Mr. Magazine

Once in a blue moon, you meet someone who shares your background, your love to everything and anything print, even your zodiac, and the permanence of what we create, cherish and adore: magazines.”

That person is no other than Emon Hassan, the founder and publisher of the two plus years old zine emonome. A beautiful 40-pages zine that tells a different photographic story every issue.  Emon is a filmmaker, a photographer and a musician, but his latest creativity is manifesting itself, monthly, in emonome, the zine that he started in 2024 and is going strong into its third year…

When I asked him about how he fell in love with print, his answers brought back memories of yours truly scribbling and creating his own magazines as a child growing up in Lebanon before going to college and before journalism and storytelling became my career and profession.

Emon told me, “I think back to my first ever published thing, as a teenager, I wrote a short story that I hand-wrote into notebook paper. And then I bound it with staples and put a cover.

My distribution was I give it to the first person, and it’s their job to read it and decide who they should give it to. And then at some point, it made its way back to me. I only recently realized that’s kind of the model I’m still doing in that sense.”

What a lovely testimony to the power of print and the art of storytelling.  As you read this interview you will find more about the essence of storytelling, print, and the genius work of creating movies and films on paper from the opening credits to the end… a complete cinema in 40 pages…

So, without any further ado, please enjoy this lightly edited interview with Emon Hassan, founder and publisher of emonome.

Samir Husni: My first question to you is you’re a filmmaker, you’re a photographer, a musician. Why did you decide to do an ink on paper magazine in this digital age?

Emon Hassan: Well, I’ll tell you the story that leads up to that. So in 2005, I had a short film that was included in a film festival in New York City.

And one of the organizers said we don’t have a big promotion available. So why don’t you start a blog and promote your film? I launched that blog and I called it Emonome because I liked the name. It’s a palindrome.

It’s perfect as a Pisces. I started blogging, trying to promote the film. But I really got into what the blog stood for in terms of its open endedness, in terms of information that comes to me.

Then what I saw, the idea was that anything that influences me, that I read or listen to, I’ll blog about it. If that inspires me to create something, I will also blog about it. I liked that it didn’t have an ending.

It could go in any number of directions. I did that for years and that helped me navigate the landscape, online landscape that led me to many opportunities, including about six years later, starting as a photojournalist for The New York Times. In the 2010s, I got very busy with my photojournalism and short documentary work for various platforms.

It was an accidental turn of events, which was very fortunate.  I didn’t do a whole lot of blogging. Around the end of 2020, I was thinking of how I should think about the new decade, because every decade I think, what can change? What should I do next? How are things changing? I noticed that the online work had been so saturated and with social media and everything, I was trying to figure out where my work as a photographer, my personal work lived.

The more I looked at online, the more I felt like that I would have my stories and work be done up to a point. After that, it would be off to people who would decide if there was worth publishing or worth telling. I did not like that because it was affecting how I did my stories.

In 2024, I launched my self-published first photography and poetry book as an e-book. Once the e-book came out, most of the people who are on my mailing list said, this is great, but how are you going to sign an e-book? You should do a print book, then we’ll talk. A couple of months later, I launched a print book and the process itself was quite illuminating in terms of how I felt seeing a physical thing in my hands and how those garnered responses from people who bought it.

I was thinking about things I could do that were on a regular basis. I still liked the idea of a deadline because doing newspaper work for about 10 years, it really made me work my best. My partner, who’s also my editor, she said, you’ve always liked blogging. Why don’t you do it as a zine? It was instantly, I saw that, this is it. It’s print form. I can do zines and I don’t have to follow certain rules, either for myself or in terms of perception of what a zine should be.

I decided to launch a zine. Before even the first zine came out, I knew it was going to be monthly because if it wasn’t monthly, then I would probably never do it again. Because it was monthly, it had me thinking a certain way.

That’s how it started as a print because I felt that the audience that were coming to me because of print were the people that I wanted to relate to all along. It was sort of a very refined process that connected us through print.

Samir Husni: Did anybody tell you, Emon, are you out of your mind? What are you thinking doing print in the 21st century?

Emon Hassan: I don’t think they told me directly.

I would read stuff that would make it seem. But I thought that people tend to say something but want something different. So, it was because I thought nobody wanted print is why I did the first book as an e-book.

I will quickly tell that you should do it as a print book because we need to feel the book and the photographs. That’s what made me think that don’t go by what the industry chatter. Go by what people are directly telling you.

Samir Husni: With your pictures, with your photography, did you find a big difference between when it was only digital to when you start making prints and selling prints and signing?

Emon Hassan: Yes. I think when I started to do it in the book form where, you start at page one and then end at page 40, I started to look at photography very differently and I started to think storytelling because it was the idea that the book is probably the only technology that you never had to explain to people. They all know that it will start here and will end here.

Whatever you put in between is totally left to the imagination. Once I started doing it in print and it was in the book form, I was able to channel my filmmaker brain into it and tell stories in a way that would weave through. You know where it began and where it ended.

There’s the opening image. There’s the closing image. I was able to do a lot within the constraints, if you will, of the cover and the back cover.

Samir Husni: Have you ever thought a book or a magazine is like a movie? There’s a beginning and there’s an end?

Emon Hassan: Yes. I see the zines as a cinema in the print form for me, the way I approach it. Yes, I do. That was a big part in designing and crafting every issue.

Samir Husni: If somebody comes to you and say, what’s the power of print today?

Emon Hassan: I think I’ve always believed that even through the height of digital is that the longevity of the paper form, the print form is something that will outlive me.

With digital, people approach it as something that can be discarded. The power of print is in its permanence.

There’s something about the print version, which is that you hand it over to somebody or passit around or pass it down aspect of it is to me is something I think about because you read something and you say, I really love this. You should read it and it goes around. The power of it, in other words, is it’s also the longevity of it.

