Spike has apparently ceased publication. Good news for George, but disappointing for the rest of us.
UPDATE: Here is the story from Wednesday's SCMP
An errant investor has forced satirical magazine Spike to be, well, spiked. Publisher Stephen Vines confirmed yesterday that, following a key investor's failure to deliver promised capital, the publication was finished."We are having to close the magazine down and the issue that was published last Friday will be its last," Mr Vines said. "We have been in negotiations for the last two to three months with investors, and in the end we did manage to secure two new backers, one of which did what they said they would do."
The other, he said, did not honour two signed agreements."It would have been irresponsible to have carried on trading in that condition," Mr Vines said. "The idea was not to just continue putting the magazine out, but to do a proper marketing campaign that would have allowed it to become bigger and better."
Spike quickly gained a loyal fan base after its launch last November, but while its mix of comedy and current events was well received, its financial health had been under a cloud in recent months.
Staff were told last Friday that the funding deal had collapsed.
Old Georgie Porgie will be beside himself with glee, though I, for one, predict he shall claim the opposite.
Pip! Pip!
Posted by: pete | September 15, 2004 at 09:59 AM
I never even saw the magazine selling when it was supposed to be in circulation.
Posted by: Spirit Fingers | September 16, 2004 at 12:32 PM
It was fairly widely available, at least for the first few months. I was expecting that it would be difficult to find a copy up in the New Territories, but in fact I never had a problem. It seems like distribution was one thing they got right!
Posted by: Chris | September 16, 2004 at 05:08 PM
reading the reports of Spike's demize in the papers today was sad, but Mr Vines comments about investors having to keep pumping in money, what a load of bullshit. A magazine is a buisness, Spike failed because it had no advertising and couldn't attract enough people to buy copies to cover its costs. Ergo either the magazine was bad, the people running it weren't doing a good job or both.
Posted by: pooreffort | September 17, 2004 at 01:12 AM
I have responded to your comments in a new post
Posted by: Chris | September 17, 2004 at 09:24 AM
No one read Spike like no one reads NTSCMP.
Posted by: pete | September 22, 2004 at 11:01 AM