Roger Kean | Code Like It's 198x

The first issue of CRASH, dated February 1984, opened with an editorial signed by Roger Kean. He explained the name first: CRASH was “short, sharp and to the point, and anyway it makes it the only computer magazine without the word computer stuck somewhere in it”. Then he set out the rule that made the magazine different. Every major review would be done by at least three reviewers, so that “the resulting review will even out personal preferences”, and they would be “games players, not professional reviewers in the usual sense”.

Kean had trained as an artist and worked as a film editor. With the brothers Oliver and Franco Frey he founded Newsfield, which grew out of a mail-order business in Ludlow, Shropshire, into the publisher of CRASH, ZZAP!64, Amtix! and The Games Machine.

Fast facts

Born: 1948. Died: 3 January 2023.
Founded: Newsfield, in Ludlow, with Oliver and Franco Frey.
Editor of CRASH: issue 1 (February 1984) to mid-1985, and again from April 1987; then editorial director.
Editor of ZZAP!64: from late 1985 to autumn 1986.
Editor of The Games Machine: May to December 1989.
After Newsfield: publisher at Europress Impact in Ludlow from late 1991; later an author of illustrated history books.

From film to Ludlow

When Amtix! introduced its staff in November 1985, its profile of Kean described a period at Hornsey College of Art, then the London Film School, and a first career as a film editor. His school’s obituary adds that he edited television sports films in London for about ten years.

Kean moved to Ludlow in October 1982, as he recalled in a later interview. The first business he, Oliver Frey and Franco Frey started there was not a magazine. It was a mail-order company, Crash Micro Games Action, launched in about April 1983 to sell ZX Spectrum games at a time, Kean said, when shops did not stock them. Each order went out with a catalogue of reviews. Matthew Uffindell, a 17-year-old who came to the door to buy games and was given a job in mail-order dispatch, remembered in 2004 that he soon started reviewing for the catalogue. In June 1983, Kean recalled, the managing director of a magazine distributor told him that WH Smith’s buyer would sell the catalogue if it became a proper monthly magazine.

Editing CRASH

The magazine that followed was made in a very small space. Uffindell described the room he and Kean shared as “smaller than your average bathroom”, with “a rented TV, a 16K Spectrum with the dreaded 32K RAM pack, and a typewriter”. He would describe a game while playing it and Kean would type, then take his own turn at the game before writing his view.

The first masthead lists Kean as Editor, Oliver Frey as Designer and Franco Frey as Consultant Editor. By the summer of 1985 Graeme Kidd had moved up from assistant editor to editor, and from the autumn Kean appears as Publishing Executive, above Kidd, with Franco Frey as Technical Editor and Oliver Frey as Art Editor. By January 1987 the three founders shared a single masthead line as the publishers.

Kean came back to the editor’s chair in April 1987, when the magazine told readers that the role of editor had “been an unclear one” while Kidd oversaw all of Newsfield’s computer titles. That summer, reviewing Nintendo’s NES for CRASH, he asked why a Spectrum owner should buy one, and answered that it was worth it if “virtually flawless arcade conversions” were what you wanted. From October 1987 he was listed as Editorial Director. He still turned up in the pages: when a rumour went round in October 1987 about who had modelled for the Renegade cover, the letters page admitted it was Kean, “well his arms anyway”.

That reputation opened a door that stayed shut to most of the press. In April 1988 CRASH ran the story of Ultimate Play the Game, which, the magazine said, had asked “former CRASH Editor Roger Kean” to hear “the inside story on its history and future”. Ultimate had avoided interviews for years, and Tim Stamper told him why: “CRASH always gave us fair reviews, but with some of the other magazines, if we didn’t advertise, the product got a bad review.” “So we steered clear of speaking to anyone,” he went on.

Lloyd Mangram

CRASH’s letters page, “Lloyd Mangram’s Forum”, and many of its features carried the byline of a staff writer who did not exist. In 2004 Uffindell wrote that “Lloyd’s input was the joint combination of text and opinion from both Roger and myself”. The mastheads print Mangram like any other member of staff. Lloyd Mangram has his own entry.

ZZAP!64, Amtix! and The Games Machine

ZZAP!64 launched in May 1985 with Kean and Franco Frey on its masthead as “Money bags” and Chris Anderson running the editorial side as “Slavedriver”. By September 1985 Kean was answering readers’ letters as “the editor”, and the August 1986 masthead lists him as Editor with Gary Penn as his deputy. The magazine’s own back-issue list later summed up the September 1986 issue with “Roger Kean Leaves”.

That August 1986 issue also announced a new software house, Thalamus, which took ZZAP!’s Gary Liddon as its technical executive. The news pages said Thalamus was “independent of Newsfield and the magazines”, while a competition in the same issue called it “the new Newsfield software house”. The magazines of the time do not say what part Kean played in it.