From a photographer point of view, I know exactly how that photograph will be seen by everybody. If I were to do it in digital, it all depends on if your computer is color calibrated or if it’s like a certain definition, you will see a different picture than I do. That will translate differently in terms of the storytelling.

In the print form, if I’m in charge of seeing how the print works, then I know whatever I see is what anyone will see out there.

Samir Husni: What role does AI play, if any, in your photography?

Emon Hassan: No, not in my photography, because I feel like it will never equal to the way I think. It’s not like I haven’t played with AI, but it gets boring very quickly because all it’s doing is rehashing what others think are great photographs, which I may not agree with. For me, having honed my craft repeatedly it’s 10, 20 times easier for me to come up with original ideas or respond to something. Photography is responding to a situation that I’m in. And there’s nothing in AI could do that.

Now there are certain technologies available in the apps that you use to edit them. And more companies are integrating them with or without our consent, like denoising or that sort of thing. I tend not to use them anymore.

I used to use it when you have manual like denoise. I feel like, if I took a picture a certain time and it has this noise, then that’s the story. I don’t need to make it look more perfect because perfection is not what I’m going for.

Samir Husni: Excellent. Tell me, before I ask you my typical questions, since you started the zine, have it been like a walk in a rose garden or did you have some challenge?

Emon Hassan:  No, it’s not been. Well, first, I think it goes to one of your original questions was, and on top of that is the perception of what a zine should be or where zine is.

I’ve gotten a question if it’s so polished, can it be called a zine anymore? My response to that is I don’t look at the zine as the form of it. I look at zine as a decision I’ve made against something or to stand up to something, which is the publishing empire that decides whose story is important to tell or not. To make it polished is my decision as a photographer and as a publisher to say that this is my product, it’s zine, but the zine is more like, that’s my punk rock.

I chose it a certain way. I would say that’s my zine is a serious endeavor. Most people don’t make a second issue of a zine.

I’ve done 24 already, 25 coming out soon. I am into it for good. There were challenges in terms of printing and such. I don’t think that’s unique to just zines. I think any business will face those challenges. But I think perception of what a zine should be and how seriously or not seriously should be taken.

It’s something that I don’t deal with as much, but I know it’s in the back of people’s minds, but that’s shifting now.

Samir Husni: Emonome is not cheap. You’re charging $15 an issue.

Emon Hassan: I would say it’s on par with what it should be. And as it came to consensus once I had the original back and forth with people, that I figured that was appropriate for that.

Based on how much time I spend, all that must come into consideration. There is one thing too, when people think zines should be free. I don’t believe that at all, because why am I doing it if I don’t consider it as a serious business?

Samir Husni: Tell me, if I come one evening, unannounced to your house, what do I catch Emon doing? Watching TV, reading a book, looking at pictures?

Emon Hassan: It’s all those things. I’m constantly, thinking about storytelling…different storytelling.

It will either be reading a book or listening to an audio book or looking at a video about certain things. Always trying to learn how I can do it better. I’ll read books for inspiration, either photo books or just fiction, anything that has to do with storytelling told a certain way. It doesn’t matter. I don’t discriminate against any type of storytelling. I want to learn. I’ll let it sort of wash over me.

Sometimes I’ll won’t do any of that. I’ll just listen to music for a few days and be like, none of that. No nonfiction enters my world. It’s just going to be fiction or music or just silence sometimes.

Samir Husni: I read that you were a guitar instructor.

Emon Hassan: I used to be in the early two thousand when I was playing music in New York. That was my main source of income, to play cover in cover bands. I had an original guitar duo.

During that time, I was also teaching guitar and I was doing great. I had a bunch of students.

Samir Husni: Then you moved from sound to vision.

Emon Hassan: Sound came as a way from vision. I was always like ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a filmmaker, but I didn’t know what a filmmaker was. I didn’t know that you wrote your films.

I thought you just were there when it happened and you captured it. When I was 14 or 15, my mom bought me a guitar because she didn’t want me to go play in the sun outside. She didn’t know that I would really take to it.

So it was, it was sort of parallel. I knew they were not related in any way, but I knew from very early on that, no matter how many different things you do, they’re all going to help you to be a better storyteller.

The more input you have from different fields, it’s only going to help you as a storyteller, not to take anything away from it.

Samir Husni:  My typical last question, what keeps him on up at night these days?

Emon Hassan: It’s probably very different reason that most people will give you. I’m up at night in the anticipation of the things I can’t wait to get to in the morning.

So I’ll go to bed thinking I can’t wait for this night to be over so I can get up and get to doing what I do, my routine.  A lot of people stay up at night thinking about what their industry, their work and everything is going. But I’ve kind of lived it in my head, some years ago, of where things might be going. So, that doesn’t keep me up.

What keeps me up is if I’ve done my best that day and if I could have done any better and I’ll just quickly calibrate and be like, in the morning, I’ll wake up and I’ll try to do a little better.

Samir Husni:  Thank you and all the best.

To learn more or to subscribe to the beautiful zine emonome click here.

30

TAG you are it, and a new interactive ink on paper magazine is born.  The brainchild of an illustrator, artist, and storyteller, Anthony Deptula, with the help of his nine-year-old son, Hugo, came up with the idea of creating an interactive print publication after seeing the lack of kids’ interactivity on You Tube due to COPPA (The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) regulations.

His love for drawing started as a kid in kindergarten. He started drawing at a very young age and continued to this day with creative stints at Disney Interactive, Maker Studios, You Tube, and now Netflix.  With TAG, he wanted to curate and create something big—literally big (approximately 11 X 15)—that kids can interact with, draw on, tear apart, erase, make paper airplanes from, and do whatever their minds and imagination call for.  In short, he succeeded in creating a magazine whose tagline (pun intended) says, “No parents allowed,” but is very much welcomed by parents who love for kids to have some screen free time.

