Magazine covers: eyes on stalks
 

It is fair to say that porn in print is on the decline, largely due the proliferation of all sorts of erotic material on the internet. Sales have plummeted, old and popular titles have deteriorated or disappeared, and those titles that remain can now be found in some silly shrink-wrap, meaning that you cannot even see the covers any more.

Oh, to go back to the good old days, when there would be a plethora of smiling faces, pert tits and shapely bums - expertly toned to pass muster for public display - on display. A feast for the eyes. Compared to today's magazines and their manufactured cover shots - painted-on things, a photoshopped bikini top, stars or dots covering very obvious nipples - the first view of a mag back in the day was what really drew you in. Sometimes, you'd get a raging hardon just by looking at the cover.

When I was a teenager picking up my copy of Shoot or Match magazine, I'd often look upwards to the top shelf... Thinking madly about the pretty girls showing a hint of nipple in a tight and wet blouse, or some sexy-looking gusset. OK, I didn't really know anything about the gusset back when I was thirteen, but what I saw always got things rumbling down there.

As I was a little squirt, that top shelf was a loooong way up I can tell you!

Looking at covers today make me a little sad. There's little of that old-school style there, and no sign of the thought that created many a frisson for a porn buyer back in the day. A well-crafted, well-shot cover that just blew you away.

Like this:

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What a wonderful shot this is. A perfect rear-view, the perfectly-defined gusset seam. A photo that shows off so much without showing too much.

Perfect camera work, perfect lighting, the perfect visual draw. I first time I saw this magazine on the top shelf, my eyes were on stalks. I wanted to get that image up close so badly, to share it with just myself. The fantasy remained for a long time, until I finally got hold of the mag a few years later at school, the result of a porn confiscation mission. Once I was alone with the prize I can remember rubbing one out just by looking at the cover. I don't even remember turning to the first page.

They just don't do covers like this anymore.

The mission here for all of you all school mag fans to share your favorite cover- the cover that hit the spot. Or just share your favourite all-time covers.

Here are a few more of mine, and why.

Club International Vol. 18 No. 10

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The first porn magazine I had the courage to buy myself. I was not quite eighteen, and had spent at least a year passing through various newsagents and looking up at the top shelf, trying to pluck up the courage. By now I was able to reach up and take it without bringing the whole lot crashing down, and having seen that glorious image of Donna smiling that sweet smile and hiding her nipples with that tiny little swimsuit I thought "fuck it".

I took the mag, walked straight to the counter, and paid the guy who didn't even bat an eyelid. Were it not for Donna, I might have just kept on procrastinating.

Club International Vol. 25 No. 10

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Close to exactly seven years after my first mag purchase, I was by now a veteran. Breezing out of shops to buy a porno was no big deal, and sometimes I'd buy two or more at the same time. I walked in to pick up my regular copy of Club, and as my hand made its way nonchalantly to the top shelf my eyes caught the cover - a heavenly image of Claire Cass showing off some fine white gusset, giving me a sexy come hither look over her shoulder.

I couldn't wait to get home and knock one out - by just looking at that cover.

Club International Vol. 27 No. 3

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Club International was a fantastic magazine, always delivering high-class models. There were, of course, a good many fantastic covers too. One of the most memorable was sweet blonde Gill, in a lighter than light barely-there pink number. That sweet face and even sweeter body lightly covered in that fine lingerie was enough to get the blood pumping.

I remember aching for a wank, frustrated by the traffic as I looked to get myself naked and ready. It took me less than a couple of minutes to blow my load over Gill's centrefold. Scrawled on the page in handwriting were the words "come on my cunt, boys". Thankfully, I didn't quite do that. I quickly closed the mag as I felt that man-sap rising, and delivered half a dozen jets of warm white sauce on that sexy cover.

One immediately springs to mind: Knave Vol 12 Number 12 (I think) from 1980.

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As far as I remember, it's one of only perhaps two copies of Knave I ever bought - and I bought it purely on the strength of the cover! I'd only been buying magazines for about six months (I was just over 18), and saw this on the magazine top shelf in, of all places, a Morrison's supermarket (they sold one or two "adult mags back then). That picture of the girl on the cover just got me somehow - I had to see the fur behind that fur if you take my meaning. Later that day I made a sortie to a newsagent I knew was quiet, and the ideal place to discreetly buy magazines (no way would I have queued up at a supermarket till to buy a men's mag!), and bought it. I remember being distinctly underwhelmed by the contents, and not really impressed by Knave in general - though I did buy quite a few copies of sister publication Fiesta over the years.
I didn't know it at the time, but my future wife - who I would not even meet for a good 14 years after this one was published - actually appeared in either (or maybe both) Fiesta and Knave (not this issue) in the very late 70s/very early 80s during her 18 month career as a glamour model (part time, she was an impecunious student at a Northern university at the time). I won't identify her further, and she is not at all well known, and wants to forget she ever did it, so don't ask for an ID. It's something she regrets doing, even though she only appeared in a magazine about four times total.

This is Club Vol 24 Number 3.

