The Bros of 1984 and 1994

 The 'Bros' of 1984 and 1994

'He told me that he wanted a magazine that teenage boys would whack off to.'

Recently, I've been looking through my collection of 1984 and 1994 magazines, of which Warren published 29 issues from June, 1978 to February, 1983 (after a complaint from the George Orwell estate, James Warren changed the name to 1994 with issue 11). 

Under the guidance of Warren editor in chief Bill Dubay, 1984 and 1994 didn't just try and exploit the objectification of women........they reveled in it !

How 1984 came about is unclear. According to 'Warren: Ends and Beginnings', an interview between Jon B. Cooke and James Warren that was published in The Warren Companion (2001), Warren claimed that the genesis of the magazine was Pow, an aborted effort to publish a comic magazine with content more 'adult' than that of Vampirella, Eerie, and Creepy.

In response to claims that 1984 was issued to capitalize on the success of Heavy Metal magazine, Warren responded:

Heavy Metal was structured on a totally different financial level. It was slick, it cost more, it had to have newsstand reps going around to make sure it was placed properly. We didn't have that kind of set-up.....But I knew that they had taken a page out of Warren Publishing's book and moved with it. And moved very well.

.....1984 was not produced because of Heavy Metal. It was produced because it was our genre. 

In contrast to Warren's memories of starting the magazine, in his deposition in January 2018, as part of Ben Dubay's plagiarism lawsuit against Stephen King, former Warren staffer Jim Stenstrum claimed that James Warren was at best a reluctant backer of 1984: 

Q: Thank you. In 1977, did Bill Dubay approach you and Gerry Boudreaux about adapting some stories?

A (Stenstrum): For, yes, "1984 Magazine." It wasn't called "1984." It didn't have a title then. He said there's a science fiction magazine that he wanted to put together and he finally – we had been talking about that for a long time. We had all -- Bill and I had been talking about putting together a science fiction magazine over at Warren for a long time. We had horror, we had war, but we didn't have science fiction and Jim Warren apparently was reticent. He didn't want to do it. He didn't think that was going to be a seller but Bill did manage to finally talk him into it. 

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BY MR. COX: Did Bill Dubay ever talk to you about his knowledge of science fiction?

A (Stenstrum): Oh, yes, absolutely. I mean "1984" was a science fiction magazine and we had discussions – in fact, early on when we were putting together "1984," he had wanted to enlist some high profile authors to do stories or at least use adaptations of their works. Kurt Vonnegut, Harlan Ellison, John Varley and a number of other names were -- but he quickly realized that it was going to be too expensive to even adapt these stories and he determined – Bill determined at that time that he would just use his regular guys.

When in 1981 Bill Dubay told Stenstrum he could take over as editor of 1984 and have complete editorial freedom, Stenstrum claimed that in actuality Dubay had no intention of relinquishing control:

A (Stenstrum): After I had -- in 1981, Bill was bumped up to assistant publisher or co-publisher and I was given the job as editor, he had promised me that I would have full reign, full -- complete freedom to do with the books what I wanted and he -- and so I moved there and I lived -- that is when I lived in his guesthouse. Is that the second time? I guess, for a second time, yeah. No, no, I was actually in the house during -- anyway, that's not important.

In any case, he had brought me in as editor and I quickly realized that Bill had no intention of releasing any sort of control. He asked me what I wanted to do. The first thing I wanted to do was to change the awful "1984 Magazine" which was so sleazy. It was so disgusting. And I -- Bill hit the roof.

He didn't like the -- he wanted -- in fact, he wanted more sleaze in there. He told me that he wanted a magazine that teenage boys would whack off to. And I was so absolutely disgusted by that.

He tried in every way he could to get me to put more sleaze and more porn into my comics, but I refused to do it.

Whether or not Stenstrum's opinions of Dubay and 1984 were valid, the fact is that the readers of the magazine liked its content, as judging by their Letters to the Editor. 

Of course, some of these letters well may have been facetious in character.........which confirms that while the word 'Bro' didn't exist in the late 70s and early 80s, its philosophy was well emplaced among the readers of 1984:

It's my conclusion that, with the passage of time, 1984 and 1994 represent an authentically 'Bro' ideology. They were publications aimed at a readership of white males under 30, publications that could revel in being offensive and politically incorrect. Those days are long gone, and it's unimaginable that any comic-based publication nowadays could even try and approach such a philosophy without being universally condemned. 

In today's era, in which a (since discarded) Marvel superhero team featured a character named 'Trailblazer, an overweight teen who gets her powers from a magic backpack.....', the content of 1984 would be immediately be cancelled on its first appearance.

So I'm going to hang on to my issues of 1984 and 1994 in all of their misogynistic, racist, un-woke glory. Because those magazines were the first and last stand of Bro culture in the comic book world. Their like shall never come again.