Anthony has two issues under his belt and is now working on issues 3 and 4. Recently, TAG became available on Etsy.  A post on LinkedIn said, “If Etsy is your jam, you can now grab Issue # 1 of TAG over there. TAG is a screen-free kids magazine for drawing, comics, creative writing, and generally making stuff.”

On a personal note, I may add that, in addition to Highlights and High Five, my grandkids are now receiving TAG, the magazine. I hope that those who have kids or grandkids in elementary or middle school, will consider getting them some screen-free time with interactive TAG. Click here to get a subscription to the magazine.

And now, without any further ado, here is the lightly edited interview with Anthony Deptula, founder and editor-in-chief of TAG, the magazine:

Samir Husni: Congratulations on the new magazine.

Anthony Deptula: Thank you.

Samir Husni: You must be out of your mind to start an ink on paper magazine in this digital age.

Anthony Deptula: Yeah, I don’t know if I’m out of my mind or just nostalgic or understanding that parents want less screen time for kids.

Samir Husni: Your tagline, pun intended, is a creative magazine made of paper. Is it describing the obvious or?

Anthony Deptula: One thing that I’ve figured out as we’re just getting started here, kids didn’t really know what magazines were. And a lot of parents had to explain to them what it was, which is kind of wild to me.

It’s tongue in cheek, trying to be funny, made of paper. I like that it’s made of paper, for me, it’s tangible. Everything is so fleeting today. I like that it’s a piece of paper and kids can draw on it. Kids can have it delivered to their house or where they live, their apartment. That’s exciting to receive something and get something is still exciting for kids.

Amazon proves that; every day, getting something from Amazon, being able to order it, kids still like getting packages and getting something in the mail.

Samir Husni: You say no parents allowed. How are you marketing the magazine?

Anthony Deptula: One parent submitted some art. And I was, okay, that’s interesting. It was pretty good.

Kids love that. Kids really love that. We have a little different style than competitors. We’re a little baby magazine, but we’re a little more punk, as you can tell. We’re a little more comic book based, graphic novel based. And the style is black and white. It’s all over the place. To answer your question in marketing, grassroots, we’re working with partners. One of the interesting things that we’re doing are pop-ups.

For issue number two, we did a partnership with an ice-skating rink, and we worked with a young nine-year-old, hopeful Olympian, in Charlie Roost. She was the model in the ice-skating spread. We’re giving away free ads as well to like-minded partners.

If you look at issue one, those are all free ads in the back. Those partners are like-minded community partners, and they’re pushing it out for me on social, on their newsletters, in person. That way, we’re just growing.

We have no funding. It’s sort of growing grassroots. The more people that know about it, the better it is, because then we get to exist.

Samir Husni: Go back with me to that aha moment. When did you get the idea, and how was TAG born?

Anthony Deptula: I grew up in Steubenville, Ohio. My dad worked at Weirton Steel in West Virginia. In Weirton, at our home we had old calendars, the desktop calendars. I would draw on them.

I would make comics with my best friend who was in kindergarten. I was in first grade. I always loved drawing.

In 1998 the United States introduced COPPA (The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act). YouTube took away comments from kids, because of COPPA. Very safe, very smart. Totally agree with it.

But I think kids lost this interactivity.  I helped make a few YouTube shows, one with GoldieBlox. I was an executive producer, which had 60 million views. And another, I was working at Maker Studios as an exec and helped shepherd the idea that had 300 million views.

That was all core curriculum on YouTube, first and second grade. The kids were so engaged and so interested and excited. I just thought, if every page is almost a partnership, if every page is interactive because magazines have had that sort submissions for years. That why TAG is big. I like how big it is.

Kids love the size. It’s not precious. You can tear it up, you can make it papier mache, you can turn it into a paper airplane, and you can erase it. Kids today lost their youth voice. I thought this would be an interesting way to reimagine a magazine where every page is interactive.

On every page, they get a chance to put their comic, their graphic novel, a story that they want to tell and really help them create content that they like, because a lot of content that is created for kids, they don’t like. So, TAG is a little bit of an old Nickelodeon style; to let the kids decide.

Samir Husni: Tell me a bit about your background. You must have a unique background to do this.

Anthony Deptula: I’m from a working-class family, moved to LA and I’ve worked in television. I did comedy in LA.

I had a feature film that I wrote, produced, and acted in at Sundance. I became an executive and started making a lot of kids’ content working for Makers’ Studio, Disney, GoldieBlox, Female Empowerment Toy Company, and Slumberkins. I have a lot of toy clients right now.

I’ve never made a magazine. But I wanted to draw again. I literally just wanted to draw again. People seem to be responding. We’re starting to do wholesale sales.

We’re starting to get into brick and mortars. We have subscriptions, which is great. My background is creative. I have a creative background. I love artists. A lot of the artists that I’ve worked with over the years are in the magazine. Those artists have worked at Disney, Cartoon Network. You know, I also like fine art, which is one of my favorite pages in the spread. We don’t talk down to kids.

Samir Husni: Who is the audience you are trying to reach? I know it is children, but can you be more specific?

Anthony Deptula: The age range is wild, Samir.

I would say first to eighth grade. It’s a very wide range of kids that are loving this thing. I think because of the rise of Captain Underpants and Wings of Fire, all these graphic novel books, kids that are just older are still into comics and drawing and storytelling.

I have a unique perspective. I had a lot of people tell me not to do this, and I didn’t listen. It’s very hard.

Samir Husni: You chose illustrations over photography. Why? Do you think as a creative person, people connect more to illustrations than photography?

Anthony Deptula: There’s some photos, like 1% photos, but. I wanted to draw again. And issue number two, a young woman from Maine, submitted a photo of a bay with a little building. She was thankful publishing it.

