History

== A brief history of Look-in ==
Look-in was the brainchild of Alan Fennell, who had a long pedigree in TV related comics, and especially those with strips based on the series of Gerry Anderson. Alan was a successful scriptwriter, who had written for Anderson's series, and had already worked on established titles like TV21 and Countdown. Fennell was asked to produce a sister magazine to the already very successful TV Times. The result was Look-in.
Alan had built up a strong team from his work on other comics, bringing with him scriptwriter Angus P. Allan, and artists like Mike Noble and John M. Burns, and with a wealth of great ITV programming to choose from, Look-in had all the ingredients to become the great success it eventually was.
Look-in first appeared on 9th January 1971, the strips in the first issue included Please Sir!, Freewheelers and Timeslip. Features included World Of Sport and Survival, all really big series of the time. This set the trend for future issues, Look-in always had the most up to date and popular programmes in it's pages, but Look-in was more than that, it was one of the few puplications actually on the pulse of popular culture, if it was huge then Look-in was right on it, things like skateboarding, yo-yo's, Chopper bikes, Star Wars, Computers, Look-in was there increasing the popularity of these and loads of other things.
One of the main features of Look-in and why it is remembered fondly was it's painted covers, other comics had these too but Look-in's stood out, and made the mag jump at you from the shelf. They were done mainly by Arnaldo Putzu, but other artists did them from time to time too.
Into the 80's Look-in's popularity although still high was waning, there was a definite anti-violence stance, strips like Robin Of Sherwood and The A-Team were being written without weaponry, and more emphasis on dialogue than action. As the 80's moved on there was a gradual dropping of action strips, making way for more child friendly cartoon and comedy strips like Danger Mouse and Scooby-Doo.
Going into the 90's there was a definite change into a more teenage magazine type puplication that was popular at that time, less emphasis on strips, more on features and posters. Popularity took a nose dive and the writing was on the wall,
Finally on 12th March 1994 Look-in's last issue appeared with Take That's Mark Owen on the cover and it was the end of an era.
Category:History