Spotlight on Collecting: Inferno! Magazine

This is a quick introduction to collecting Inferno!, the short fiction magazine from Black Library publishing.

Black Library and Games Workshop have published a whole host of specialist magazines, of which the most well known is possibly Citadel Journal. All except White Dwarf have died a death, and it is unlikely that there will ever be any other physical magazine prints due to digital focus (e.g. Hammer & Bolter in 2012)

Inferno was published bimonthly from 1997 to 2005, producing January, March, May, July, September and November issues. it retailed at £5 for its life. There were 47 total issues in the magazine run, see lexicanum for a cover art gallery: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Inferno!_(Magazine)#.Uqt3hfRdWzk

Contents generally included an editorial, short stories from both WHFB and 40k as well as comic chapters, “technical drawings and maps” and art. 

Many of the writers for Inferno! were amateurs and the magazine encouraged amateur submissions. Many current Black Library authors cut their teeth in Inferno! and there are stories by Dan Abnett, Ben Coulter, Gav Thorpe, C.L. Werner, Matthew Farrer and Sandy Mitchell among others. The quality of the stories is...variable... but then if you're buying these now for their literary value, you're doing something wrong, so for me it's a bit of a non issue. 

Format changed starting with issue 17 from 240mm x 166mm to 260mm x 170mm, both formats had 66 pages but the latter format has much thinner covers than the inflexible card style of issues 1-16. The new format style matched that of the new Citadel Journal format

Collecting and rarity:

Unlike White Dwarf, the earlier the Inferno! issue, the easier it is to track down. Speculation is that subscription and sales declined as Black Libraries novel publishing ramped up to the point where it was uneconomical, so finding the later issues is quite a challenge.

As with everything from Games Workshop, it is impossible to know what the sales figures for these were throughout their life; possibly the information doesn't even exist anymore.

Personally I've managed to track down issues 1-16 very cheaply, then a smattering of 17-35 but don’t have anything higher, often people ask £5-9 + per issue plus postage on eBay for single later issues

As with collecting magazines, it’s easy to start but devilishly hard to fill in the gaps in your collection; I would recommend hanging on until you can buy a significant chunk 10+ possibly, rather than starting out buying individual magazines. Full sets do occasionally surface on eBay.

As a guide I wouldn't ever pay more than £5 inc. postage for a single issue, unless I was desperate to complete the collection. For the earlier issues £3-4 inc. postage is more like it. if you think about it, paying £5 per issue would cost £235 for the full run which seems pretty costly, i'm  sure it would be possible to collect the full set for around £150, which would work out at ~£3 per issue.