There’s also a photo of a sculpture that a young man did, which I thought was cool. I like all the different styles, and I like that we’re a lot different than our competitors. I get to work with the different artists on different spreads, and I think that illustration is what kids like.

Samir Husni: The question I like to ask folks who launch new magazines is, during this six-month period since you launched TAG, was it a walk in a rose garden, or you had quite a bit of challenges? And if you did, how did you overcome them?

Anthony Deptula: Sure. I’m still in them. The challenges are mainly of getting more subscriptions. We’re not like a legacy brand that’s been around for a long time, and everyone’s kids love it. The wild thing is the feedback everyone says, “this is going to be huge.”

I go, okay. I’m kind of one person with a bunch of freelancers in my basement, and I hope it will be huge. But I’m just trying to overcome the problems, because there are issues starting any sort of business. Trying to find the format of it all is interesting.

I had a lot of people that helped me. Two schools where I brought in the prototype of the magazine, I called, Tag-Ins, just separated sheets of paper.  I took these to the schools to get started and schools started filling these out. That was generating content for me.

I was trying to sell these as separate. You got to buy these, and then you got to buy the magazine. Everyone’s like, what are you talking about? And that’s when I decided, oh, I just have it in my head. I have to tell people how this works. Here’s the fairy tale, you fill it out, it becomes this. Here’s time machine one.

Then here’s the people, the kids that talked about history and the folks that they wanted to meet. When you have an idea as a creative, it’s hard to translate sometimes until you prototype it and you put it into the world, and then you start learning. A couple of school principles, a lot of kids, friends and family really helped me understand how to assemble the magazine, to explain it, because it’s a little different.

Samir Husni: Give me your elevator pitch. If somebody met you on the street said, Anthony, what’s TAG?

Anthony Deptula: I say it’s an interactive paper magazine where kids fill out to become the published artists and writers.

Samir Husni: Before I ask you my typical last two questions, is there any question I should ask you I did not ask you?

Anthony Deptula: I would say I’m from Ohio, so I was influenced by Highlights.

There’re a lot of people that tell me it reminds them of Highlights, and some of them don’t even know Highlights still exists, which is interesting to me. I grew up with Highlights. My uncle worked for a sister company of Highlights on the education side, and I feel there’s a real need out there, and all the work that they’ve done over the years inspired me to try to give it my own shot, which is kind of wild to say: I’m going to become a publisher, but people seem to be responding.

I would say the magazines from the past have helped me in the curation, and of making it creative. Even Eastbay or MAD Magazine, or Sports Illustrated for Kids, and The Onion, great magazines that are still printing. Tangible is important to me, and I appreciate, the past publishers that have been around a long time. The great part about not knowing how to run a magazine is I get to invent different spreads that have never been invented or bring those spreads back to life.

For example, the blank black page in issue number two or the kid in issue one erasing the comic.  It really made me upset at first, but then I was like, oh, that’s actually a good idea. I’m going to make a blank page so kids can do their own art on it.

I love the big palette. I wanted to be different from Highlights. I wanted to be different from the Ranger Ricks of the world that are serving and been helping kids for a long time, and that’s, hopefully, why Tag feels a little different.

The Tag team is great, too. I have a lot of great young artists, and they bring a lot of energy to this project where they just jumped on board with me. I am also working with a local printer in Tecumseh, Michigan. They’ve been supportive as well. They’ve been around a hundred years, and excited to have a new mag.

Samir Husni: My typical last two questions, if I come to visit Anthony in the evening, unannounced, what do I catch you doing? Reading a book, illustrating, having a glass of wine?

Anthony Deptula: I usually watch Dune, the movie. So, there’s Dune one, part one and two.

Or I’ll play soccer with my son. He’s nine. He helped me with the magazine.

His name’s Hugo. So, if you can mention him, he won’t give me grief.

Hugo helped me with Tag, he helped me create it. Or, I’ll be on the porch with my wife: She’s reading. We got a new puppy.

I work 24-7 because of my job. Netflix is my day job. They’re a client. So, I’m always working.

Samir Husni: And what keeps you up at night these days?

Anthony Deptula: I sleep well. I don’t know. My sprinkler, something’s going on with my sprinklers. They keep shutting off. So, I think I got to fix that.

Samir Husni:  Thank you so much and best of luck.  You are it.

It takes a geezer to start Geezer magazine—and that’s exactly what Laura LeBleu did: a 100% handcrafted magazine content and AI-free.

The founder and editor-in-chief of Geezer comes from a theater background, not the publishing world. Frustrated by the lack of anything to read that truly spoke to her needs, interests, and stage of life, Laura found inspiration in an unlikely place: the shower. That’s where the idea for Geezer, a magazine created for herself and the Gen X community, was born.

The result is a beautiful, oversized publication that combines a trip down memory lane with a thoughtful look at the issues and concerns facing Gen X today. Laura is the first to proudly admit that she’s a geezer, and she hopes Geezer will eventually grow into a media organization that gives geezers across the country a place to connect, come together, and enjoy this stage of life.

Knowing just how large and diverse the Gen X community is, Laura is determined to keep Geezer independent and focused on its very specific audience, with no desire to turn it into a mass-market publication. It’s a smart move for a woman who is quick to tell you she has no traditional business background and instead comes from a life deeply rooted in the theater world.

I had the opportunity to chat with Laura about the birth of Geezer, its content and audience, and even the distinctive experience of holding such a substantial magazine in your hands. It was a delightful conversation, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed conducting it.

So, without any further ado, here is my lightly edited interview with Laura LeBleu, founder and editor-in-chief, Geezer magazine:

Samir Husni: Thank you for sending me the first issue. It was like a time machine.

Laura LeBleu: Oh, indeed. I’m glad you got it. Hopefully you enjoyed it.

