Okej was started by Hans G Hatwig in 1980. The first Okej was no.1-80. The first 3 editions were quite different to the magazine most of us got to know later. The format was A5 and it really looks like a small pocket book. The articles were more "tabloid" than the ones we got used to later. In no.22-83 there is a small article where the "old Okej" is more or less compared to the "83 version" and it seems like they really want to distance them selves from it. The "pocket book" version lasted for 3 editions (no.1 - 3/4.80). The format of the magazine can not have been a big success since they scrapped it all. All these Okej magazines came out while Poster still was beeing published. There are even ads in some of the later Poster magazines for Okej "The mouse that shouts".

In 1981 the first new editions of Okej came out. The format was lager (almost A4) and the magazine had longer articles. It looked much more like a conuiation of the old Poster content than the content that had been in the first Okej magazines. The magazine featured Kiss heavily already from the beginning. This was around the time "The Elder" came out, so there were many new pictures from the Barry Levine photo sessions. Okej also had a couple of interviews that I have not seen anywhere else. And it seemed like Kiss really wanted to drop the makeup and wanted to become a "serious" band.

In 1982 Okej also had several articles about how bad the state of Kiss was. A couple of articles sentered around Ace's problems/addicton. There were a interview with Steve Buslow (Meat Loafs bass player and bass player on Paul's solo album) that didn't leave Kiss much of a future. Then there were an article about Killers and their new heavier style (quite similar to the Kerrang article that came out about the same time)

The first issue in 83 had a long article about the promo vistit to Stockholm in November 82. Kiss had vistited the Okej office and did a long interview and photo session for the magazine. Photos from this photo session was also featured heavily in other future editions of Okej. No.1-83 is in my mind really the best issue that featured Kiss together with no.22-83.

Help! I have found it very difficult to date many of the articles. Most of the articles came from scrapbooks and many have pictures etc. missing. So I have just posted the articles that I have in more or less "complete" state. So I do miss a lot of articles. It would also be really helpful if you can tell me if articles a placed in the wrong issue or if you have scans or pictures of content that I am missing.

After I am finished scanning all the Okej articles I have I will put the ones I'm not abel to date on a "dating page". So any help dating them would also be great.
In the spring of 83 there were a lot of articles about Vinnie Vincent joining the band. There were also articles about the "10th anneversery tour" (Creatures of the night tour). Okej also had a make-up contest were the winning price was to meet Kiss on their upcoming European tour in the fall. Quite ironical when we now know that it was their first tour unmasked. During the spring of 1983 the magazine also started to feature posters (I believe this is correct?). The first Kiss poster was a cool posed "live-shot" from the Creatures photo session in no.11.83. The magazine had also gone from beeing released once a month to coming out every fourthnight.

The first "LIU" article was about the unmasking on MTV combined with a Gene inteview. There were also a couple of articles building the anticipation to the European tour. The next big Kiss article was in no.22-83. It was a big article about the concerts in Gothenburg and Stockholm in November 83. The article was a great "behind the scenes" insight on the band on that tour. Everything from their re-visit to the restuarant Räkan in Gothenburg to Eric Carr's eye-inflamation. Just great stuff all around.

Okej continued to feature a lot of Kiss stuff in the 80's. And a specially the article about the Animalize tour is cool to read. But I must admit I had lost some of the interest by then. Thats why I have stopped at 1986 when I more or less stopped buying the magazine. I believe Hatwig left the magazine about the same time. If you want me to include later Kiss articles also I can do that. but then you have to send me scans of them.

Okej is still going strong today. Even if it is really just a teen magazine today (It really was in the 80's also, but I was younger...hehe). The editor today is Anders Tegner who wrote all the great articles for Poster and Okej. If you want to check out their site it's here.