Did/do you collect soap opera magazines?

[y&r_fan]

In Australia there are two soap magazines: TV Soap and Soap World. I started buying both of them regularly in 2002. I recently stopped buying TV Soap because it has basically become a 'celebrity gossip' magazine, with not enough focus on soaps. Soap World is still pretty good.

An annoying trait that both of these magazines have is an MASSIVE bias towards B&B and Days (two shows that aren't fit to collect Y&R's garbage) over Y&R.

[NorrthCafe]

Not to sound as if I'm dancing on graves, but looking at realty, daytime probably won't be around much longer. SEAL each and every one of those things (like graphic novels are sealed) and wait for them to pick up value. I can't help but believe they will one day become collecter's items.

[cct]

I actually had a subscription to Episodes, practically from the beginning. It was every other month or quarterly if I'm not mistaken. I remember one issue having a pull-out family tree for AMC in the middle that was particularly nice; they may have done it for OLTL and GH too; cannot recall. I'm not sure what happened to all my old Episodes. I'm thinking it went until late 93, early 94 maybe, because my scrip was transferred to the ABC In Depth mag when it folded, and I don't remember receiving Episodes at the apartment I moved into that year.

However, this Daytime TV mag you all are raving about...that I've never heard of.

I let SOD go when my scrip ran out after I would hear the information faster online than I would get in the SOD. I would have probably continued if SOD ran some deep behind-the-scenes articles or informative articles on the genre or even better interviews with actors, but they are one step higher than National Enquirer and Star these days, so...

cct

[SteveFrame]

DAytime TV ran from around 1966 to the early 90s. It was run by Paul Denis who was one of the best soap journalists of all time. He was such good friends with so many of the stars.

And Daytime TV mag never catered to one soap and never gave into the craze of one soap covers that so many of the mags did. His mags usually had about 7 to 10 different stars on the front covers. They did do specialty mags from time to time that dealt with one soap or its history. It was truly a great magazine.

One of the greatest features was the Daytime TV readers poll which took on a life of its own. It started in April 1970 and became one of the definitive measures for who and what was popular in daytime at the time. It had nothing to do with talent for the most part and was a popularity thing but it was so neat to see who and what would top them. Up until about the early 80's the polls were always pretty diverse. In the early 80's they became more network and show dominated - at first with GH & OLTL - then later with Days & GH.

I have a bunch of the polls posted over at my site SoapsWEB. I scanned them out of the old mags that I had. I just recently got a hold of the first issue that had a poll in it. The first winners were Don Stewart (Guiding Light) and Eileen Fulton (As The World Turns).

They used to keep track of how many months each star made the top 10. The first 2 stars to ever complete 100 months in the Top 10 were Jacqueline Courtney for Another World & One Life To Live and Denise Alexander for Days of Our Lives & General Hospital.

They had a yearly awards issue as well that started in 1971. They used the polls each year to name the winners - who got the most votes throughout the year, etc. I don't remember all the winners, but the first winners in 1971 were Another World, George Reinholt and Jacqueline Courtney.

It was a great magazine and I truly miss it. Sales got really low for it the 90s and they went out of business hoping to come back even maintaining their website for a few years after the magazine quit production, but it never happened.

Mr. Denis died a few years ago, and last year they auctioned off his collection of daytime memorabilia and some of it was bought and is periodically sold on Ebay - some for pretty steep prices.

Some of the stuff I have seen in the Ebay listings is press releases, old headshots, even personal lettters between stars and fans, letters from executives with personal tidbits about the stars or little production notes, etc. I think the man kept everything.

[theherowithin]

I miss the specialty magazines, all about/everything/best of/ inside DOOL, GH, Y&R, etc.. I have a lot of those. I believe 1998 was the end of those. And from 1999 thru 2003 was a dry spell with some specialty issues reappearing in 2003. Then now they have disappeared again I assume due to lack of sales. I've noticed in the 70's mags (Afternoon TV, etc..) it had more a personal feel to them with interviews/photos of the daytime stars at home and stuff that gave you a idea of what the stars were like. That was nice.

[JackPeyton]

i have most special magazines from 03-04. they stopped again after that.

i also have every single year end soap magazine since like 99.

[SFK]

I mentioned Episodes in my original post. My mom had a subscription, I really think it was her favorite. It was a People-sized magazine, not terribly thick, but it was devoted to her ABC soaps... and imo was much better than those SID magazines devoted to one network.

I remember a nice glossy photo shoot Episodes did at Susan Lucci's house in the Hamptons. It had pics of her and her family in their home, on the beach, Susan reading on a sofa with her bichon Oscar. Maybe I'm overselling it a bit, but I remember Episodes as a tasteful, classy, attractive soap publication. Sure I recycled all of those SODs from the '90s, but I would have kept every single Episodes.

