Here’s a message from Blocks magazine Editor Graham E. Hancock to our readers as the festivities really get started and 2024 winds down.
It has been an absolutely wonderful year for Blocks magazine – we have been exceptionally busy and working ridiculously hard, but we are also truly proud of the results and have had lovely feedback from our readers.
2024 marked the 10th anniversary of Blocks. A decade ago, the AFOL community was crying out for more content – some wonderful websites and publications were producing articles and reviews, but clearly there was the potential for more. Now, it’s impossible to keep up with the content that’s coming via traditional blogs, YouTube and TikTok.
Where Blocks continues to fill a niche is in the long form space, providing the in-depth look at the LEGO hobby that the most dedicated fans demand. That’s where our redesign came from this year – we wanted to refresh the look and content of the LEGO magazine for AFOLs, ensuring that it allows us to squeeze in as much as possible to each month’s edition.
Our new opening section, The Sort, is where we provide news, opinion and community updates. Our closing Retro section is where we take a satisfying stroll down memory lane and look back at classic LEGO sets. In-between, our Reviews section is not all that different to before – but we continue to strive to deliver authoritative reviews by fans with significant experience with the brick (there’s no ‘for me personally’ in a Blocks review!).
Build & Chat is our new regular interview feature, in which we sit down with a LEGO professional and build a set. As we build, we discuss that person’s career in detail, from their early formative experiences of LEGO building, through their education and professional start, to how they found themselves working for the LEGO Group. Every person has a different journey and these conversations are always a treat.
Alongside those regular sections, we are always determined to make sure we have features you can’t find online. Because of our monthly schedule, we have the time to really do the research and make sure we’re bringing you new stories that look at the inner workings of the LEGO Group.
In 2024, we’ve covered the making of LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy, explored the full story of the Modulex system, reflected on 10 years of The LEGO Movie with the creatives behind it, admired beautiful concept art from DREAMZzz, heard the story of Galidor’s troubled production from Matthew Ewald and found out how the Friends team crafted 42639 Andrea’s Modern Mansion.
As well as our 12 monthly LEGO magazines, we’ve followed up last year’s special with the Blocks Book of Retro LEGO Sets Volume II – which contains all-new content, nothing reprinted. We spoke to former LEGO professionals who worked in different area; designers who created sets, an experiential expert who was responsible for the yellow truck, a plastics expert who worked on the magic ABS formula and the guardian of the System. If you don’t have this edition yet, you should be sure to do soon – we’ve sold out of Volume I.
Crafting these magazines is so rewarding because we know they add something to the LEGO hobby and I am incredibly grateful to everyone who buys the odd issue – and especially grateful to those who subscribe. Our subscribers are our community and ensure the longevity of Blocks magazine. If you do love the magazine, be sure to recommend it to a friend so that we can be even more ambitious in the future.
I’d like to thank Daniel, Anthony, Kat, Dave, Phil, Ryan, Geneva, Chris, Matt, Will, Daniel J, Dimitri, SImon, Keith and Lorna for being an incredible team and always going above and beyond. We have fantastic support from the publishers at Silverback Publishing. Colin has joined the team this year and is doing an amazing job of partnering with LEGO businesses, communities and events on advertising.
If you’d like to get involved either with the magazine, website or being part of our expansion into video content, then do email me at graham@blocksmag.com.
What an awesome 10-year ride it has been – thank you for supporting Blocks and allowing us to be part of your LEGO experience. If you’ve been with us for a while, then you’ll know that we will never rest on our laurels and will always be raising the bar. We’ve got some exciting things cooking for 2025 and I can’t wait to share them with you.
Have a relaxing Christmas and New Year with plenty of building. Leg godt!
Graham E. Hancock
Editor
graham@blocksmag.com
P.S. If anyone has a Jedi Bobcorn box they’re willing to sell me – I’m in the market for one.
