan. You can download the OCR version (PDF) here, or browse through the mag in the online gallery.

PS: Have a look at the anonymous report on p. 5-6 for an insight into the the fascinating – antagonistic yet symbiotic – relations between crackers and game companies.