Speakeasy archive grows on the FANSCENE archive

By John Freeman on December 17, 2025 • ( 0 )

It’s been a while since we last gave the brilliant FANSCENE archive project a plug, so let’s have a shout out for some recent editions to this growing archive of hard-to-find British comic zines!

Curator David Hathaway-Price has been adding read only digital editions of the news zine, SPEAKEASY, to the catalogue, with recent additions including not only all the news that was fit to print back in 1986, but interviews with creators from both sides of the Atlantic! (Some, sadly, no longer with us).

They included, for example, artists Dick Giordano and John Watkiss (SPEAKEASY #70); editor, publisher and writer Jim Shooter (SPEAKEASY #71); artist John M. Burns (SPEAKEASY #72); Dark Horse staffer of the time, Bob Schreck (SPEAKEASY #74); and artists Doug Wildey and Kev O’Neill, writer Pat Mills, and the legendary Moebius (SPEAKEASY #75).

Edited by Cefn Ridout, Dick Hansom, Bambos Georgiou and Richard Ashford, you can read the issue in full at the Fanscene archive. Enjoy!

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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.