History

ZZap! 64 was first launched in 1985, It came out as a fully games
orientated magazine at a time when most other Commodore 64 magazines gave only
marginal coverage to games. ZZap originally only contained C64 game reviews but
by the latter part of 1988 Amiga games were covered from time to time. However,
in issue 42 (October 1998), the Amiga became a permanent part of ZZap, well
permanent that is until issue 74 (June 1991) when ZZap again returned to it's
original format of C64 games only.

All went well until November 1991 when issue 79 failed
to hit the streets and we were informed by a certain other C64 magazine that
ZZap's publishing company, Newsfield had gone out of business. So it seemed
after 6 years the reign of ZZap had come to an end, however all was not lost as
an ex ZZap editor, a Newsfield director and ZZap's cover illustrator got
together and raised the finances needed to buy the magazine from the
liquidators, through another publishing company known as Europress.

So ZZap returned to the presses and out came issue 79
in December 1991. Over the following year the magazine had many design changes,
some good, some bad, like the terrible "Lash 'n Bash" who took over the letters
page from Lloyd Mangram. Officially the last issue of ZZap was issue 90
(November 1992). The reason for this was that the magazine was relaunched as
Commodore Force in January 1993 to reflect the way the magazine had changed so
much since it was first launched in 1985. One big change that was brought in
with Commodore Force was the return of Lloyd to the letters page, a very welcome
event.

By this stage the C64 market was starting to die pretty
fast, with only around 10 reviews a month, most of which were re-releases but
Commodore Force was still going strong with reviews of the few new games coming
out and also containing features where the all time best games of a genre were
reviewed. Issue 10 (October 1993) of Commodore Force was actually ZZap's 100
birthday and this fact was celebrated with a two page pullout charting the
history of ZZap. Over the next few months the amount of reviews per issue
averaged only around 3 but from the very few commercial games that were
released, many were of high quality, such as Mayhem in Monsterland and Lemmings
(which came out for the C64 eventually). The lack of commercially available
games was somewhat offset by Commodore Force including some great games on their
covertapes such as Driller, Impossible Mission 2 and Bionic
Commandos.

Issue 16 (March 1994) of Commodore Force has got to be
the only issue of a games magazine that didn't actually have any game reviews
within its covers. Ironically James Price, in the editor's column spoke of the
situation as, "... the decline - even death of the C64 software market presents
us with a dilemma. With so many '64 users and CF readers remaining loyal, we 're
not planning to shut up shop, but it's difficult to fill the pages these
days...", ironic because this was the last ever issue of ZZap / Commodore Force.
It later emerged that for the second time in its history, the magazine's
publisher (Europress) Impact had gone bust and with the way the C64 market was,
I guess it would have been a little insane for anybody to buy the
title.

And so it was that after 9 long years of ZZap entertaining
the C64 gaming public, it was put to rest.

There was also an Italian version of
Zzap!, which was first launched in May 1986 but it didn't appear to have the
high quality that it's English counterpart had. The issues were under 80 pages
each month with only about 50 percent of the game reviews that were in the
English version. Approximately 80 percent of the magazine was directly
translated and the other 20% consisted of articles and reviews written in Italy,
interestingly, not all were for the C64. The Italian version also had Spectrum,
Vic 20 etc. reviews and later on had reviews for the consoles and handhelds. The
Italian Zzap! stopped production in late 1992 but was "reborn" recently as a Net
only magazine, which you must pay to browse. There is a demo of the magazine at
http://www.xenia.it/zzap!/main.htm (all
in Italian of course), but it has nothing to do with the old English and geniune
Zzap!

I started getting ZZap at issue 41 (September 1988) and
never missed an issue during the next 6 years even towards the end when I rarely
used my C64 anymore. I always looked forward to reading the magazine even though
at times it went through rough periods, content wise. It gave many hours of
readings and I learnt everything I know about C64 games from ZZap over the years
so that's why I've created this page and also why this page is dedicated to the
memory of ZZap 64! Here's to ya Zappy!

Thanks to Alessandro for the information on the Italian
Zzap!

Here are some excerpts from the History of Crash Issues 1 to 50 as told by
Llyod relating to Zzap!

Crash - March
1985

ZZAP! . . . ? Well, no-one really liked
Sprite & Sound. Newsfield was expected to come up with something as
sharp-sounding and short as CRASH, so in the end we settled on ZZAP!,
adding the 64 as an afterthought. But as events were soon to prove there
was nothing ‘afterthought’ about ZZAP!

Crash - May
1985

While we were working on CRASH, down in
Yeovil, Somerset. where Chris Anderson lived and the ZZAP! 64 writers were
based, the new magazine's first issue was being completed. Newsfield was
about to double its production base.

Crash - June
1985

At this moment a crisis arose. Though
Newsfield's new Commodore title ZZAP! 64 had taken off extremely well,
production problems were emerging with its editorial base being far away
in Yeovil. Chris Anderson had provided a marvellous product, but he didn't
want to move up to Ludlow, whereas Newsfield's management wanted the
magazine in its own premises. There was a head-on clash which resulted in
Chris leaving the company and the ZZAP! team arriving in Ludlow in the
middle of June as we started on the July issue. We all had to move round
to make room . . .

Crash - July
1985

ZZAP! staff writers Gary Penn and Julian
Rignall arrived in Ludlow during June, halfway through work on their
issue. This was the moment when Roger Kean, perforce of necessity, took
over editorship of ZZAP! and relinquished his role on CRASH. It seemed to
many readers a traitorous act from the man who had become so firmly
associated with the Spectrum, but in fact Roger continued to keep an eye
on the magazine he had helped found a year and a half earlier, as Graeme
Kidd moved up from Assistant Editor to Editor.

