this one:

You can't go wrong with a Macca/Fabs feature, I always say.

Looking back through the impressive panoply of back issues, it's easy to see why magazines of this kind usually plump for the safe option when it comes to cover artists. I mean, there have been a couple of bold (not to say dodgy) choices along the way for The Word cover - Dido and Jack Johnson spring to mind - which must have brought readers flooding in by the, er, dozen!

Generally though, the covers have struck just about the right balance between old and new.

And any magazine that puts both Ry Cooder and Frank Zappa on the cover is OK with me.

My favourite cover? This one naturally:

Here's to the next 100!

I thought, for some reason, that it was a magazine about Books/Novels (I now know I was confusing it with something else) but that it also put rock stars on the cover but wasn't principally a music magazine.
It was, as it still is, always in WHSmith but always a bit tucked away.

I think this was the first one

purchased from a Railway station en route to a short break in Alnwick on the North East coast...and thoroughly enjoyed reading from cover to cover. It was, I thought, Smash Hits for grown ups. It wasn't much later that I clicked that it was Hepworth and Ellen.

I didn't buy every issue, I had a rule about not buying anything with Bruce Springsteen or Bob Dylan on the cover (I have since had to abandon that one..several times) but I bought every one from May 2008 and became a subscriber not long after.

Since then, I've had an immense amount of entertainment from the magazine and the podcasts, this ridiculously addictive blog, and most importantly have had some cracking nights out and made some lovely new friends. If I occasionally come across as a bit of a Word fanboy, that's why.

PSSST...pick yours from here:
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/archive

I'd held off buying for a few issues, because I thought it was aimed at 40 somethings, and me being in my early 20's, didn't want to accept that it would appeal to me! But I did, and haven't looked back since!

can't believe we're almost up to issue 100!

liked it so much, i framed it ...

window display, Borders, Stockport (much missed). Lost interest a little when it went very iPod (also not a fan of magazines with Beatles on cover). Local Sainsbury stocked it for a while then stopped - in fact I thought the magazine had gone under for a while. I missed well over a year's worth of issues.

sainsburys, just outside harrogate, first day/lunch hour of me being self employed - unfortunately i've been hooked ever since - word magazine that is, not sainsburys (or work for that matter!) - still bemoan the longer reviews section if old, but i guess thats progress!

Bought it for similar reasons to DogFacedBoy, except I thought it seemed like a non-crap version of Q. Read it and was hooked. Rarely missed an edition since and have subscribed for over 3 years.

Starting subscribing immediately, so that's the only newsstand copy I've bought.

I can't remember what issue it was, but it would've been in October or November 2009

No. I know that I've bought every single issue since that one. It was about year or so before it acquired the definitive article in its title though if anyone can date that it may help me recollect. Funny though, I can still remember the first Smash Hits I bought - issue 5 with Rod Stewart on the front.

was around early 2005 and Morrissey was on the cover. Was aware of the magazine, but thought(like another reader) the mag was squarely aimed at the 40-50yr market and so avoided.

But have been pretty much hooked ever since. The golden periods come and go, but its pretty much the only mag i genuinely look forward to landing on the mat

didn't last long did it ? (i think I bought the first issue).

I was in my first year at university and looking for something to read over coffee one afternoon. I've bought every issue since, though I'm not sure if I still have them all.

First issue bought in Maxteds Convenience Store, Windmill Parade, Worthing Road, Rustington about half a mile that way---> as the crow flies.

Bought every issue, now two issues into my first subscription. Every issue filed away in drawers upstairs.

The first issue I bought had Jeff Buckley on the cover and a free cd (when these were, I think, quarterly). I bought it sporadically for the first 2 years or so, then I stopped getting U***t and made Word a permanent fixture on the coffee table. My missus even has a read through every month.

Third issue. Blur? On the cover? Blimey.

In 2003, this was a rare sight indeed, as by that time the band were over and getting dismissed as BritPop has-beens.

