Cracker Journal Team/Reviews

Review by Glenn Lunder
The mag opens with a small intro, just containing the text CRACKER JOURNAL, over which #28 comes crashing down. Then the mag proper appears, with a good robot picture by D-Sign appearing as the first thing you see. One thing you instantly notice about CJ is the way the mag occupies almost the entire screen; no big, impressive panels here! CJ originated in the illegal part of the scene, and is still heavily linked to this part of the scene. This means that your interest in reading CJ will always be in direct proportion with your interest in that part of the scene. Editorially, this is not a very strong mag either. There is a lot of articles that are just text files from the boards, the English is downright dreadful in places, and one of the articles is nothing but a perverse porno story! This was the middle of 1992, mind you, and people instantly looked to magazines like R.A.W that were intelligible rather than the badly designed articles of CJ. Issue 28 was the first issue to be released 'indendent', after the mag was liberated from its original home in Alpha Flight. Compatibility is another sore point, with the mag responding very badly to keypresses on my A1200 - even after kicking down to 1.3. It can work fine for a while, then suddenly decide to die. No points for guessing this made reviewing a minor nightmare. tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0.