Crash - October
1985

This month saw the start of Newsfield's
Amstrad magazine AMTIX! in direct competition with Amstrad Action, which
was launched at the same time. Jeremy Spencer became AMTIX! coeditor with
Roger Kean, each of them doubling their existing roles. And Newsfield had
spawned its first spin-off, for Amstrad Action's publisher was Chris
Anderson, ex-editor of ZZAP!.

CRASH’s editorial masthead had
expanded yet again, to credit Gary Penn, Julian Rignall and Gary Liddon as
contributing writers. This was at a time when there was an
all-hands-to-the-deck feeling about the small staff putting together three
magazines. Penn and Rignall, however, only contributed a little to CRASH
reviews, working mostly on ZZAP!.

Crash - November
1985

Gary Liddon had originally applied in the
previous year. He wasn't taken on then, but had gone on to do reviews for
Big K, and when that magazine closed he went to work for Domark. It was
there that Jeremy Spencer met him during a preview for A View To A Kill
and was impressed enough to suggest Newsfield hire him as a Staff Writer.
At first Gary's function was to rove between all three magazines, but
eventually he settled down as a ZZAP! writer, remaining with the magazine
till Newsfield appointed him to Thalamus, its software house.

Crash -
Christmas Special 1985/1986

As soon as the Christmas issues had gone to
press, February's had to be considered, for ZZAP! at least had to be at
the printer before the Christmas break. It was a weary team that gathered
at the Bull Hotel for the Newsfield Christmas Dinner a few days before the
holiday, but no-one could fail to be pleased. CRASH’s circulation figures
were among the highest ever achieved for a computer title in Britain,
ZZAP! was doing splendidly and hopes for AMTIX! were running high. It
seemed a good way to go into the New Year.

Crash - October
1986

Roger Kean had finally relinquished the
editorship of ZZAP! to Gary Penn, and moved with the rest of LM to their
new home in Gravel Hill. It was a
busy month.

Crash - December
1986

The first issue (Issue Zero) of LM was
almost ready for printing; to reach as many readers as possible, it was to
be included free in the Christmas Specials of CRASH, ZZAP! and AMTIX!
rather than go on the newsagents' shelves on its own.

Crash -
Christmas Special 1986/1987

The big fun event for all the magazines was
the Reviewers' Challenge, which starred Gary Penn and Julian Rignall
representing ZZAP!, Richard Eddy and Massimo Valducci representing AMTIX!
and Ben Stone and Mike 'Skippy' Dunn representing CRASH. Massimo was a
young man from Shrewsbury who had been given a job earlier as a trainee
subeditor, but had drifted into the role of AMTIX! reviewer. His Italian
good looks made him popular with the female members of Newsfield staff,
and their bets were on him to win. Everyone else's were on Julian Rignall
as supposedly the company's ace arcadester, but in the event it was Ben
Stone who won for CRASH . . . much to his surprise.

Crash - July
1987

At the very moment when it seemed the year's
earlier troubles had become a memory, an earthquake shock hit us. Without
warning Gary Penn, ZZAP! Editor, resigned, saying he was worn out. As he
had some holiday owed, he left at the end of the week, and everyone held
their breaths to see what would happen . . .

Crash - October
1987

It would be wrong to publish many of the
confidential details, so suffice it to say that there were serious
problems with the way THE GAMES MACHINE was run by its two editors
(fortunately they didn't show in the finished product), and shortly after
the completion of its first issue Graeme Kidd and Gary Penn were asked to
leave the company. That didn't cause any catastrophes itself, but when
ZZAP! Editor Ciarán Brennan decided a few days later to leave Ludlow and
return to London a reshuffle was essential. Roger Kean assumed Graeme
Kidd’s role of general overseer, which job he had been effectively doing
for several months at King Street anyway; Barnaby took over CRASH,. Julian
Rignall became Managing Editor of ZZAP!; and Dominic Handy became a
full-time Staff Writer at CRASH.

It is now almost exactly four
years to the day that Roger Kean, Matthew Uffindell and myself sat around
the only two typewriters we possessed, staring at blank sheets of paper,
wondering what it was Spectrum-owners wanted to read, trying to conceive
of the first edition of CRASH. I am not sure whether the three of us
harboured ambitions of seeing the company grow; probably, but magazines
are organic things, and somehow they grow of their own accord. Newsfield
was six people then: Roger, Oliver and Franco Frey, Matthew, Denise
Roberts and myself part-time. At the moment of greatest growth (in terms
of personnel), when LM was launched, it employed 60 full-time staff, also
using eight college-age reviewers and some 30 regular contributors. Today
there are just 34 full-time staff. It is a much slimmer operation, but
also a much more streamlined and effective one.

Crash -
Christmas Special 1987/1988

We have seen Sir Clive Sinclair's 'toy'
computer become the best seller in Britain, enjoying unrivalled software
support from games which have ranged from utter drivel to demonstrations
of the kind of skills that even mainframe programmers would envy. Recently
we saw the 8-bit market start to falter as budget-priced games took hold
and unit sales fell; this has particularly hit the Spectrum, yet the games
are still being produced and we are always capable of being surprised by
some new piece of cleverness. And despite the much discussed fall-off of
sales generally, Spectrum magazines continue to ride high. The 'Shropshire
fanzine' of early 1984 attained the highest sales in Britain of any
computer magazine - and at one point the highest world-wide sales of any
British computer magazine and is still the market leader, along with its
sister publication ZZAP!

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Since 5th November 1999
and 197 from
19/4/999 - 5/11/99