Bought it at WH Smiths Victoria Station for a trip to Brighton.

I heard an interview on radio about the new magazine (can't recall what station) with maybe Mark Ellen and thought it sounded worth a try. I had come through Q (from issue 3) and Mojo (issue 1) but was bored with both of them.

Despite my indifference to Nick Cave, I bought it and I'm still here.

Borders in the New Mersey Retail Park, Speke. I've bought every issue since and read most of them.

I'm looking forward to the 100th, hoping the team pull out all the stops on an exceptional CD to accompany it.

..sent me an email about a new mag coming out.

Issue One. Smiths at Waterloo.

One of my blues heroes with an iPod - how could I resist? Subscribed very soon thereafter and have enjoyed every issue, if not every cover - Dido!!! - since. Can it really be a 100 already? Where does the time go?

I remember coming across Q for the first time when I lived & worked in Oxford in the 80s. Mojo must have started in early '94? I'm sure I bought a copy of the first issue to read on the plane when I came to the US.

A friend of mine "back home" (in the UK) sent me a copy of issue number one of Word. I really enjoyed it and thought this is kind of what Q and Mojo were like when they first started. I called up to enquire about a subscription and spoke to Jerry Perkins who said they hadn't got a subscription service set up yet!

I think I managed to get issue #2 from Barnes & Noble and was a subscriber from issue #3 and we've been together ever since.

It was about 2005 I think. I don't hoard old magazines. Or anything else, for that matter.

but in honesty I think it was no.2. I read about it coming out and saw no 1 in a railway station Smiths but I don't think I bought it - maybe not enough articles of interest to persuade. I bought it from no.2 though and only missed the odd edition before subscribing a few years back to save me having to hunt it down !

WH Smiths, Ilford. After the demise of Select I was lost for a magazine to call my own - Q was in one of it's periodic lulls, U**** had put me off with it's relentless championing of "alt.country", and M*** was always too "classic" for my tastes. So when I spied this new boy in town, with Nick Cave on the cover and - IIRC - a Neil Tennant interview inside I thought this could be the start of a beautiful friendship. 99 issues and several subscriptions later (although I've had to let it slide again recently due to a temporary cash crisis) we're still together. Here's to issue 200!

since day 1 but just to throw cat amongst the pigeons have also bought Mojo since day 1 too. Funny thing is when Mojo was first out I was doing the odd market research session for a friend when she couldnt enlist enough people. I got the phone call one day: 'Do you like music?' 'Er,yes'
'rthere is this new magazine out called Mojo' 'Yes I know I just bought issue 2 today'. 'Would you like to meet in a pub and answer questions about it? If so, I will buy your drinks and you get £10.00 for the inconvenience'. 'Oh,okay then I will do it'.
Have subscribed to Word since I think the second edition - interview with Costello?

I nearly cried at the recycling plant when my mum demanded I chuck out my back issues.

Shortly after we moved up here. Been on subscription for a few years now, Christmas pressie. It's the gift that keeps on giving!

And to quote myself for approximately the first time ever:

"It was on a London to Liverpool nighttime train journey, in the depths of winter. I’d picked up my copy at Euston WHSmiths, in the hope of easing the pain of a three hour journey home. It worked. This was, I think, 2003 (and Blur were on the cover), and I haven’t missed a copy since."

Full piece here:

http://thelibertyship.wordpress.com/2007/06/11/the-word-2/

Issue one, having seen an ad in The Guardian a few days before publication. Have bought every issue since, a subscriber from, I think, issue 5 or so (whenever they gave away a Citizen Kane DVD). My one and only appearance in the letters page followed shortly afterwards. Minus a Bob Dylan issue which I passed to a friend and never saw again I still have them all in the loft, they even survived a recent house move when lesser mags didn't make the cut.

