Mr. Magazine

First it was the cover mounds, or as some in Europe like to refer to it, The Italian cover- disease. You cannot buy a magazine without a gift attached to the cover. Now, it is the American disease with split covers of the same magazine spreading like mushrooms. In the UK my friend Jeremy Leslie writes that Empire magazine this month has 32 different covers of Star Wars (see all of them here). The folks at Bladblog in The Netherlands report that Hide&Chic magazine provides its readers with three cover shots of no other than George Clooney (the latest male hot cover subject worldwide). For the die-hard Star Wars fan, the Empire covers are a must, and for the Clooney fans, well maybe you need “more than one look!”

Those are the exact words Will Lewis, editor of the British Daily Telegraph used to describe the current status of the newspaper industry. “If the newspaper industry took a beating, it deserved one. It took readers for granted and continued to make assumptions about them that no longer held true,” he added according to an article by Matt Wells in The Guardian newspaper. However there is hope for the newspapers, if and only if, they listen to Mr. Lewis’ advice, or anyone’s advice for that matter. “The tough times of the past few years have been very useful in many ways. We now know as an industry what we are not good at, be it IT, distribution, customer service. We also have extreme clarity about what we are good at – the story,” Mr Lewis said. Read Matt Well’s article here.

During a recent visit to Finland I discovered an Estonian { and not Russian magazine as I mentioned earlier, thanks to a note from Mikhail Smetana from Afisha Magazine Moscow, Russia} called JUST. It is a celebrity weekly magazine, as we call this type of magazines in the States, or a gossip weekly as they refer to this type of magazines in the rest of the world. I bought two weekly issues, but I was lucky enough not to open the magazines until I arrived back in the States. What a surprise. Remember those photo-shopped pictures of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan coming down from the car without underwear. Well most of the magazines in the States and in most of the world opted not to scare their readers and either edited or blurred the pictures using the magic of Photoshop. Not JUST magazine. They published both pictures as is. No editing, no Photoshop, no blurring… Pictures that I can’t even show on my blog (yet with some Google help you can find them on the web), however you will thank me for not showing the pictures if you see them. I am not a fan of altering pictures and or using Photoshop to add or delete parts of pictures, but at the same time I am a big believer in the power of editing… as in edit the pictures out… those pictures are the biggest exception to the theory that a picture is worth a 1,000 words… in the aforementioned pictures, trust me a 1,000 words would have helped me and many other readers avoid a few nightmares…

The message is not the medium and the proof is in Vs. magazine, a “large format and exclusive yet diverse way of showcasing fashion and culture. Scandinavian yet international. Reaching for the future yet holding on the classic goods.” Vs. has just published its second issue and it is indeed filled with “contrasts and contradictions,” as the name aptly states. Heavy glossy paper, large format, great photography, and excellent content make this magazine a “boutique” publication rather than a “supermarket” publication. Its hefty $20 cover price is worth every penny and a definite proof that when you present the relevant content in the relevant medium you can’t go wrong. Anyone that doubts the future of print, need not do anything but pick up a copy of Vs. and why print still reigns supreme when delivering that VIP factor: the visual impact of print. The magazine is both available in both English and Scandinavian languages.

Washing on our shores in the United Stated is the first international issue of NUDE magazine, the British magazine with “100 pages of countercultural goodness.” The folks at NUDE tell the readers that the magazine was born in 2003 “as a 36-page magazine that was distributed primarily in London. However, as the magazine has grown, it’s scope has broadened in recognition of the fact that great artists, musicians, filmmakers and writers etc, come from all over the globe. As such, NUDE will continue to cover an eclectic mix of international mainstream culture, but from a very British perspective.” Well, NUDE will be a welcomed, but different, addition to the United States market. The square-sized magazine ushers an easy to follow design combined with lots and lots of “Music & Graphics & Hip Lit.” The handy sized magazine is worth every penny of its $6.99 cover price. One important final note about NUDE, you can expect a lot of things in this magazine, NUDITY is not one of them. Even with its name, the magazine goes “beyond the counter culture.”

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.