Pssst!, which lasted ten monthly issues, was an attempt to publish a British equivalent of the lavish French bande dessinée magazines.

"[4] Critic Russell Willis, on the other hand, wrote of the publication, "It tended towards Heavy Metal tits, ass and girls-with-butterfly-wings style over any lasting substance.

... was the misguided dream of a delightfully wacky and wealthy French couple, Serge and Henriette Boissevain, who were convinced that a British attempt at the sort of luxurious 'adult' bande dessinée magazine that sold in France would make a fortune here; instead, it nearly lost them theirs.

One discovery when we hit Manchester's art college was curly-haired student Glenn Dakin, whose devilish cartooning on Temptation quickly made it into pssst!

In the end, after being hounded out of town by irate council officials and scraping ice off the inside of the windows (thankfully we never had to sleep on the bus), it was a relief to be taken off the road for good.

I got an ideal job back at the offices as traffic manager, coordinating artwork and interviewing potential contributors.

[2] According to Talbot, each issue was about "fifty pages, printed on top quality glossy paper and with the highest production values.

[2] In 1983, Gravett and Peter Stanbury formed Escape magazine, with a mandate similar to that of pssst!, and which lasted until the end of the 1980s.