Poster: nordens största poptidning 1974-1980 (In Swedish)
By: Fabian H Bernstone, Mathias Brink
November 2008, 252 pages
The magazine that made Kiss huge in Scandinavia
POSTER! That’s word a brings word usually brings a grin to the faces of Scandinavian Kiss fans, that discovered the band on the 70′s or the beginning of the 80′s. I really believe that POSTER and Hans G. Hatwig are more or less “responsible” for Kiss selling out multiple shows in Stockholm in 1997 (over 40 000 people) and all the other shows they have played in Scandinavia from 1976 to 1999. POSTER “made” Kiss a household name for kids in Scandinavia in the 70′s.
Even if I started buying POSTER on the eve of it’s existence, the magazine had an tremendous impact on me. I just remember waiting for each new issue. Going down to the newsagent and buying the magazine. It was always with great joy I put my new posters on the wall. Me and my friends also bought old posters from other kids. How many hours we spent trading and rearranging the wall on our rooms I really can’t say.
Fabian and Mathias have made a great book about about POSTER. It’s easy to see that this is two Poster fans writing a book about one of their favorite magazines. A great nostalgic trip for all us Scandinavian fans who grew up as Kiss fans in the late 70′s. A book that covers all the artists that had an important part of the magazines success from 1974-80. And of course the most important group that the magazine covered… Kiss.
The first number that had Kiss content was no.3-75. With a poster from the LA “roof photo shoot” and an article called “Nighmare pop from the USA”. Hatwig even had exclusive photo sessions with Kiss for POSTER taken by Barry Levine and Fin Costello. POSTER had make-up contest with great prices and some great articles about Kiss in 1975-1976. Hatwig also wrote a great piece about the Swedish concerts in 1976 (no.6-76). That is where the story about Ace “walking on water” at the restaurant Räkan in Gothenburg originates from. We get a tase and pictures from all these events in the book and comments by Bill Aucoin and some of the famous photographers that took pictures of Kiss.
Poster also printed three Kiss specials, and there were also a German magazine called Superposter that was a German version of POSTER. It was the larges amount exported to Germany of a Swedish magazine ever.
The book also gives us a great index over all Poster (even if they forgot one number), Super Poster and Poster special releases . I would really recomend this book to all Kiss fans. And if your not abel to read swedish, then you can use Google Translate etc. It’s worth buying just for the pics alone. And not just for the Kiss pics, but all the other great 70′s bands. The only thing that could have been better is that the book had been twice as thick so they could have printed all the article pages from the magazine in the book. But even without that the book is great.
Verdict: 9/10
