Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
Cinefex No. 32, published in November 1987, documents two of the most technically significant and culturally resonant films of the decade at the precise moment of their maximum impact. RoboCop had been released in July 1987 and was already establishing itself as one of the year's defining cinematic achievements — a film that was simultaneously a savagely satirical commentary on Reagan-era corporate culture and an exercise in practical effects artistry that pushed the boundaries of what could be accomplished with prosthetics, animatronics, and stop-motion work. The combination of Rob Bottin's transformative makeup effects work, Phil Tippett's stop-motion ED-209 sequences, and Paul Verhoeven's uncompromising directorial vision had produced something that the effects community recognized immediately as a landmark. Paul M. Sammon's comprehensive "Shooting RoboCop" article — covering Verhoeven, Peter Weller, Bottin, Tippett, Craig Davies, Peter Kuran, and Rocco Gioffre — is among the most thorough contemporaneous accounts of that production's technical achievements, and it constitutes a primary source document of unusual value for researchers working on the film's production history, Rob Bottin's body of work, or Phil Tippett's pre-digital stop-motion career. For collectors building a serious archive of practical effects cinema documentation, the Cinefex magazine collection is the definitive resource, and this issue is one of its most significant entries.
The Innerspace coverage in this same issue adds a second layer of historical significance. Joe Dante's film — released the same summer of 1987 — represented Dennis Muren and Industrial Light & Magic at a creative peak, producing effects work that combined biological realism with playful fantasy in ways that required entirely new technical approaches. Muren's work on Innerspace earned an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1988, and Janine Pourroy's "Inside Martin Short" feature documents the ILM team's process in the kind of depth that only Cinefex routinely provided — technical specificity, direct testimony from the artists, and a genuine understanding of the creative and engineering challenges involved. The pairing of RoboCop and Innerspace in a single November 1987 issue is itself a document of the moment: two films released in the same summer, both representing the state of the art in practical effects before the digital revolution that The Abyss and Terminator 2 would initiate just a few years later. This issue is therefore among the last major Cinefex records of the practical effects era before the field was transformed beyond recognition. Collectors building a cross-title archive of late-eighties cinema will find the 1987 magazine collection provides essential context for the broader cultural and technological moment this issue documents.
The specific contributor roster in this issue deserves emphasis for serious collectors and researchers. Paul M. Sammon was one of the most respected science fiction and effects journalists of the era, whose later work on the Blade Runner production history would become a standard reference in film scholarship. Janine Pourroy was a regular Cinefex contributor whose depth of technical knowledge and access to effects artists made her features among the publication's most authoritative. The combination of their reporting with direct participation from Bottin, Tippett, Muren, and the other named artists gives this issue the quality of primary source documentation that distinguishes the best Cinefex issues from the kind of promotional making-of content that other publications were producing during the same period.
About the Publication
Cinefex was founded by Don Shay in 1980 and established itself within its first few years as the definitive publication covering the art and technology of cinematic visual effects — a quarterly journal that combined the production values of an art book with the rigor of technical journalism. Unlike the general entertainment press that covered effects as spectacle, Cinefex engaged with the craft at the level of process: how specific problems were solved, which artists made which decisions, what the technical constraints were, and what the intended results were supposed to achieve versus what was actually achieved. Its format combined long-form feature articles with extensive production photography, detailed captions, and direct quotation from the artists and technicians themselves. By November 1987 it had seventeen years and thirty-two issues of this approach behind it, and its reputation among effects professionals and serious collectors was fully established. Issues from the mid-to-late eighties occupy a particularly prized position in the Cinefex collector market, documenting the practical effects era at its creative peak in the years immediately before digital technology began displacing the craft traditions the magazine had been built to document.
Key Highlights Inside
- "Shooting RoboCop" (Paul M. Sammon, p.4) — a comprehensive primary source account of the film's technical production covering director Paul Verhoeven, actor Peter Weller, makeup effects artist Rob Bottin, stop-motion supervisor Phil Tippett, and effects specialists Craig Davies, Peter Kuran, and Rocco Gioffre, constituting one of the most thorough contemporaneous records of this landmark production's technical achievement.
- "Inside Martin Short" (Janine Pourroy, p.42) — an in-depth feature on Dennis Muren and ILM's visual effects work for Innerspace, documenting the technical approaches that earned the film the 1988 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and representing a primary source on ILM's creative process at a pivotal moment in the studio's history.
- RoboCop front cover and Innerspace back cover — production photography from both films framing an issue that documents two of 1987's most effects-significant productions in direct juxtaposition, the RoboCop imagery specifically representing Rob Bottin's transformative prosthetics work and the suit design that defined the film's visual identity.
- Technical documentation of stop-motion, practical prosthetics, miniature work, and optical effects processes from both productions — representing the state of the art in pre-digital practical effects at a moment that Cinefex readers and film historians now recognize as among the last great peaks of the traditional effects era before digital technology began its displacement of these craft traditions.
Condition & Rarity
A near mint copy of Cinefex No. 32 is at the upper end of what the collector market can offer for this specific issue. Cinefex was printed on high-quality coated stock significantly superior to standard magazine newsprint, which gives well-preserved copies of this era exceptional longevity — pages retain color saturation, the photography remains vivid, and the physical construction holds up well over decades. Near mint condition, with only the faintest signs of handling, indicates a copy that has been stored carefully and never subjected to the kind of sustained reading use that produces the spine stress, corner wear, and page tanning that characterize lesser-condition copies of the same issue. The clear protective sleeve on preserved copies is the appropriate archival measure for a publication of this production quality, preventing further handling wear without obscuring the cover. Cinefex issues covering landmark effects films consistently attract strong collector demand from multiple overlapping audiences — effects professionals, film historians, general science fiction and action cinema collectors, and Cinefex completists — and the RoboCop/Innerspace pairing makes this issue among the more actively sought in the publication's late-eighties run.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
Cinefex No. 32 in near mint condition is a genuine find — this issue sits at the intersection of two landmark productions and the practical effects era's final peak, and copies at this condition level circulate less frequently than the publication's collector popularity would suggest. If this particular issue is no longer available, the full Cinefex magazine collection at OriginalMagazines.com is the most comprehensive single source for exploring other issues across the publication's run, with strong representation in the eighties issues that serious effects historians and collectors prioritize most highly. For collectors building a broader archive of late-eighties cinema culture and visual effects history, the complete 1987 magazine collection brings together titles from a year that produced some of the decade's most technically ambitious and culturally significant films.