Samir Husni: Yes, I did.  Please tell me about the idea of Geezer.
Laura LeBlue: Geezer magazine was created from my realization that there was no one talking to Gen X in the way that I wanted to be talked to. The actual story is that I was in the shower and I had the idea, and I knew I wanted it to be a print magazine. I knew I wanted it to be called Geezer.

So, the name Geezer is from a focus group of one. That’s my brain. I was just thinking about it.

The only equivalent that we have right now is AARP.  When I got my first AARP flyer, I set it on fire. I thought this isn’t the conversation, how dare you come to me? There are probably other people who are feeling this way.

To me, it seemed there was a desire to have a print magazine that addressed the issues of midlife in the way that AARP couldn’t, honestly, because of who they are. They’re mostly a marketing and lobbying organization. So, I thought, well, I’ll do it. Why not? Someone’s going to, it might as well be me.

Samir Husni: And you did a beautiful job in an oversize, 11 by 15 print publication…

Laura LeBleu: I was inspired by Mountain Gazette magazine, which is slightly larger, as you probably know.

I thought if I’m going to do anything, I wanted it to have impact. I wanted to have a visceral feel when you held it. And I also wanted to make it easy on the eyes.

Samir Husni: Why did you decide on print in this digital age?

Laura LeBleu: I tend to zig where everyone else is zagging. And I’ve been thinking a lot about where we are as a society in relationship to technology.

I personally could feel myself overwhelmed with digital information. I call it the empty calories of digital content, that it feels like you’re force fed. It leaves you feeling bloated but never satisfied.

Print, to me, is the antidote to all of that. Print is amazing, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this.  I will give Geezer to someone, and they’ll hold it in their hands, and I see their shoulders drop. They will take a breath.

There’s something about print that grounds you and calms your nervous system in the exact opposite. It’s the opposite of what all the barrage of digital content does to us. I was very adamant that this be a print magazine, and that we don’t share all our content online.

I will share some stories, obviously I want people to know what’s in the magazine, they should know that if they’re to plunk down 120 bucks a year for it. I feel print deserves its own special space in the world. These stories deserve to be experienced in print.

Samir Husni: One of the folks commented on my interview with the CEO of Highlights for Children, he said, “digital is brain drain, print is brain gain.”

Laura LeBleu: It’s innervating. It really is, isn’t it? That’s why when people pick up the magazine, it feels the opposite. It feels nourishing. It feels like it makes you stop and focus on what’s in your hands, what’s right in front of you.

From the response I’m getting, I’m not the only one who feels this way. People are really beginning to understand what I’m doing with this magazine.

Samir Husni: Your editorials read as if you are reliving your memories. You’re sharing your journal or your diary?

Laura LeBleu: Well, I would say so. I’ve thought a lot about this as far as the editorial mix goes and what our focus is. I never want to over-rotate into nostalgia.

I don’t want it to feel like we’re all just looking back and talking about when we were drinking out of the water hose, and our parents were off smoking their cool menthol cigarettes while we were playing with fireworks. I don’t want it to rotate too far into that. But I feel we must.

We also must acknowledge that we’re in midlife, we’re looking back and we’re examining what our experiences were growing up. That is a nostalgic portion of the Geezer editorial mix.

The other portion, 60 to 65 percent of the magazine, is about the issues that we’re facing today as we go through middle age, as we’re entering our 50s and our early 60s. That’s where the larger stories are going to come from; the nonfiction narrative and the more reported pieces are going to dig into.

Samir Husni: You have two issues under your belt, and the third issue is on its way. Tell me about this journey.

Laura LeBleu: We almost have a full year of Geezers out because we publish tri-annually.

The third issue is at the printers right now waiting for the paper to be delivered. I refuse to print on anything other than Sustana, which is 30 percent recycled. I love this paper. It’s got a great texture to it. It’s 80 pounds, heavy and not slick. It feels a little bit tactile, a little bit rougher. That is very much the Geezer ethos. That is how I approach everything in this magazine. We are not slick and we are a little rough around the edges. But I feel that’s a very Gen X sensibility.

Samir Husni: Has it been a walk in the rose garden?

Laura LeBleu: It’s been the hardest thing I have ever undertaken in my entire life, Samir. And it’s also been the most fulfilling journey I’ve ever been on, creatively speaking.

I wrote an article on Substack called This Might Not Work. I don’t know if you saw that, but I break down some of the economics of creating a print magazine, all the dumb mistakes I made, super rookie mistakes, because I’m not a business mastermind. I just had this idea.

I come from a theater background. I have this, hey, kids, we got a barn, let’s put on a show, outlook on life. That’s how I approached Geezer to get the ball rolling and just to crank it out and create something.

The biggest challenges have been financial. We’re up to almost 500 annual subscribers. The first one came out last November. So, from what I can tell, as far as industry goes, that’s quite good.

Making the magazine is the fun part. The hard part is all the business that goes into it. I honestly feel like I’m running this thing and putting it together by bubble gum, hopes, and dreams.

I’m trying to get my business foundations more solid so that I don’t have to worry about how is our subscription? How is our circulation being managed? Right now, I’m working on moving to SimpleCirc so that I have a more bespoke way of managing all of that. But that’s even hard. I hate all the buttons that you must push in software platforms.

I know I can do it. But I would so much rather focus on creating the stories and working with the writers. I’ve come to accept my position as an entrepreneur and a businessperson. So, today after I talked to you, all I’m doing is working on the update of our website to get it refreshed so that it reflects the magazine a little bit more. Those are the challenges. I’m committed to seeing another year of Geezer through and hopefully we’ll get the subscribership that will allow us to be sustainable. I’m a cockeyed optimist. I do believe that the way people are responding now, if we were going to get that critical mass, and I truly believe that that this magazine is going to start to take off.

