In the ongoing, if sporadic, effort to get rid of as much of my clutter as possible I just dug out an almost complete collection of Deadline magazines, which shall soon be heading to one of the local charity shops. Deadline ran from 1988 to 1995 (or ’96 depending upon which site’s history you read) and I remember picking up the first issue in the Gateshead Metro centre, after which I was hooked. It was the “lifestyle magazine for slackers” and the only publication I’d ever buy which used the word lifestyle about itself. The short, nasty, brilliant and surreal comic strips were the draw for me, but I stayed for the indie music and politics. There were a number of striking characters introduced over the seven year run, but the one everyone remembers is Tank Girl. The movie was disappointing, but I had a private showing at Withington’s now defunct Cine City (well, I was the only person to turn up, if truth be told).

Why am I mentioning all this? Just because I’ve flicked through a few issues (if I’m not careful, I’m going to lose the rest of the night to them) and I really think there should be some sort of Deadline for the noughties. It won’t happen, it’s too hard a concept to frame in terms of target demographic etc., but I can hope.

Deadline in wikipedia.

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