We've done the collection, now here's the background...!!!

Look-in had a great history of publishing the latest pictures of all that was happening in the world of Music and TV.  They did some really good stuff, and hopefully you will see a lot of those in the 'One-Pagers' slot.

But heading towards the 80's there was a new breed of magazines.  Magazines that made the trivial into something successful, a new breed of journalism that didn't ask, 'what is the inspiration behind your new record?' but instead asked things like, 'What is your favourite sandwich filling?'.  'Smash Hits' and 'No.1' were the frontrunners in this.

Never one to be left behind Look-in catered for this new appetite for the inane with Collect-A-Page, which was basically just a one page poster of a famous star with a list of information about him/her or in some cases it!...(Roland Rat, Alf, Father Xmas).  In most cases, certainly earlier on, the poster also had a facsimile autograph of the star in question.

At first they were either singular artists, or groups which would be done with each member having their own poster.  occasionally a film or TV series would be covered.

The title Collect-A-Page didn't come for a few weeks, The first people covered were Charlie's Angels (no specific title), 'Police File' was used for a set of Police posters, and 'Spotlight on Abba' (below left) was used for an Abba set, before the the more general C-A-P title was added.  It was in a regular spot opposite 'Screen Quiz' for quite a while, before taking it's place at the rear of the mag, thankfully, because this is also a bane of collectors, as this is another page that is often removed in cheaper priced issues.

On the flip side, issues that have C-A-P's inside from highly collectible sources such as the Star Wars set, go for higher prices than some other issues.

Later on for some of the less popular groups, or so they could do more artists, they started grouping the posters, with 2, 3 or 4 members to a poster, this meant that there was less room for the info list, which I found annoying.

Collect-A-Page continued until the early 90's, until being dropped in favour of double sided posters in the centre of the magazine.

A great feature, and if your favourite band was involved, this made it all the better.

 8.5