Samir Husni: When that first issue landed in your hands, what was your feeling?

Laura LeBleu: Oh, my gosh, I’m a mom, I do have a wonderful 16-year-old son. Second to him being born, having this magazine in my hands was the greatest thrill.

I’m sure you’ve heard this from many magazine founders; there’s nothing like holding something in your hands that is a true expression of you and your editorial vision. Some background, I I’ve been writing for other people for 25 years, I’ve been creating for other people and spending my creative energy on other people’s needs. To finally have something that was an expression of my own creative vision, and to have it in your hands, and to be able to know that no one can take that away from you. There’s nothing more exciting. It really is an elation beyond belief.

Samir Husni: If you and I are having this discussion in July or August of 2027, what would you tell me Laura have accomplished in that year?

Laura LeBleu: Well, first and foremost, I would hope that we have hit a subscriber base that allows me to sustain the magazine, and to pay myself someday. But I also am, as Arjun Basu says, and I am a huge fan of his, I was listening to a podcast he was on recently. And he said, “Listen, you’re not a magazine, you’re a media, you’re a media organization.”

I’ve been working on how to expand that, how to expand myself as a media entity, and how to create the community that I want to create. So, this time in two years, if I’ve created a community of people who can connect with each other, can come together over, with this magazine as the nucleus of the, of the community, but also, you know, to have it expand into people getting together having Geezer gathers, hopefully doing a podcast with the people who are featured in the magazine, that would be amazing. I would also love to have a business partner to work with, who can help me expand on these visions I have, that’s something I’m missing right now, because it’s just me at this point.

Samir Husni: If people want to order back issues, are they available? Laura LeBleu: I have back issues of number one. So that’s available for purchase on our website. It’s Geezermagazine.com. And I’ll be releasing back issues of number two, next week. Issue number three will be out, hopefully in the mail at the end of next week.

Samir Husni: I must ask about the name Geezer…

Laura LeBleu:  It’s funny, the name Geezer, I thought it was hilarious. I’m like, that’s a funny, it’s just a funny word. It evokes different things. For Gen X, it was very tongue in cheek, because I feel like we’re not geezers at all.

It had that Gen X ironic twist. People have written me and said, “I’m in my 60s or 70s. Can I still write for you?” And my answer is unequivocally yes.

We are what we are.  If the issue is something that focuses on and resonates with Gen X. It’s a wide tent that I’m trying to create here.  The editorial vision for Geezer is that it doesn’t look, smell, taste, sound, or read like anything else you’ve ever picked up. I really wanted to make something that felt completely like the metaphor. Like that creature in the woods that you think you know, but you’re not quite sure. You must pick it up to see what’s in there to get it.

Samir Husni: Is there any question I’m supposed to ask you I didn’t ask you?

Laura LeBleu: Oh, goodness gracious. We’ve covered the basics for sure. Let’s see, what else would I want to answer, who is your audience?  I would say that Geezer is not for everyone. It’s for the people who recognize it immediately. Although it’s Gen X, we’re not trying to focus on a mass market.

It does resonate strongly with the people who had the eye for what, what I’m creating. I hope people love it.

The one thing that I would want to tell you is how one of the greatest and most wonderful surprises of entering the world of independent magazines is the support, the kindness, and the reaching out of people within the community that I’ve received. So, it’s been unfailingly positive.

I do feel I’ve stumbled into this wonderful world where we really do want to see each other succeed. I’ve been so lucky to make connections with different publishers, new writers. That for me has been the greatest surprise I’m most grateful for. I’m part of something bigger now and that keeps me going.

Samir Husni: If I come to visit you one day, unannounced, what do I catch Laura doing in the evening watching TV, reading a book, having a glass of wine?

Laura LeBleu: Often, you’ll catch me in the theater. I’m either directing or volunteering. I live in a little town in California, but we have an amazing art scene up here. In fact, a lot of artists and actors from New York or San Francisco, when they’re done with the big city, they come here.

We have this really thriving art scene and I’m involved in a theater company here. You’ll probably not see me. I don’t sit and watch a lot of TV. Otherwise, I’ll be reading or out on the trails running. I need to, that’s the only way I can balance my brain is by is by physical activity. I don’t really drink wine anymore. A good book is always a good thing. I have 79 unread books on my nightstand. I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have a few unread books on their nightstand is waiting to go.

Samir Husni: My typical last question, what keeps you up at night these days?

Laura LeBleu: Besides the general state of our world, it’s how to make Geezer successful. Right now, that’s about creating those business foundations I was talking about.

A lot of things that keep me up are like I needed to respond to that email where someone pitched a story to me, that slipped through the cracks. I don’t want people to feel like I’m not there and paying attention.

But when you are a one person publishing band, it’s difficult to keep up with all the communication. My brain will wake me up around three in the morning. This is not theoretical. This is literal. I’m kept up by wanting to make sure that I’m giving everyone who loves Geezer, who wants to write for Geezer, the attention that they deserve when they reach out to me.

Samir Husni: Thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me. Best of luck.

Ron Notarangelo is recreating the love of storytelling and experience making that his mom instilled in him at a very young age.  She used to buy and read him books from the 1950s.  That love of the books of the 1950s led him, and his wife Marie, to create Trad Hunters magazine that reflects that era but is done in a very suitable and readable 2026 style and form.

The magazine was born from a conversation in their kitchen that took two years to come to fruition. What came out from that idea is marvelous content and an experience for anyone interested in traditional hunting or is curious about it.

I had the chance to correspond with Ron and Marie and was very impressed by their handwritten personal notes they took the time to write in response to my questions. Later I discovered I was not alone in that treatment.  They take the time to write personal notes to each and every customer.  I guess that is the tradition of Trad Hunters. 

While both are identified as creators of the magazine, Ron is the publisher and Marie is the editor.  I had the pleasure of talking with Ron for this interview and what follows is the lightly edited transcript of the interview.