[SFK]

I have an AMC and AW's last specialty mag, and a year review where they previewed The City (MF's character was still being referred to as Lauren Chase). All of the pics and pages in these are black and white, the paper quality is not great. I'm going to put up some pics later, maybe a lot of us have held on to the same magazines.

[Gray Bunny]

I have a bit of a collection, mostly Soap Opera Digest. I have almost every issue in 1996, 1997, and 1998, and then became a subscriber in 1999 and have everyone since. I have various Weekly, Update, Magazine, In Depths from the mid-to-late 90's. I also managed to get some great deals on SOD's on eBay a few years ago. Someone was selling off their collections by the year and I got every issue from 1989, 1993, 1994, and 1995. I also have a few special ones (like DAYS' 25th; ATWT's 35th) from 1990, 1991, and 1992, as well as various Weekly special covers like Deidre Hall & Wayne Northrop returning in 1991, etc.

Mine are all categorized by year in small boxes but I'm thinking I'll eventually toss anything from 2005 and up, save for a couple magazines here 'n there that may have a good cover story or special article.

[theherowithin]

A lot of the ones I had/collected I've since sold on Ebay but I've kept the specialty mags and the best/worst of the year, year end wraps and preview issues. I like occasionally pulling them out and reading them. I don't ever see myself ever getting rid of the DOOL specialty mags, too many wonderful 80's memories of my college years, cutting class with my friends to watch, etc.. ah good times! It's amazing though in some of those preview issues some of the stuff they previewed never happened!

[MarkH]

If I had a collection like this (and I could...I've semi-regularly or regularly read SOD since 1979; and SOW since 1989--alas I pitched 'em after I was done with them, and I still do so), I'd be saving forever. That's the archivalist in me...I'd be scanning pics and stories forever.

[Steve]

I used to subscribe to both SOD & SOW starting in the 1980s with SOD and throughout the early 2000s. I passed them on to my mom and I know she saved some and she gave me some that I wanted back. I have the SOW issue for AMC's 25th Anniversary and I think I still have the SOD for AMC's 20th and 25th. I also have the Special Edition of Daytime TV for AMC and I believe I still have the first issue of Soap Opera Update somewhere. I used to get Episodes magazine, too, and I might have an issue or two of that. I've lived in the same apartment for 16 years now so wherever I have no idea where I've stored all the old magazines. There are several crawlspaces full of boxes that someday I'll have to go through to find things like that.

[Ben]

Never had any interest in collecting soap magazines. But, I do collect everything and anything relating to Sunset Beach. I used to have a huge collection of B&B articles from the 90s-00s, but my interest waned and I sold them all to a mate a few months ago.

ETA: Actually, I've unintentionally kept some old SOD's from 2002/03/04. I've been meaning to get rid of them, but chucking them seems a waste. But, I don't think I'd get anything for them on eBay...

No, don't chuck them! I'd so, take all the SOW's from 97-99 off your hands.

They also had Inside Soap, which pops up, like, once a year on eBay. TV Soap was always the worst of the two - it constantly got character names wrong, which was really annoying. B&B, is the most popular out of the three, so it makes sense for them to pimp that show to death, over Y&R.

We have three mags over hear: Inside Soap, All About Soap, and Soap Life. IS is the best of a bad bunch - although it's bias towards Eastenders, is sickening - even though it leans into woman's/gossip mag stylee. All About Soap over sensationalizes everything, with headlines like: "Phil to seduce Dot?" or "Earthquake rocks Walford?" When IR, Phil and Dot are simply having a conversation, and the council are digging up the road, or something.

[applcin]

I didn't collect them so much as I would buy or hang onto special issues or ones that just had a lot that interested me at that time. Either that or I would just cut out things that I liked. I do still have some old issues featuring weddings, some chock-full-of Steve & Kayla issues from the 80s. When I was a teenager, I would cut out pics to tape together a montage of various soap stars/characters I liked and put that on my wall. Somewhere in a manila envelope I still have a montage that includes Sky & Raven, Duke and Anna, Steve and Kayla, Frisco and Felicia, etc. Anyway, I do still have some predominantly 1980s magazines in my basement.

Recently, I wanted very much to have SOD and/or SOW's tributes or items related to Clint Ritchie's death (as he was my alltime favorite on OLTL). I looked for a couple of weeks in about half a dozen stores and didn't even find any mags at all. Luckily, an online pal of mine subscribes and has since sent me those items, including the latest one with RSW talking about both his late co-stars. Can't explain it, I just wanted to have them. I guess it was my little way of paying my respects and saying thanks.