Mr. Magazine

I met Ravi Pathare for the first time at the Amsterdam Airport last March. We were on our way together to the We Love Magazines Colophon 2007 meeting in Luxembourg. His card read “Chief Magazineologist” at Mag Nation Pty Ltd. in New Zealand. Mag Nation is a chain of magazine stores in New Zealand and Australia. Having never met a Magazineologist I was delighted to meet him and learn more about this Magazineologist background. Well, enough suspense…here is the story of the world’s first Chief Magazineologist in his own words.
“I graduated in 1979 as a doctor, completed my post graduation in Pathology four years later (nothing as gruesome as BONES and other whodunnit thrillers) and practiced as a Consulting Pathologist in busy Bombay to develop a very flourishing private practice in a few years time. Got tired of the rat race and chucked it all up to enjoy the green pastures of down under NZ where I moved to in 1994. Got sucked into the world of magazines in 2000 (and delighted for it), chucked up my profession and been doing it for the last 7 years. It was originally called Mega Mags but rebranded to Mag Nation in March 2006.Currently have 4 stores, 3 in Auckland and 1 in Melbourne. Our flagship Melbourne store stocks close to 4000 titles. Our 4th store (3rd in Auckland) opened in March 2007 and the fifth one opens in Melbourne in Sept. 2007. Plan to have 6 stores by the end of 2007 and 14 by end of 2008. We do trendy, quirky, innovative stuff like having theme weeks in the stores – T-World week, Sneaker Freaker Week, Knit in Week, Stencil art week in conjunction with POL Oxygen magazine etc. There. The story of my life.”
Ravi Pathare
Ravi recently send me the above three first issues of new magazines to add to my growing collection of first editions. Thanks Ravi and it was great to have met the world’s first ever magazineologist. I can’t wait to visit Mag Nation and have a cup of Java while spending a few hours, make that days from the look in the pictures of the stores, in yet another “heaven on earth” magazine location Down Under.