But first the soundbites:

On why print: “Being a retro looking magazine, it needed to be print, for one. Also, a lot of the customers who are bow hunters and stuff, they’re older. The demographic is typically like 44 to 65 plus.”

On why they reprinted the first issue: “When we launched, we just did a lot of the writing ourselves and had a couple good friends who would contribute their articles, which helped a lot. So, we added some new content, and we added new art and we just really wanted to make it match what we’re doing now.”

On the personal handwritten notes: “We do a handwritten note for everyone, every single one. So, it takes a bit of time, but before doing the magazine, we had an archery accessory business. And we would do that with our customers too.”

On the magazine’s elevator pitch: “It’s a gritty, no-holds-bar type of traditional hunting magazine that covers traditional bow hunting.”

More on the elevator pitch: “It’s gritty stories that are not censored about hunts from real people, not just celebrities, that take you on adventures across the world. Each volume is dedicated to a specific theme. So, Volume 1 is Alaska. Everything is all about Alaska. Volume 2 is about High Country.”

On the mission of the magazine: “I’m just looking at it like we got something incredible to deliver that’s going to entertain you, teach you with legitimate things that you can use in the real world if you’re choosing to hunt or even survive in the wilderness.”

On the look of the magazine: “Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a magazine that looked like it was from that era, (the 1950s), now, but with focus on cool stories like Boy Scout tips, how to do wilderness things, survival stuff, like that, but look like it’s old, I think that would be really cool.”

On the magazine revenues: “But right off the bat, we did a patron thing where people can help support us even more. So, we changed everything right off the bat, the norms, and even advertising, we didn’t even have advertising. We’re not even doing any advertising going forward.”

On their goal: “We’re both thinking about making a better life for us and offer the best possible product and experience for anyone that wants to read Trad Hunters or is curious about it.”  

And now for the lightly edited interview with Ron Notarangelo, co-creator and publisher Trad Hunters magazine:

Samir Husni: You’ve launched Trad Hunters one year ago. Did you feel that you needed a traditional platform for a traditional hobby or profession?

Ron Notarangelo: Traditional meaning like in print, right?

I think because of the nature of what we wanted to do with it, being a retro looking magazine, it needed to be print, for one. Also, a lot of the customers who are bow hunters and stuff, they’re older. The demographic is typically like 44 to 65 plus.

So, they prefer reading a physical book rather than something digital. That was only after the fact that we found that out. Our intention was to make it look like a retro style magazine from the beginning.

Samir Husni: In the one year since you started the magazine, what was the reaction so far?

Ron Notarangelo: So far, it’s been incredible. I think one of the challenges that we had was coming up with a price because we didn’t really know how many we needed to print initially.

We guessed and we did a perfect bound magazine, and not saddle stitched, which is a lot more expensive. We chose to do things that really were quality rather than just a traditional magazine. The paper quality we chose is significantly different than regular magazines.

So, that’s even more expensive. But we knew we wanted to make it like that. One of the challenges was figuring out how do we charge, a price that is high enough to cover our costs because we did not know how many to print.

We printed 750 and it costs quite a bit. We also needed to position it where the psychology of people is used to buying magazines, not books. They do buy books, but they will subscribe to magazines over books. So, we needed to use the magazine even though it’s more like a book.

Samir Husni: And you reprinted the first issue. Can you tell me more a little bit about that?

Ron Notarangelo: The very first one that we launched, we had a printer who printed the magazine digitally.

From the second one on we had everything printed on an offset press. So, it was a completely different type of way of printing.

The look is completely different. So, we sold out of the first issue, we printed 750 and then we had another thousand printed of the first one. And then when we sold out, we just started to market number two.

We had a lot of people come back and say, hey, I want to get the first issue, I want to start from the beginning. We didn’t expect to reprint volume one. We were just like let’s just sell it and then we’ll just move on.

We had such an overwhelming amount of people ask that they want to start from the beginning. So, we decided if we’re going to remake it, we might as well because the first one was even a little bit smaller than the ones we print now. It was five and a half by eight and a half inches.

Now, we’ve made it a touch bigger. It’s six inches by nine inches. So, we decided to reprint it so that it’s all consistent six by nine. And we figured let’s just add more stories in it. And when we launched, we just did a lot of the writing ourselves and had a couple good friends who would contribute their articles, which helped a lot. So, we added some new content, and we added new art and we just really wanted to make it match what we’re doing now.

Samir Husni: You take the time to respond to any request to buy the magazine or to order the magazine with a personal handwritten note? 

Ron Notarangelo: We do a handwritten note for everyone, every single one. So, it takes a bit of time, but before doing the magazine, we had an archery accessory business. And we would do that with our customers too.

That was something that we brought over to the magazine because we want to show our gratitude and our appreciation for someone taking the time to invest in what we made. And so, we feel it’s a good thing to do to show our respect to the people who buy it.

Samir Husni: Can you give me like the elevator pitch for Trad Hunters?

Ron Notarangelo: The elevator pitch? It’s a gritty, no-holds-bar type of traditional hunting magazine that covers traditional bow hunting.

It can cover different types of traditional hunting. It’s gritty stories that are not censored about hunts from real people, not just celebrities, that take you on adventures across the world. Each volume is dedicated to a specific theme.

So, Volume 1 is Alaska. Everything is all about Alaska. Volume 2 is about High Country. Everything is about high country. And everything is made to look like it’s a vintage 1950s style to complement that.  Back in those days, it was all about adventure. It’s not about being censored.

It was really embodied more wholesome times. So, that’s exactly what we deliver with Trad Hunters.

Samir Husni: And during this year, has it been a walk in the rose garden or you had some challenges?

Ron Notarangelo: Oh, we’ve had some challenges.

