Look-in

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Cover to Look-in, No. 21 of 1975, dated May 1975 featuring The Tomorrow People by Mike Noble
Cover to Look-in, No. 21 of 1975, dated May 1975 featuring The Tomorrow People by Mike Noble

Look-in was a long running children's magazine centered around ITV's television programmes in the UK, and subtitled "The Junior TV Times". It ran from January 9, 1971 to 12 March 1994[1] . Briefly, in 1985, a BBC-based rival appeared called BEEB, and later in 1989, Fast Forward, which went on to outsell Look-in.

Look-in had interviews, crosswords and competitions, and it had pictures and pin-ups of TV stars and pop idols of the time. Its main feature however was the many comic strips of the favourite children's television programmes. These included Battlestar Galactica, Timeslip, The Tomorrow People, The Six Million Dollar Man, Charlie's Angels, Space: 1999, "CHiPs", Magnum, p.i., Knight Rider, The A-Team, Airwolf, and Robin of Sherwood.

When the magazine started, it was edited by Alan Fennell and the strips were written by Angus Allan. Fennell left in 1975, and the art editor, Colin Shelborn took over as editor.

The covers in the 70's were paintings by Arnaldo Putzu, an Italian working in London who painted a lot of the cinema posters of the 60's and 70's; among his more famous ones were a lot of the Carry On posters. His Look-in covers were mostly painted using acrylics.

Introduced mainly as a vehicle for children to find out what was on ITV, it included highlight listings for each ITV region, of programmes likely to appeal to its target market, but 'Look-in became more than that, it was at the hub of every fashion throughout it's run, things like Skateboarding, BMX and YoYoing all had their profiles raised and became more popular through Look-in.

Although primarily a television magazine, it also often featured articles on sport such as On The Ball with Brian Moore, as well as science articles written by Peter Fairley.

DJ Ed Stewart became a regular face in Look-in, appearing in the first issue in a feature about a day in his life, he was later given his own pages called 'Stewpot's Newsdesk' which ran until 1980.

Alan Fennell who edited Look-in wrote episodes of most of Gerry Anderson's series.

Look-in always had the most current music stars too, from ABBA and Bay City Rollers in the 70's to Take That in the 90's amongst others. All became the subjects of posters, strips and features, or sometimes all three.

Picture strips on pop groups featured life stories on ABBA and The Beatles (among others) in the '70s and went on to become original adventures stories for groups such as Madness and Bucks Fizz in the '80s.

A Look-in Annual and Summer Special were released for many years.

In September 1981 'Look-in changed its look, adopting a new logo and with photo covers replacing the cover paintings.

Sales began to dwindle in the early 1990s, and the final issue was in 1994.

In 2007 Carlton Books published a compilation reprint the Best of the Seventies, under their Prion and Sevenoaks imprints.

[edit] Picture Strips

The mainstay of "Look-In" was the picture strips. The following is a selected list of various strips featured...

TELEVISION BASED

MUSIC BASED

MISCELLANEOUS

  • Mark Strong (1972 - 1973) (based on a toy)
  • The Further Adventures of Oliver Twist (1980) (based on the Novel)
  • The Smurfs

[edit] References

  1. ^ Copy of the final issue at John's Look-out

[edit] External links

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