Did you belong to a fan club or produce a Fanzine?

There’s a whole generation now grown up, who have never known the world without the internet. With a few words typed into Google, up pops many sources and answers to your questions or information on subjects you are interested in.

I can tell you that one of the first things I looked up in 2005, when the internet first arrived my home, was Rik Mayall. You may have also done similar yourself and also searched recently, which is how you have discovered this very website and what you are now reading. Looking at the stats for this website, it also tells me that fans from all around the world are also stumbling across this website and viewing content here.

But wait a minute, lets travel back in time, lets travel back to the new beginnings of Alternative Comedy, back to the early 1980’s. It’s 1982 The Young Ones has first hit our TV screens in the UK, as too has The Comic Strip Presents series. You discover these new fresh and exciting TV programmes and you want to find out more, you want to connect with other fans and you want to know what is coming next. What do you do?

Back then when you were a fan of something you very often were able to join a fan club. Pop stars, actors and comedians usually had them. You might receive a membership card, badge and a bi-monthly magazine through the post, in exchange for an annual subscription. The magazine would have lots of useful information about your favourite celebrity and give you the the heads up on what they were up to next, so with a bit of luck you could try and get tickets for a concert before anyone else. Sometimes you could write and send in a letter and that might get put in the next magazine. It was one of the very few ways to find out information and to feel involved with your favourite person or thing.

Now, was there ever an official fan club or magazine for the stars of The Young Ones and The Comic Strip Presents series? Well it looks like there wasn’t, because in 1984 these fans wanted to create and make one.

Here are the first two copies of these lovingly put together fanzines. It provides a wonderful glimpse of what it was like to be a fan when alternative comedy was newly exploding through our TV screens and if you were lucky enough, to get to see them live.

Alternative Comedy – Not just The Young Ones!

Alternative Comedy 2

To think now, these little fanzines, which probably only a handful of people saw and read back in 1984, are now here on the internet for anyone around the world to view and enjoy. The world however, can be a very small place, especially when you are interested in the same subject. If you were a fan of Rik Mayall and co in the 1980’s, the chances are you probably still are now, maybe even more so! You very possibly will have used the internet to search out your favourite topic?

So do you by any chance recognise these fanzines? Are you or do you know any of the named contributors? If so then get in contact, I would love to know more about these fantastic fanzines.

• Annabelle Dix
• Lucy Lennon
• Lisa Lott
• Caroline Dykes
• Maxine Musgrave
• Gail Newell
• Berty Remrats
• Alasdair MacInnes
• Lesley Dykes
• Simon Price
• Dean Hargreaves
• Sara Turvey
• Paula Wilson
• Simone Williams
• Kenneth A Davidson
• John Seaton
• Steve Brummell
• Tony Phillips
• Jake Sautereau
• Cheryl Bird
• Dawn Handley

Photo credits – Andy Hollingworth

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