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I can actually remember buying this one, which must have been in about 1995 or so. I'd gone into the newsagents on the way to work (early-ish, about 7.00AM probably), never intending to but a magazine. As usual, whilst I was selecting my daily paper, the eyes wandered upwards to the top shelf, and this one leapt out at me. I had to buy it there and then. It was a bit frustrating, as I had to wait until I got home that night before I could have a look at the magazine and, er, well, you know.....
In fact, the nine or so hours anticipation added spice to the magazine, and I enjoyed it all the more!

And another one that caught my eye:
the legendary Andrea Clarke from the days when the cover of Club had a bit of class:

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This was another magazine that I had to buy when I first saw it on the top shelf all those years ago.

Club International Vol. 33 No. 10, the cover that won the magazine's final battle against me.

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Although I had seen my first mag more than twenty years previously and had bought my first issue a good sixteen years before, I could never really hold down a stash. For some reason or another, I'd buy a dozen or so magazines before the collection got too big for the single lever-arch file or box.

When I saw the adorable combination of Stella (Sophie Moone) and fellow Hungarian hottie Sandy (Zsanett) my love for the magazine was not only rekindled, but solidified. I was a mag buyer again.

When I saw the following month's issue with the sweetest cover shot of a de-tattooed Natasha Marley in delicate girly underwear in an innocent but sexy pose, it too was a must-buy.

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From that day I bought every issue without fail, and when the box was too full I just bought another box. Suddenly I had a year's worth of issues, and just seeing that neat little pile in front me spurred me on to seeking out all of the previous issues I had bought and chucked out for whatever reason.

Club International Vol. 4, No. 1
 

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Club International Vol. 4, No. 1
Price 50p
U.S. & Canada $1.50

I most definitely was not yet 18 years of age
when I spied this on a top shelf in a seedy downtown bookstore.

I don't believe I had ever seen a British skin mag before.
The bright colours caught my eye, as well as its over-sized format
(compared to Playboy, Penthouse and Oui).
From where I stood, only the banner and her sunglasses were visible.
When I took it down from the shelf,
I know that I was shocked to see her exposed nipples.
I found her tan irresistible. I already favoured Playmates with tan-lines.
I would not have known the term "crotch shot"
but this one still captivates me.
I may not have even peeked inside,
but I was blushing when I brought the magazine to the cash register.

Lovely hearing these stories. Caboosier, that was fifteen years before my doing the same thing... Makes me feel young! :)

I particularly like this Mayfair cover of Eleanor Chisholm from 1976 (Vol 11):

So a little earlier than Sharkhunter's top post which is Vol 19.

I'm putting these out in descending order but without thinking about it too much- a slightly roughed-up looking Maria Whittaker on Club International (1989), and Samantha Fox from Oui 1987. The text on the Club cover doesn't contribute much, Maria definitely does.

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It was the most important thing, wasn't it- the cover shot was the pic that grabbed you by the balls and shouted 'buy this mag'. Sometimes it was the image itself, sometimes it was the identity of the 'headline' model who made the cover. There's one of my favourite Mayfair cover shots ever from back in my teens that I can't post, as the model's given age at the time breaks the rules (didn't worry me that she was 17 at the time, because so was I!), but there are a couple of others which were pretty significant for me

Fiesta, Feb 1983. I'm pretty sure this is, if not the actual first, one of the first mags I ever bought myself, back when I was 16, after a couple of years of getting by with Page 3, the lingerie section of my mum's mail order fashion catalgoues and the occasional mag loaned/given or swapped from mates at school. Without a doubt it was the cover shot that got my attention- I can't even remember who the model is now, but the cute nude girl with pretty eyes and a nice bum posing on a 'moon' set got my attention straight away, and I knew that was the mag I had to buy.

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Mayfair, March 1988. Not so much the cover shot itself (although it is a really nice pic, it's not exactly intensely erotic) as the identity of the cover girl, former Grange Hill actress Paula Ann Bland, in her brief glamour modelling career post-GH, so much so that I remember exactly where and when I bought the mag.

I'd watched Grange Hill religiously as a kid, and had developed just a little bit a bit of a teenage crush on Paula-Ann:o. So, fast forward to 1988, a while after she'd quit the show, I'm going back to uni after the Easter break, and I'm in WH Smiths on my local station, killing time before my train, idly scanning the top shelf- and there's the new issue of Mayfair- complete with Paula-Ann Bland from Grange Hill in a basque and stockings on the cover!

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There was no way I was leaving that shop without buying a copy, and that train journey may have been some of the most frustrating two hours of my life, anticipating the pleasures to come with the mag nestled safely in my bag.

The worst thing was when I finally got back to Uni, not only were my flatmates back, but I got dragged out to the pub, so still no chance to peruse Paula's shoot properly;) beyond a quick glance on the train that revealed it was topless-only, but very nice. Eventually, I claimed tiredness from the train journey as an excuse to quit the pub early, and rushed back to the flat, headed straight for my room, and got my kit off to enjoy the wank over Paula that I'd been anticipating all day- and IIRC it didn't disappoint.

They may only have been topless pics, but she didn't do much else - as I remember, her glamour career amounted little more than the Mayfair shoot and a couple of Page 3s, before she returned to acting and eventually quitting the business altogether, and I've had many a good session with those pics (I'm sure I've still got the original mag somewhere in the loft) since.