Oz Magazine - An Introduction

Oz Magazine, along with International Times was THE underground magazine during the late Sixties in England.

Originating from Australia where it was founded by Richard Neville and Martin Sharp it came to England in February 1967 where the first issue hit the streets of an unsuspecting London.

Oz ran for 48 issues and was printed in a variety of shapes and sizes during its time, this of course caused us hell while scanning these and if you look close enough you will see the 'joins' on some of the more awkward shaped issues....

Misinterpreted by many as a 'Psychedelic' magazine, Oz actually had more in common with Private Eye being VERY anti-establishment but with its target audience firmly focused on the emerging underground scene it scored a massive hit. Until then there was only really the Indica Bookshop run by Miles for this kind of literature so it's success was virtually guaranteed.

From the outset it was full of anger, radical ideas and left wing political ideals but by the time Issue No.3 arrived it was obviously becoming visually very psychedelic.

Australian artist Martin Sharp had started experimenting with LSD and the stunning cover of Issue No.3 is testament to his new found influences featuring a joint smoking Mona Lisa and some very suggestive looking bananas!!

Issue No.4 featured superb artwork from one of London's finest, Hapsash and the Coloured Coat but perhaps the most famous cover of all was Martin Sharp's Bob Dylan cover for Issue No.7.

It was not all psychedelic beauty though, sometimes the covers were enough to stop you in your tracks as result of their powerful imagery (Issue No.10) or were just down right controversial (Issue No.25 and 28).

Anyway for your enjoyment we give you a visual feast in the form of cover art from our (almost complete) collection of Oz Magazine.

**** Click on covers for enlarged version ****

Poster from Issue 5