Oli Frey: ZX Spectrums, Superman & Gay Art.
Back in the ’80s, the world of video games was a strange and brilliant place. Kids in bedrooms were drinking cans of Quatro, and on the side, knocking out games they’d written which sold a million.
A lot has been written about Sir Clive Sinclair, his ZX Spectrum, and the like, so we’ll sidestep all that for now. Thanks to going down an internet rabbit hole, I found myself looking at the artwork of games and magazines from the first boom of British gaming.
Me and my brother were readers of Crash Magazine, which was launched by Roger Kean, Oliver Frey, and Franco Frey. It started off as a mail order catalogue, which threw in some reviews, but in 1984, it launched as a proper magazine which you could buy in shops.
Even though the magazine felt like a fanzine in a lot of ways — daft in-jokes that included a writer called Lloyd Mangram who was actually fictional (complete with his infamously decrepit typewriter and a paper bag on his head) — it was shifting over 100,000 copies a month at it’s peak, and on the cover, featured some of the most eye-popping artwork on the racks, of any genre.
The aforementioned Oli Frey was the man responsible for the covers, which occasionally ruffled a few feathers — turns out WH Smith weren’t keen on stocking a magazine that featured a woman in a bikini, holding onto a semi-naked man chained up to the throat, or a barbarians stabbing each other.
Amusingly, some issues were stuck on the top shelves thanks to their cover art, so instead of protecting young eyes, WH Smith actively sent children to the precise section where all the mucky magazines were, when they just wanted to read reviews of some games before they parted with their pocket money.
Oliver Frey & Co, where there, right at the start of the tech-boom, writing about video games long before it turned into the alt-Hollywood it is now. While tech-journalism and leisure-journalism are par for the course in 2017, in 1984, Crash and their like were different — part Sniffin’ Glue, part What HiFi.
They were pioneers, and back then, it seemed like the spirit of adventure was everywhere. Oli Frey’s covers still stick in the mind, and his work goes beyond the fantasy of gaming.
Oliver Frey was born in Zurich, and after a while, dropped out at Berne University, and moved to the UK. Propping himself up with freelance illustrating work, he worked on War Picture Library books, and Dan Dare among other things.
Come 1978, Frey’s work hit the silver screen, creating the opening for the Superman film. He says: “My rough for the cover was accepted on the spot and used as it was in the pre-title sequence, along with the finished version of the strip. It was thrilling to go to the Empire [Leicester Square] the day after the premiere in 1978 and see my work flash up on that vast, luminous screen. Just for about 15 seconds — and that was that.”
In the early ’80s, Frey was joined in the UK by his younger brother Franco, who was working with a German company who imported Spectrum games. The Freys, along with Roger Kean, teamed up, and Crash was born.
As well as being the main illustrator for Crash, Oliver created the art for sister publications like Zzap!64, as well as being responsible for the Terminal Man comic serial.
In tandem with all this techie stuff, Oli Frey was also a very prolific creator of gay erotic art and fiction, and hugely important too. Created in a time when people weren’t as progressive, Frey gave fantasy and voice to those fearful of coming out.
Roger Kean and Oliver, now married, gave birth to one of the most important gaming publications, as well as co-owning HIM magazine. Through the ’70s and ’80s, readers of magazines from the HIM stable would’ve seen Frey’s illustrations and Kean’s words. In ’81, they were raided by the police, and the stock shamefully destroyed.
Using the pseudonym ‘Zack’, Frey still works. With Kean, titles like ‘Boys of Disco City’, ‘Bike Boy’ and ‘Hot for Boys: The Sexy Adventures of Rogue’, you’ll find the flipside to the science fiction work that you’ll see in ‘The Fantasy Art of Oliver Frey’, and others. Clearly, both bodies of work share a quality, they’re obviously different in tone.
Insert your own joke about games/masturbation: “The more you play with it, the harder it seems to get.”
A lot of Frey and Kean’s work is available to buy, and you know how to work Google by now. There’s links at the bottom of the page which might help.
Anyway, Russell T. Davies, who created Queer As Folk and revived Doctor Who, has shown love for Frey’s work, especially ‘The Street’, which Davies said was a big influence on Queer As Folk.
One thing that goes through all of Oli’s work — whether it is Dan Dare or Meatmen — there’s a sensuality mixed in with the masculinity.
Along with the obvious technical skill, the mixture of softness and power is what makes them stick, whether it’s a battle scene from ‘Aaargh It’s War!’or someone getting eaten out in ‘Bike Boy’.
In an interview, Oli Frey was asked about his work: “If you don’t get a boner when you’re drawing, what’s the chance that anyone else will when they read your story?”
It is likely that there’s a more in-depth story to be told here, so consider this a small, appreciative nod to an artist who is one of the pioneers. A singular and brilliant career, it’s hats off to Oli Frey, electrifying the imagination of gamers and gay men since the ‘70s.
In his own words, Frey said: “The fantasy element in my work was in the situations, and I wanted the art to be realistic so as to make it all seem possible.”
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Go and visit Oliver Frey’s website right now, where you can buy prints from him. Or, if you’re interested in his erotic work as Zack, then click here.
There’s a site dedicated to Crash magazine, which you can see here, featuring all the covers and even early sketches of the Crash logo. Very nice.
