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My Favo(u)rite Magazine extract #01
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My Favo(u)rite Magazine extract #01


In the first of ten extracts from the My Favo(u)rite Magazine publication we’re selling to raise funds for Bob Newman (details here), we share the contribution of York-based designer, writer and twitter wit Daniel Benneworth Gray. Watch out for another extract next Wednesday.

UK, October 1998

This was the start of it all for me. I’d bought and loved magazines before – my teenage years can pretty much be summed up by three words: White Dwarf and Select – but I’d never loved them as magazines. I loved what was in them, not what they actually were.

Then one day, I found myself at Victoria station with too much time to kill, so I did what I always do and loitered in WHSmith. And there it was. The Face, volume 3, number 21. Christina Ricci glowering at me from the cover. WICKED.

For some reason, The Face had completely passed me by up until that point. But it found me in time. I can’t remember any particular details about this specific issue, but it did enough to get me hooked. It only had a few years left in it, but I made those count. This was the first time I'd had a relationship with a magazine like I do with a film or a record - every issue mattered. When it got it right I loved it, when it got it wrong I hated it. It was fickle and tasteless and pretentious and crass and fucking brilliant.

Not quite sure how to deal with the Internet or shake off that bloody “80s style bible” tag, it eventually withered and died, but it left behind some classic issues. Some of the covers from my time with it are still etched on my brain: Ed Norton's bloody nose; the dot-to-dot Spike Jonze; Spice Girls giving it all that. But it’ll always be wicked Christina Ricci that means the most.

There have been other since then, but here it is, here’s where the magaholism started.

This is one of 88 contributions to My Favo(u)rite Magazine from magaholics across the globe. If you’ve not yet bought a copy its’s still available in our online shop.

Read more of Daniel’s thoughts on magazines and related obsessions on his blog.

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