FUSION RETRO’S PUBLISHING POWER
After recent closures at Future, Fusion Retro Books can lay claim to having more games mag titles in circulation than any other publisher. Now founder Chris Wilkins is getting behind a “Next” generation of classic games and is hoping to bring them to Steam
How did Fusion Retro Books come into being? My interest in retro started when I bumped into Issue #1 of Retro Gamer magazine during a lunchtime break in WH Smiths in Stratford Upon Avon. I subscribed and read each issue until Live Publishing went under after issue #18. I was so inspired by Retro Gamer that I created my
Chris Wilkins (right) with Darren Melbourne of Retro Games Ltd (left) and Ant Attack creator Sandy White
own retro magazine back in 2006 called Retro Fusion. Issue 0 was given out free to those who attended an event I hosted in the local cricket club in Kenilworth that I called ‘The Retro Ball’, whose attendees included Archer Maclean, Jon Hare, the Oliver twins, Rob Hubbard, David Whittaker and Richard Joseph. Issue #1 to #3 of the Retro Fusion magazine appeared over the coming months with Gamestation putting it on shelves across the country. Over the following years I got to know Roger Kean,
one of the co-founders of Newsfield Publishing, the guys behind Crash and Zzap!64. Our friendship grew and we talked every day either on the phone or via chat. Through Roger, I also got to know Oliver Frey, who unbeknown to me at the time was his partner. Then in 2012, having met the likes of Gary Bracey, Bob Wakelin and Simon Butler
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at a Play Blackpool event, I asked Roger if he would be interested in helping me put together a book on Ocean Software. He said yes and we took the idea to Kickstarter and Fusion Retro Books was born.
Can you share the story behind reviving iconic 80s magazines like Crash and Zzap!64? What was the motivation for bringing them back? After the success of the Ocean book, with the help of Roger we created another telling the story of US Gold. Further publications followed, celebrating the games of the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Commodore Amiga computers. Then in 2018 we started to discuss what we were going to do next. My wife suggested that we create an annual, I suggested Crash and Roger said there was no reason why we couldn’t so we progressed with one. We then bumped into Future Publishing and Tony Mott, who told us that Future had the rights to Crash and Zzap!64. He was brilliant and was instrumental in us having the complete rights assigned to us. Launching Crash and Zzap!64 as bi-monthly magazines was a risk, but they have proved to be hugely popular with over 20 issues of each published.
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