At last year’s Radwar Party, a cozy get-together of old C64 and Amiga sceners, AVH/Radwar mentioned that he might have some old paper stuff somewhere. And indeed, a few months later he provided us with an excellent collection of 1980s papermags, many of which were previously considered lost. Today, we present the first two gems – both produce by legendary German C64 scener and papermag editor Jeff Smart. First, there is issue #20 of Illegal, one of the first cracking scene magazines (see our old post here). This issue, published around September 1987, was one of the last German-only numbers before Illegal turned into the international C64 zine. In this issue, one can still feel the original intention behind Illegal – to review games, but one can also find random scene news and gossip inside, as well as a brief report on the Danish Gold Copyparty 1987, a crucial event for the history of the C64 scene. The second scan is a papermag which has been surrounded by mystery for years and is a top item on our partner site mags.c64.org‘s “wanted list”. Paradise Island was a papermag produced by Jeff Smart somewhen between May 1989, when he was busted by the police, and 1991, when he released the final issue of Illegal. When I asked Jeff Smart about Paradise Island last year, he vaguely remembered having done something like that (and naming the mag after a t-shirt he wore back then), but could recall neither when it was released nor what was inside. Indeed, the contents are not particularly memorable – apart from the great cover by Hobbit/Fairlight, who later pursued a career as a professional comic artist.
Enjoy these two rarities, and keep in mind that it’s just about 1/10 of AVH’s collection. You can browse the mags in the gallery below, or download the high resolution scans here (Illegal) and here (Paradise Island).