Browsing in Borders in Brisbane between bouts (OK, enough alliteration already) of chemotherapy* in 2006,possibly around August. Can't remember the cover, but it caught my eye enough to make me flick through. The names Hepworth and Ellen were instantly enough to make me buy it.

Bought (or was bought) the next few. Then a sub for Xmas, which has been renewed ever since.

I did remember having seen a copy when I was flicking through a newsagent's racks while on a trip back to the UK earlier in 2006, but only saw the title, and assumed it was a religious mag. Oh foolish boy!

*I've commented here once before about how the mag and the podcast helped me through that long treatment. I remain in 100% remission.

I discovered the podcast first. I had just discovered this think called podcasting, and as an avid anti-apple person, googled to find rss feeds of podcast on topics of interest. Google suggested The Word podcast, and I downloaded the one current at the time. t was one with Jude Rodgers, but I can't remember the number. I remember thinking: "This is too long, it is probably boring." and not listening to it for a few weeks.

When I finally did, I immediately downloaded all episodes, and from there have gone from occasional buyer of the mag to subscriber.

Strolling through Camden in my lunch hour in my then newish job killing time before having to go back and face my frankly psychotic boss and/or pretending to run errands so I didn't have to go to lunch with her at least once that week, I stumbled across it in the newsagent.

Back at my desk I realised it was right up my alley and took out an immediate subscription.

Never looked back.

issue 2 was first for me with Elvis Costello on the front,I then bought intermittently and now subscribe,it's been an emotional ride

Might have been issue 1 or 2, but I've bought every one since, from a shop, as nature intended.

I remember that around the same time a magazine called "Ink" also launched. It was a bit like "Word" but was focused on books more than anything. Think it lasted about half a dozen issues. A shame as I loved it.

I felt it was written for me. And I was hooked.

On the other hand, I didn't 'get' the podcasts in the early days. They just sounded like a couple of blokes talking bollocks. It was only after a few hearings that I realised that it was a couple of blokes talking extremely entertaining bollocks.

Erm... mainly because Nick Cave was on the cover
(at least I'm honest!)

My first 'Word' was the Prince cover in 2004.
I think I read somewhere that his face acted as a powerful repellent to the rest of the magazine-buying population of this country, but y'know they picked up one new reader with it.

I heard about it and thought "Ooh, Hepworth and Ellen, that's worth a look" as I'd spent a lot of my life in the company of one their mags - Smash Hits, Just Seventeen, Q, Empire, More and early days of Heat (thought: how does one star-out Q's title to make it anonymous?)

Then my best friend told me about a new magazine that she'd heard about on the radio or tv (can't remember which) that she thought would be right up my street...

So, I bought it and have stayed ever since.

I subscribed after a couple of years, and was subscriber of the month in May 2006! (I didn't remember that, we just looked it up!)

Honest Man holds the current subscription - it was one of the things that we had in common when we first met.

One thing I remember from the early days was that they said that they wouldn't review albums immediately they were released, reviewers would listen to them over a few weeks or months and then review them rather than giving instant reaction after short period.

Also the book reviews seemed to be more extensive, but that could just be perception. I remember Anthony Beevor getting a long review.

I really liked the gadget and tech reviews - I bought my first MP3 player - a Creative MuVo - after a review that said it was very small and a worthy contender as iPod-killer!

Issue One. A short break with my two daughters (I now have 3). A friend would give me use of his cottage in Yetholm every so often. No telly, no streetlights ... Just the looming mass of the Cheviot, log fires and a babbling brook where the girls would fish for tiny fish with nets on a stick. I love that place.

Like a few others I suspect, I'd stopped subscribing to/buying Q by that time and spotted Elvis Costello on the cover of this new magazine. The rest of it certainly lived up to the billing of "Something To Read" and I've been on board ever since.

I read about it somewhere before the first issue and it sounded like the thing for me since I liked the early Q and Mojo. Started subscribing as soon as I got the first issue and not looked back since.