Starburst (magazine)

• 1. Introduction

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  Starburst magazine launched in December 1977, born from one editor's conviction that British science fiction fans deserved a dedicated home in print. Dez Skinn founded the title through his own company, Starburst Publishing Ltd., and chose the name carefully. He rejected other options, including Starfall, on the grounds that it sounded too negative. That instinct for optimism would carry the magazine across decades of ownership changes, a temporary death, and an unlikely resurrection.

  How does a niche publication survive for nearly half a century, outlasting the companies that owned it? What does Starburst reveal about the enduring appetite for science fiction culture in Britain? Those questions trace through every chapter of the magazine's story, from a convention hall in London in 1980 to a podcast studio in Manchester today.

• 2. Origins and Early Years

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  Dez Skinn launched Starburst with a clear editorial vision: cover genre material across every medium, from film and television to books, comics, and soundtracks. The scope was unusually broad for 1977. Most genre publications of the era picked a lane.

  Skinn's independent run ended quickly. With issue four, Marvel UK took over the title, part of a deal that placed Skinn in charge of Marvel's UK comic reprints division. The arrangement was mutually beneficial at first, but Marvel eventually moved on. In 1985 the company put Starburst up for sale. Visual Imagination bought it at issue 88 and kept the magazine running for more than two decades, carrying it all the way to issue 365.

  That final issue arrived in 2008, when Visual Imagination folded. The magazine went quiet, but not permanently. In early 2011, Starburst Magazine Ltd announced the title would return as an online publication, with Skinn named Honorary Editor-in-Chief. The first online issue, numbered 366 to preserve the continuity, appeared on the 14th of May 2011, and carried an editorial written by Skinn himself.

• 3. Return to Print

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  Online publication was a stopgap, not a destination. In February 2012, Starburst Magazine Ltd brought the title back to physical newsstand, releasing issue 374 as a print magazine once more. The numbering tracked an unbroken run across formats, treating the online issues as genuine entries in the sequence rather than a separate era.

  The magazine's headquarters settled in Manchester, a shift that would later anchor its festival ambitions. By 2017, Starburst reached issue 443 and marked its 40-year anniversary. Skinn contributed an editorial to that issue, circling back to the publication he had started four decades earlier. The quarterly print schedule continued alongside a daily flow of news and reviews on the website, a hybrid model that the original 1977 launch could not have anticipated.

• 4. A Rotating Editorial Chair

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  Skinn held the editor-in-chief role from 1977 to 1981, then handed it to Alan McKenzie, who stayed through 1985. That year saw two brief tenures: Cefn Ridout followed McKenzie, and then Stephen Payne took over. Payne would become the most persistent figure in the editorial history, serving three separate stints that stretched from 1985 to 1999, again in 2002, and again from 2005 to 2009.

  Between those Payne eras, the chair passed to David Richardson, Andrew Cartmel, Gary Gillatt, and Simon J. Gerard. Jordan Royce held the position from 2009 to 2022, one of the longer single stretches in the magazine's history. Kris Heys followed from 2022 to 2025. Martin Unsworth, who also writes the Horror Obscura column, holds the role as of 2025.

  The magazine's long-running film review section was shaped by writer Alan Jones. For several years, John Brosnan contributed a regular column. His name lives on in the current "It's Only a Movie" column, now written by Jordan Royce, with a note acknowledging the late Brosnan's role in establishing it.

• 5. Conventions and Festivals

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  On the 18th and the 19th of October 1980, Starburst, then still under Marvel UK's ownership, produced the inaugural Marvel Comics Film & Fantasy Convention at Lawrence Hall in London. Ray Harryhausen served as the guest of honor. The roster of attendees included Barry Morse, Paul Darrow, Jacqueline Pearce, Ingrid Pitt, Caroline Munro, Dana Gillespie, David Prowse, Peter Mayhew, Milton Subotsky, Roy Ashton, Martin Bower, Harley Cokeliss, Mat Irvine, Brian Johnson, Terrance Dicks, David Maloney, Dick Mills, and Richard O'Brien. The convention presented both the 1980 Starburst Awards and the 1980 Eagle Awards.

  More than three decades later, the magazine revived its event ambitions in Manchester. From the 26th to the 28th of August 2016, the first Starburst International Film Festival ran at the Manchester Metropolitan Students' Union Complex. Dez Skinn appeared alongside guests including Doug Naylor, Steve Pemberton, and Toby Whithouse. The festival closed on the Sunday with the Starburst Fantasy Awards 2016, where Doug Naylor received the Hall of Fame Award.

  The following edition, held on the 16th and the 17th of March 2018, carried a new name: the Starburst MediaCity Festival, following a sponsorship arrangement with MediaCityUK. That year's Starburst Fantasy Awards honored Emma Dark for Best Director with Salient Minus Ten and Michael Melski for Best Feature with The Child Remains.

• 6. Beyond the Page

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  On the 19th of March 2011, Starburst launched its first weekly radio show on Manchester Radio Online, later moving the program to Fab Radio International. The radio presence was part of a wider push into audio and digital formats that now includes several podcasts.

  The Starburst Radio Podcast, hosted by Martin Unsworth, Kris Heys, and Mike Royce, serves as the audio companion to the radio show. The Blue Box Podcast covers Doctor Who and is presented by JR Southall. Literary editor Ed Fortune hosts Brave New Words, focusing on books and graphic novels, and also contributes the magazine's books column and a tabletop role-playing games section called Roll for Damage. Paul Mount presents TV Zone Plus, extending the long-running TV Zone column, which originally gave its name to Starburst's sister publication of the same title. Nick Spacek writes the OST column, covering soundtracks, while Laura Potier contributes Monsters University.