I have a chapter in a new book Stars Fan Magazines and Audiences: Desire by Design, to be released June 16th by Edinburgh University Press – I’ve just received my advance copy and very chic it is too – lots of inline colour photographs and reproductions of the film fan magazines the essay discusses. Plus it was great to be able to work alongside the editors Tamar, Lies and Sarah. My chapter is on 1940s British Film Star Fan Club Magazines, and is written with Phyll Smith.
Thirteen original chapters on movie magazines analysing their visual aspects
- Contents include sections on individual issues, regular features, and adjunct publications
- As well as visuals, topics covered include stardom, gender, censorship, nationality, performance, language
- Includes detailed studies of magazines from the US, UK, France, Chile, and Poland
Stars, Fan Magazines and Audiences focuses on movie magazines, publications first produced in 1911 for movie fans in the United States, but soon reaching movie fans on a global scale. Bringing together scholars from different disciplinary and international contexts, this collection considers fan magazines as objects of material and visual history.
The designer’s toolkit aided movie magazines in seducing their readers, with visual elements, such as fonts, photographs, and illustrations, plied across both editorial content and advertisements. In this way, each issue was subtly designed to stir desire in readers and moviegoers alike. By focusing on the visual aspects of fan magazines, a key pleasure for readers, this collection provides detailed examples of how visual elements engendered aspiration and longing, thus putting the visual contents of the fan magazines at the heart of every chapter.
Here's looking at you. 