BOB’S YOUR SCI-FI UNCLE 

Nothing dates like the future, as exemplified by a science fictionbased magazine called OMNI that came out almost half a century ago. Mark Campbell turns the pages…

OMNI was known for its strange and often iconic covers, and its striking internal art too, following in the long tradition of sci-fi and fantasy magazines and pulp books, but often also looking like a portal into a Twilight-Zone universe...

This article almost never came into being, thanks to the peculiarly dictatorial nature of my local newsagent. In 1978 we’d just moved to the seaside town of Swanage, from the seaside town of Bournemouth, and when I saw an advert on telly for “the world’s first major magazine of science fact, fiction and fantasy”, I thought I’ll have some of that! So off I trotted down the steep hill to my local branch of Martin the Newsagent and asked for a copy. “Oh no,” said Mr Hammerton, the creepy owner, “That’s not a kids’ magazine, you won’t enjoy it, it’s for adults only.”

I was only eleven, so I acquiesced. Although I wish I’d got that first issue, with its deep blue minimalist cover and its striking red logo, secretly I knew I’d never be able to afford the extortionate sum of 95p every two months. Much later in life I picked up the odd copy from boot fairs and the like, and recently purchased a CD of every issue (science fiction itself back in 1978) to research this piece.

OMNI (capitalized, don’t forget) was a bimonthly magazine, published in America and edited by Bob Guccione and his partner (later wife) Kathy Keeton. Guccione was also responsible for Penthouse, designed to rival the popular men’s magazine Playboy. Both Penthouse and OMNI featured in-depth articles about a myriad subjects as well as short stories by big names in the field. But whereas Penthouse supplemented this with ladies in scanty attire, OMNI had robots and ghosts, only a few of whom were scantily clad.

OMNI and Penthouse were published by Guccione’s own company, General Media International. Sales for OMNI were strong for most of its 19 year existence, right up to the end. According to an article in The New York Times, its circulation averaged 703,019 in the first six months of 1995, which although 2% down on the first half of 1994, saw a 10% rise in news-stand sales.