The Def Guide to Zzap!64

Azhrei wrote: I've always wondered about this person who used to write in for a few months, and nearly always win Letter Of The Month. His name was John Kavanagh, from Morden, Surrey, a clue that had me believing for years (and to this day) that he was made up by the staff. My theory was given more credence with the content of his letters - stuff that the staff would write!

Surely this wasn't John 'Kav' Kavanagh who was a top journo-friendly Dev-Lord for several years at Domark (based in Putney, not a million miles from Morden), and was, latterly, my boss when he was Development Director at Eidos?

If that's the case I can vouch for the fact that he was definitely real and not made up by the staff of Commodore Format.

PG

Well, I was always highly suspicious because he'd write these huge, moral-of-the-story letters that Lloyd would do nothing but agree with. For example, in the same issue, someone would complain about bad games on the covertape, then in came Mr. John Kavanagh with his "Well, I like them".

I'm not saying he wasn't real, I'm saying he was highly suspicious!

Ian Osborne wrote: * Issue 17 was completed and sent to the printers, but not actually printed due to Impact going down the tubes. I was drafted in at the end of the schedule for this one because the issue had fallen behind its deadlines (again), and wrote several sections, including the final (I think) Back to the Feature and a piece on how Commodore Force was put together.

That piece on how Commodore Force was put together did actually appear in one of the last issues of the magazine.

(Edit - removed a paragraph for clarity)

There was an overview of all the issues of C-Force, but no article on the creation of the magazine from what I could see. However, the "Goodbyes" that Ian mentioned for Bash's column are there and present!

Seems like Ian's issue 17 description was infact issue 16, and issue 16 was intended to be the very last issue until its reprieval.

I'm still very keen for issue 17 to be salvaged. Mark Kendrick still hasn't ruled out that he no longer has anything of it (I asked him a few years back, but never heard anything since - he's one of the directors at Imagine I think?)

fgasking wrote:There was an overview of all the issues of C-Force, but no article on the creation of the magazine from what I could see. However, the "Goodbyes" that Ian mentioned for Bash's column are there and present!

I've checked this out.

It wasn't in the last issue of the magazine.

But it did get to print.

The "Making Of Commodore Force" Ian refers to is actually in Commodore Force issue 15, on pages 40/41 - the penultimate issue.

Frank wrote up a blog post a few months ago about the "lost" issue:

http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2013/02/ ... never-was/

That's... a very different recollection than the one I've heard from Ian. A pity more of Ian's input wasn't included in that article.

You're right Craig - I should have included more of Ian's input (not sure why I didn't in the first place) - which i'll do now. If Ian would like to add anything to the article, then he's very welcome to also. The more the merrier

If there is anything else you feel should be added, let me know, as the post isn't fixed in stone and i'm happy to fix any inaccuracies over time.

Looking at the section you quoted from one of my forum posts, I see I misremembered the issue numbers.

* What I describe as 'Issue 17' was actually Issue 16. It was indeed printed, of course - it was the last CF. The piece on how Commodore Force was put together was in the previous issue, 15.

* 'Issue 18' on my list was the fabled Issue 17, and it wasn't at the printers. We were still waiting for the covertape pages to be written, and IIRC, Impact went down a week or so before our deadline anyway.

* I'd started Issue 18 (described as '19' in my list), but only barely. I don't think anything had been designed.

Thanks Ian! I've updated the page and some of the quotes.

It seems to paint a very clear picture now about where things were at the end of play. I still hope that Mark may take a look some day in his garage to see if anything of the magazine is on his old Mac machines.