The first three covers of the year were drawn by Affra Gibbs and the last one was drawn by Holly Kaufman Spruch.

The mini-covers in the upper-right would also continue throughout the year.  The covers, as always, focused on things that were happening in the hacker world - and there was no shortage of them.

Summer 1993 was a mall scene, something that was becoming more and more prevalent as 2600 meetings soared in popularity.

Ever since the trouble at a 2600 meeting instigated by the Secret Service at the Pentagon City Mall in Washington D.C. the previous year, our meetings were spreading like wildfire, jumping from three in 1992 to 30 by the end of 1993.

Since so many of them met in food courts in malls, we were becoming real expertsin how to handle suspicious members of mall security.

In this image, hackers are seen on three levels of a mall playing with laptops, portable phones, and frequency counters.  There are other people with binoculars, a man clearly labeled as FBI, soldiers, and even a television crew interviewing some hackers.  All of this was based on actual occurrences at 2600 meetings.

We see the familiar RadioShack font on a storefront, but this one only spells out the word "hack."

On the lower-level we see kids on skateboards, tents set up (presumably for that summer's first hacking camp in the Netherlands), a scruffy old guy handing out leaflets, people playing with payphones, and someone wearing a shirt that says "MARCUS" and a hat with the letter "G,' possibly a reference to Jamaican leader and Black nationalist Marcus Garvey.

In the midst of all of this is a sign that says "Find the Hacker," much in the spirit of Where's Waldo?

You might have thought you had already found all of the hackers, but those who looked a little closer under a black (ultraviolet) light were in for a surprise as the familiar face of 2600, introduced in the Spring cover, would take up the entire page.

Fluorescing Cover Image

This issue's mini-cover shows a picture of Benjamin Franklin with a waving hand.

It was the issue where our faithful laser printer Franklin would retire and here it's revealed who Franklin had been named after all along.  It was appropriate, considering Benjamin Franklin's involvement in the printing trade.