From the publisher of Crash & Zzap 64, LM magazine was an attempt to create something that might be later thought of as a (men’s) lifestyle magazine, but in 1987 there wasn’t an audience (of advertisers) to sustain it. LM quickly folded after 4 (well, 4.5) issues.
But that’s how it ended, how did it begin? A risky move for Newsfield, opening an office in that there London compared to the joys of Ludlow but someone had a vision, and there was an audience of readers engaged even if they were jumping in from their sister titles. There were almost 270,000 copies of the trial issue 0 printed (which is a surprising number considering how infrequently they would show up on ebay, but I guess loads ended up in the rubbish) and most if not all were bundled with it’s label mates at Christmas which was a smart move for a February launch. I’ll get round to issue 0 at some point in time as it’s not to hand just so instead some waffle about the first issue follows.
Why was it called LM? Maybe backronymed as Leisure Monthly, it probably wasn’t a coincidence that the various editors in this stable of magazines made liberal use of one “Lloyd Mangram” as a pseudonym. So maybe they just couldn’t think of anything better, although the first issue is bylined as the Lively Magazine so who knows for sure?
Content-wise, it’s a fairly eclectic mix of well, stuff; features on Paul McGann, the Icicle Works, The Prisoner (which was a revelation to me at this time), Russ Meyer, Jumble Sales & Frankie Goes To Hollywood and it approaches these things with a reasonably mature, level-headed tact. See especially the feature on lads who beat up their mothers as a fairly surprising choice of article, which seems to be thanks to one Sue Dando, ex of Oh Boy and other, more female oriented magazines.
The reviews are quite fun, although in a month where you’re reviewing Viz, The Dark Knight Returns and a bunch of Alan Moore works you’re probably not going to be spoiled for words. The reviews are a little anaemic compared to Crash et al. though, but it’s probably a harder sell to the audience to dedicate three pages to John Cleese in a bath.
The Cans writeup is strangely fascinating, if only to reinforce how bad the premium lager scene was as Budweiser seems to be the favourite and it’s quite frankly piss. Was more of a Red Stripe man myself.
Anyway, I suggest if you’ve made your way here you might be interested in the full thing. Fill yer boots here.