Amtix!, for Amstrad owners, launched in November 1985, and its staff profile made Kean responsible for overseeing the launch. The Games Machine followed in October 1987 under Graeme Kidd as editor. Kean wrote for it: in March 1988, with Nik Wild, he interviewed Ultimate about “their past and their resurrection”, and in June 1988 the magazine introduced him as a “life-long home movie buff” when he tried out a video-production program. By August 1988 he was on The Games Machine’s masthead as Editorial Director, and from May to December 1989 its mastheads named him as the magazine’s editor.

After Newsfield

Newsfield went into liquidation in the autumn of 1991. CRASH missed its November issue, and the December 1991 issue came from a new company, Europress Impact, still in Ludlow. Its masthead listed the publisher as “Roger ‘Sir’ Kean”. Over the next two years he was publishing director of Europress Impact’s console and Amiga titles, among them N-Force (1992), Amiga Force (1993) and SNES Force (1994), whose masthead still listed Oliver Frey as art director.

Kean and Oliver Frey were partners in life as well as in business. In the late 1990s Frey was publishing director of Thalamus Publishing in Shropshire, a publisher of illustrated history books, and Kean turned to writing them. He co-wrote The Complete Chronicle of the Emperors of Rome (2005) and Forgotten Power: Byzantium (2013), both illustrated by Frey, and wrote The Fantasy Art of Oliver Frey (2006). The two later set up their own imprint in Ludlow, Reckless Books. In 2017 he edited the crowdfunded CRASH Annual 2018, with a cover by Oliver Frey. Frey died in August 2022, and Kean died on 3 January 2023, of motor neurone disease.

Sources

CRASH issue 1, February 1984: editorial signed by Roger Kean (the name, three reviewers, “games players, not professional reviewers”); masthead (Kean as Editor, Oliver Frey as Designer, Franco Frey as Consultant Editor).
CRASH issues 17 and 18, June and July 1985 (Kean as Editor, Kidd as Assistant Editor); issue 19, August 1985 (Kidd as Editor); issues 21 and 22, October and November 1985 (Kean as Publishing Executive, Franco Frey as Technical Editor, Oliver Frey as Art Editor); issue 37, February 1987 (the three founders as publishers).
CRASH issue 39, April 1987: editorial on the staff changes and Kean’s return; issue 42, July 1987, pp. 102–103: review of the NES; issue 44, September 1987 (Kean as Editor); issue 45, October 1987 (Kean as Editorial Director) and p. 33 (the Renegade cover).
CRASH issue 51, April 1988: Ultimate feature and Tim Stamper’s remarks.
CRASH issue 94, December 1991: Europress Impact masthead with Kean as publisher.
ZZAP!64 issue 1, May 1985 (masthead); issue 5, September 1985 (letters answered by “the editor, Roger Kean”); issue 16, August 1986 (masthead; Thalamus and Gary Liddon); issue 22, February 1987 (back-issue list, “Roger Kean Leaves”).
Amtix! issue 1, November 1985: staff profiles, including Kean’s art school, film school and film-editing career, and Newsfield’s founders.
The Games Machine issue 1, October 1987 (masthead); issue 4, March 1988 (Ultimate interview by Roger Kean and Nik Wild); issue 7, June 1988 (video-production feature); issue 9, August 1988 (masthead); issues 19 (June 1989) and 23 (October 1989), mastheads naming him as editor.
N-Force issue 6, December 1992; Amiga Force issue 2, February 1993; SNES Force issue 9, February 1994: mastheads.
Retro Gamer issue 2, 2004, p. 46: Matthew Uffindell on the mail-order business, the first reviews and Lloyd Mangram.
Out-of-Print Archive, “Roger Kean interview” (web, secondary): the move to Ludlow in October 1982, Crash Micro Games Action (about April 1983) and the WH Smith approach (June 1983). https://www.outofprintarchive.com/articles/interviews/out-of-print/Roger_Kean_interview.html
Old Cholmeleians, “Roger Kean (TL 1961) dies aged 74”, 2023 (web, secondary): his television film editing, his books, and his death. https://oldcholmeleians.org/notices/roger-kean
Time Extension, “CRASH And Zzap!64 Co-Founder Roger Kean Has Passed Away”, January 2023 (web, secondary): the date of his death and his partnership with Oliver Frey. https://www.timeextension.com/news/2023/01/crash-and-zzap64-co-founder-roger-kean-has-passed-away
Wikipedia, “Newsfield” (web, secondary): the voluntary liquidation in September 1991. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsfield
Wikipedia, “Oliver Frey” (web, secondary): Thalamus Publishing, Kean’s books with Frey, and Reckless Books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Frey The CRASH Annual 2018: see the sources for CRASH.