About

HA! MAGAZINE is the brainchild of cartoonist/writer, Simon Ellinas. It was originally published on paper in the mid-nineties during the period when Punch no longer existed (before the short-lived Mohamed Al-Fayed takeover) as an attempt to fill the gap between Punch, Private Eye and Mad Magazine. One thousand copies of each issue were printed and they were distributed around independent newsagents. By issue five a 40% sales rate had been achieved. Two national publishers enquired about turning it into a glossy national magazine but in both cases decided that they wouldn’t be able to support it with advertising.

The demise of the printed version of Ha! coincided with the emergence of the internet as a communications channel. Several attempts were made to transfer Ha! to the web, none of which were long lasting or particularly successful.

It has taken this long for Wordpress to come up with the technology for magazines to be easily transferred to the web with the minimum of tecnical knowledge needed. And with more and more magazine-style themes available, particularly the one used for Ha!, WP-MediaMag, it seemed the right time to launch Ha! once again.

Part of the process is to safely archive all the old printed articles and cartoons for posterity but the main objective is to provide an independent satire site which uses all our powers of humorous writing and cartooning. The news is a perpetual source of incredible stories and over-bloated egos which all need the sideways look and the incisive truth in a well-aimed joke.

The core team of Ha! are Simon Ellinas, Paul Baker, Ian Parratt and Guy Carter with occasional contributions from Tim Leatherbarrow. Freelance submissions are welcome, either writing, cartoons or caricatures, but there is no payment; just links back to sites. When sending cartoons, please send both 300 and 72dpi versions; we’re banking on the fact that a future publication may arise from all this.

If you have any enquiries about Ha! EMAIL HERE.