The Year Is 1984...Or 1994...Or 1978...

To keep up with Heavy Metal magazine's mature science-fiction anthology format, Warren Publishing decided to make their own magazine with blackjack and hookers and robots. Their publication titled 1984 conveniently premiered in 1978, a year after Metal Hurlant came out in America as Heavy Metal. With Star Wars bringing a new renaissance of sci-fi to the Bronze Age of comics, Warren struck while the iron was still hot, and featured material by creative gods like Frank Thorne, Wally Wood, Richard Corben, and H.R. Giger. They had a decent selection of comic book stories for their black and white magazine, but the bi-monthly mag got a ring from the George Orwell estate in 1980 and asked them to change their title. The Animal Farm writer created the controversial dystopian future book 1984 of which the magazine was named after, and while you can't copyright a year, it is possible to have some leverage over an outside party using the title of your book to fill their own pockets. Out of respect for the deceased author, Warren changed the title of their magazine from 1984 into 1994. Was there something fictionally significant about the year 1994? No! This was however the cheaper alternative made available to Warren at the time. It might have been more prudent to retitle it to 2000, even though the infamous British comics publisher IPC Magazines already had one titled 2000 AD. Using the year 1999 would've worked just as well for Warren since Prince wouldn't make the song of the same name until 1982. Either way, Warren ironically cancelled the magazine in early 1983, less than a year from the actual year they used for the title. Warren might have saved themselves a bunch of hassle if they just named their magazine something like Space Fights instead of after a widely recognized novel.