From 1992 to 2013, we published Tripwire as a print magazine. Publishing more than 55 issues in print including annuals in the summer, plus two anniversary books (Tripwirex10 in 2002 and Tripwire at 21 in 2013), Tripwire covered every major comics and genre writer, producer, artist and mover and shaker. From Guillermo del Toro to Frank Miller, Joss Whedon to Matt Groening, Mike Mignola to Alan Moore, Tripwire was there to cover their work and their career.

It started life as a black and white fanzine but became a full colour magazine in 2003. We were the first people to cover DC’s influential Vertigo imprint, interviewing seminal creators like Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, Frank Quitely, Jamie Delano and many more. We dropped music which we introduced back in 1992 and replaced it with film and TV in 1999.

We built it up into arguably the UK’s premiere magazine that covered comics and its related media with a sizeable international following. Then the market changed in 2013 and we made the decision to switch to the web. The website launched in 2015 and since then our traffic has increased an amazing 4000%.

We are very proud of what we have achieved in five years on the site, becoming the UK’s pre-eminent comics, film and TV site but we have missed producing a print magazine. So over the past year, we have begun to look at doing something new in print with the help of crowdfunding. Kickstarter is the perfect place to help us achieve our goals and so you are reading this now.

Tripwire Magazine Autumn Special will be a glossy 144 page A4 squarebound magazine chock full of all manner of great, unique material:

Under an exclusive Russell Walks James Bond cover for those who support us here, the autumn Special contains the kind of material people familiar with Tripwire’s history would expect:

• A Flash 80th anniversary feature looking at the history of DC’s Scarlet Speedster

•A look at the four Daniel Craig James Bond films so far and a taste of what we can expect in No Time To Die 

• A Neil Gaiman feature, taking a look at the writer’s long and renowned career including The Sandman, Good Omens and American Gods

•An exclusive Kieron Gillen interview with the writer talking about hit series like Once & Future, Die and his latest series, The Eternals for Marvel.

•A look at 80 years of Batman’s deadliest and most iconic foe, The Joker, star of comics, film and TV 

•A State Of The Industry piece talking to people like Image\’s Eric Stevenson, Diamond\’s Steve Geppi and Aftershock\’s Mike Marts on how the comics industry has changed and adapted after the coronavirus

•A tribute to creator Darwyn Cooke from his friend Jimmy Palmiotti

•An exclusive chat with writer Ram V on his work for companies like DC, Vault and Marvel.

•A look at how comic artists like Frank Quitely, Jock, PJ Holden and others create their work using Wacom and Cintique tablets.

•Company profiles of Vault Comics and SelfMade Hero 

•An archive section reprinting interviews with the likes of Alan Moore, Frank Miller and Mike Mignola

The return of Stripwire, Tripwire’s acclaimed strip section which will include work from the likes of Sean Phillips (Criminal), William Simpson (Game Of Thrones, 2000AD), Roger Langridge and Andy Bennett, who has drawn a Sherlock Holmes alternate world short created with Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows. The strip section was always a major part of Tripwire in print and our latest is up to the same quality people would expect. 

In fact there is far too much in the issue to list it all here.This campaign is important to us because it will allow us to return to the format that garnered us our international reputation. Creating for the web is amazing because it offers immediacy and the opportunity to share content instantly but there is something unique about having a physical, tangible object you can hold in your hand. So those who support us here will allow us to achieve this goal and help us to create new quality print journalism. We intend to return to the production values that we achieved with our Annuals from 2007 to 2011, creating an object that is accessible but that people want to have in their possession.

We have budgeted this at requiring around the £2500 mark because that will cover our printing costs. We have already raised £1900 on Indiegogo and we just need a little extra to get us over the line.

We have just passed £2000 of our target and we only need £500 to hit it so we feel we are so close now.

Oscar winning director and witer Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape Of Water) said this about Tripwire: “Tripwire has been for nearly three decades the touchstone of comic book culture in the U.K and one of the leading periodicals dedicated to this narrative art form. Incisive, smart and always relevant.”

Best-selling author Ian Rankin (Rebus) was equally effusive: “ Still the coolest magazine on the planet, and helping young and old alike fritter away their lives with the best coverage of comics, film and TV.”

Legendary TV writer and producer Mark Verheiden (Ash vs The Evil Dead, Daredevil) was also one of our biggest fans: “TRIPWIRE is essential reading – one of the best on the market”

Finally fantasy grandmaster Michael Moorcock (Elric) had this to say about us: “TRIPWIRE really is a breath of fresh air. Its layouts are superb, with great well-written features perfectly set off by the pictures, adding clarity and intelligence to every page. And it keeps on doing it. Amazing, gratifying. A pleasure to look at, a pleasure to read.”

Our decades in publishing, both print and online, and our involvement over the past three years with the successful Portsmouth Comic Con, means that we feel confident we can deliver a great project. We are also keen to reestablish Tripwire as an advocate and champion of all aspects of pop culture art-forms. We do what no other magazine does and we shall continue to do that here.

Check out, and support, the Tripwire Kickstarter here