Wow! What a year it has been for the LEGO hobby and for Blocks magazine. Here is a message to everyone who has been with us during 2022.
Hello everyone,
What a year it has been for LEGO fans! Looking back at what we’ve covered in Blocks magazine throughout the year, it’s quite amazing that it has all happened within the span of 12 months. We started the year celebrating 10 years of LEGO Friends in Issue 88, where we got deep into the theme’s inception; the creators were more candid than they have ever been before. In Issue 91 we got deep into the making of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, in Issue 94 we covered 10305 Lion Knights’ Castle and 10497 Galaxy Explorer and in Issue 95 we showcased Daniel’s enormous, impressive Hogwarts Castle build.
I feel incredibly lucky to have been editing Blocks magazine in 2022, the year that marked 90 years since Ole Kirk Kristiansen founded the company that became the LEGO Group. Our special ‘90 Years of LEGO’ edition of the magazine was a fantastic opportunity to mark the milestone and cover all aspects of the company’s history (the pic above is a rare occasion when Daniel Konstanski, our build expert and historian, and I were in the same place at the same time).
No sooner had we celebrated the LEGO Group’s big occasion though than it was time to think about our own big moment – next February, we’ll be launching our 100th edition of Blocks magazine. Because each issue of the magazine is only(!) 116 pages, there was no way to include the features I wanted to and also cover the creativity of fans to the extent I wanted to.
That’s where the concept of 100 Incredible LEGO Builds came from – it’s a special one-off issue of the magazine that complements Issue 100. We picked out 100 of our favourite builds that we’ve featured and reprinted, nice and big, so you can admire all of the details.
I was thinking about what might make it extra special for the builders featured though – what kind of accolades could we give them? Then I realised, we needed to get the LEGO design team involved. Head of Design Matthew Ashton generously guest edited the magazine for us and 16 of his colleagues kindly came along for the ride, providing comment in the 100 MOCs.
Issue 100 isn’t the only thing to look forward to in 2023 (although it is front of my mind right now!). We’re going to be introducing new sections to the magazine and we have some fantastic exclusive features lined up. There are also other fun ideas cooking that we’ll share more about in due course.
If you know someone who would like Blocks, but hasn’t tried it before or recently, please recommend the magazine to them. The more readers we reach, the more ambitious our content can be.
In non-Blocks related news, I have had the wonderful experience of writing a book this year, which will be released next May. LEGO Heroes: LEGO Builders Changing Our World – One Brick at a Time is available to pre-order now from all good booksellers and shares inspirational stories about people whose creativity has been sparked by the brick.
Last tease for now – we’ll be launching Issue 99 this week and the cover looks fantastic. Inside, we’ve got a great feature that looks back at some classic LEGO catalogue spreads. We’re printing the original images nice and big, packed with detail; then we’ve zoomed in further and pulled out some of the fun little details that were hard to see in those tiny 1990s catalogue pages.
Thank you everyone for your support and for making Blocks magazine a part of your LEGO life – we’ll continue to enrich your hobby by giving you content that you can’t get anywhere else.
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year.
Graham Hancock
Editor
graham@blocksmag.com
