Bricks and Pieces Magazine Archive

Name of Feature: Bricks and Pieces magazine archive

Published by: Brickset, but originally by the LEGO company

Found at: http://www.brickset.com/miscellaneous/BricksAndPieces/

Details: In the earlier days of the "LEGO club" that LEGO has run over the years, there was a magazine called "Bricks and Pieces". From what I gather, this magazine was available in the UK before a similar effort was launched in the US. LEGO runs a "free" "club" for kids to this day, but you have to upgrade to the "BrickMaster" version to get anything of interest now - and Europe doesn't have access to the BrickMaster exclusive kits. Highlights of these old magazines include a regular series of articles with a Master Builder, lengthy articles related to building and peripheral activities, and kids' creations that actually look good. It's widely believed that LEGO started intentionally "dumbing down" the "kids' creations" they feature in the later magazines to remove models that looked like they may have been built by parents or hobbyists instead of children (which has the unfortunate side effect of weeding out the better creations made by young people). While I remember seeing some pretty great creations in issues of "Brick Kicks" in the early '90's, most of the models in the later "LEGO Mania Magazine" and "LEGO Club Magazine" haven't been up to par. Newer incarnations of the LEGO club concept have also been criticized for being heavier on advertising compared to earlier versions, but the ads for more LEGO have been there all along. Why mention this now? Well, Brickset has just announced the beginning of their Bricks and Pieces magazine archive! More issues will be added to the archive as time allows. Maybe after Brickset has all of those available, we could get them to post an archive of "Brick Kicks" as well...