The end of Amazing Computing Magazine, 1985-1999. Or is it? See the note at the bottom..

John Lennon once sang "I read the news today, Oh Boy.." Well I heard some news today to, but this one is definitely 180 degrees away from the "Oh Boy" category. In fact, it's in the "Oh Shit!" category.

It's my sad duty to report to you that the venerable Amazing Computing magazine, the oldest surviving North American glossy commercial publication devoted to the Amiga computer, has shut its doors and declared bankruptcy.

Amazing, published by PiM Publications and edited by Don Hicks, has been an anchor and a mainstay in the Amiga Community since its first issue in 1985. It was the first Amiga monthly, and, through a long and tortured history of Amiga magazines coming and going, into and out of business, it has turned out to be the last.. for now, anyway.

At one time there were no fewer than TWELVE different glossy, color, monthly newsstand-distributed Amiga magazines in North America. I should know, since I was writing for almost all of them. Including Amazing. In fact, the first article I ever wrote and got paid for, making me a "professional" was a review of NewTek's Digipaint 1.0 which I wrote for Amazing in 1986.

This sad news came to me on Dec. 27, 1999 from one of Amazing's advertisers who informed me he had received a legal Bankruptcy notice in the mail. Since he had paid for advertisements that had not, and now will not run in Amazing's pages, he is a debtor, and as such, legal notice must be served to him about the condition of the company to whom he has paid money but not received the services he paid for, in this case, advertising.

I have not personally spoken with Don Hicks since sometime earlier this year during a conference call between a bunch of Amiga press folks and Amiga's ex-President, Jim Collas. I last saw Don in the flesh at the AmiWest show in Sacramento in the Summer of 1998, where we had adjoining booths. Don was a semi-frequent poster to Usenet, mainly in Comp.sys.amiga.misc and in recent weeks, he went silent. Then rumors started to float about the health of Amazing. The 1-800 numbers had been disconnected. Subscribers weren't getting their issues in the mail. We Amiga faithful know what these kinds of symptoms mean, and they're usually not healthy ones.

So to Don Hicks and the rest of the staff and management of Amazing Computing, thank you for a job very well done, and I am personally very sad to see it end this way. I wish you the best of good luck and good fortune in the future, and hope that this Amiga "situation" in which we find ourselves sees a turnaround one of these days.. and that we all finally have some GOOD news to report.

If Don posts or publishes some kind of official notice, it will be added to this page or linked from it if and when it appears.

NOTE (Added December 28, 1999)
As a number of people have been kind enough to point out to me, there are MANY examples, some of them quite famous, where a company has declared bankruptcy to protect itself from creditors, and then come back and continued to do business. It's entirely possible that this may happen with Amazing. I have no personal knowledge one way or the other. Again, if Don Hicks communicates with me or posts the status of his magazine somewhere publically, I will put that text on this page or a link to it.

NOTE (Added December 29, 1999)
Clicking the AmigaZone logo at the top of this page will take you to our main page. There, you can read more about AmigaZone. If you are looking for an online community of Amiga owners, and a resource for Amiga support - not just a pile of files (although our library is enormous).. but something to replace the void left in your life by the lack of Amiga magazines, I think AmigaZone could be just what you need. Sign up for a full membership, and you'll be jacked into an online community that has been serving thousands of Amiga owners since 1985. And I'll also send you a free AmigaZone black logo baseball cap, as my thank-you gift for joining. If you're reading this, you're on the Internet, and you have an account with an ISP. That, and your paid membership, is all you need to experience what AmigaZone has been providing for fifteen years. It's only $12.95 a month. Forty cents a day. What else can you buy for forty cents a day that can bring so much to your life?

NOTE (Added December 29, 1999)
The following was posted to Comp.sys.amiga.misc on Usenet today: Quote
Subject: Re: Any word from Amazing Computing?
From: Ryan Edward Adam Czerwinski
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 12:55:34 -0700

I have had communications with Don, but I will not speak of them publicly. The situation is not yet as dark as you think.

Regards,
JB
Editor@merlancia.com

End of Quote
What this means is unknown, except to Mr. Czerwinski. I'm trying to get more information. Perhaps some good news will come out of all of this. Perhaps Amazing is still alive and new issues will spring forth. I hope so.

Harv Laser

AmigaZone Founder and Sysop