Because we’re based in Canada. Just a couple weeks before we launched the first magazine, the tariffs kicked in. But thankfully, publications are not a part of that.

It’s a part of the treaty so that publications like schoolbooks or books in general are not affected or are taxed. Thankfully. There are challenges now that the oil and gas situation has caused things to go up. Obviously, people are considering saving money somehow. But I’m not even going to look at that anymore.

I’m looking at it like we got something incredible to deliver that’s going to entertain you, teach you with like legitimate things that you can use in the real world if you’re choosing to hunt or even survive in the wilderness. It’s only $20 and it’s worth every single penny or more for what we’re trying to deliver. I’m not even concerned about it. There’s always challenges, I’m looking past that now.

I’m thinking about the value we’re going to deliver to people every single time that they choose to buy a Trad Hunters magazine. That’s all I’m focused on now.

Samir Husni: What gave you the idea? I know you had an archery accessory business, but what gave you the idea to create a magazine?

Ron Notarangelo:  The idea was born in the kitchen with my wife.

When I was growing up, my mother would always go to the garage sales, and she would buy old Boy Scout and story books from the 1950s and read it to the read it to us when we were kids.

So, like, that type of look, and those adventure stories are always a part of something that I personally grew up with. I just had this idea flashing in my head when I was just talking to my wife, because I do a lot of the illustrations myself. I was experimenting with illustrating, a kind of a vintage style.

I just had this idea, wouldn’t it be cool if there was a magazine that looked like it was from that era, now, but with focus on cool stories like Boy Scout tips, how to do wilderness things, survival stuff, like that, but look like it’s old, I think that would be really cool. My wife was, yeah, that would be awesome. So, it was just an idea for almost two years.

I started talking to a friend who was a contributing writer in the first one. And he was like, yeah, this would be awesome, because he’s really involved in the bow hunting community. He said that this would be incredible.

I started kind of loosely developing it. And then when, when the Tard Hunters magazine happened, we had to shut down our other business, that day. We had to do the magazine; it had to work. We had to survive. And I knew it was either now or never, whether it’s possible, we’ll find out right now. So, the decision was made and we’re going to do it. That’s how it happened.

Samir Husni: If you and I are having this conversation in a year from now, what would you tell me that Trad Hunters accomplished in 26, 27?

Ron Notarangelo: We expanded globally; we grew our readers by 10,000.

We didn’t give up, we persisted, we advanced, we broke a lot of molds, it was very common for it to be seasonal, especially with hunting, we did not do seasonal, we did themes. It was very common for a magazine to be the traditional 81/2 by 11, the standard size, we went smaller. We did publish quarterly rather than monthly because the printing cost is very high.

But right off the bat, we did a patron thing where people can help support us even more. So, we changed everything right off the bat, the norms, and even advertising, we didn’t even have advertising. We’re not even doing any advertising going forward. So, in 2027, you’ll see Trad Hunters magazine not have any advertising, we’re going to be everywhere globally. And we’re going to go to the top.

So that’s where we’re going. 2027. And we’ll have we’ll have more volumes by then, too, obviously.

Samir Husni: Tell me before I ask you my typical personal questions, is there any question I failed to ask you about the magazine that you would like me to ask?

Ron Notarangelo: I don’t know. I think we covered a lot of the basic stuff.

Samir Husni: Are you a hunter?

Ron Notarangelo: I don’t get to hunt as much now because this magazine takes a lot of time.

One of the things that if you were to ask me in a year from now, what’s different is that we have more artists doing the work for us. I have hired people to do some of the graphic design because I had to do it up until now. Right now, the volume that I’m working on, I’m the one doing all the creative design. I must do all the InDesign work.

And I didn’t even know how to do InDesign before volume one, I had to remake volume one four times in two weeks to get it to the printer. I started to design it in Canvas. I had no idea even how to make a magazine.

I had to learn InDesign in a week. I’m going to pass this stuff off to someone who’s far better than me. And I’m going to stay focused on the direction where we want to go.

Keeping the look like the 50s in 2026. That’s the standard. It’s going to evolve. Everything does evolve over time. The winning combination is that vintage look, that colored paper, that makes it look vintage. We try our best, we’re not going to add in fake wrinkles and stuff, but we want it to look different. So that’s always going to be the same. It seems to be very desirable.

Samir Husni: If I come one evening unannounced to visit you at home, what would I catch Ron doing? Having a glass of wine, watching TV, reading a book, etc.?

Ron Notarangelo: It depends on the time of day.

I’ve been reading a lot more now. I’ve been taking the time to get back into reading physical books.

I got my copy of The Science of Getting Richright here. It’s just mindset stuff I’m working on right now. If you were to come in the evening, I would be hanging with my kids watching some TV with them or playing with them.

Anytime during the day, prior to what I just said, I would be in my office illustrating or working in InDesign. Plus, I got to do all the marketing stuff now. I’d be on a computer.

Samir Husni: What keeps Ron up at night these days?

Ron Notarangelo: Samir, it’s a tough question. I mean, there’s been a lot happening in the last couple weeks with my family, just a lot of personal family stuff keep me up.

Getting this magazine out, fulfilling orders to customers, making sure that we’re timely making the magazine, there’s so many things that I must do, and my wife has to do because she’s equally doing everything that I’m doing. We’re both thinking about making a better life for us and offer the best possible product and experience for anyone that wants to read Trad Hunters or is curious about it.  

Samir Husni: Thank you and best of luck.

Those who know me, they know that my entire career and profession started at age 10 when the first issue of the Arabic Superman was published in my original home country Lebanon in February of 1964.  It was the beginning of a love affair with storytelling, heroes and villains, ink on paper, comics and magazines. 63 years later that love affair continues with no let down or a break.

This love affair left a soft spot in my heart for comics until this day. So, when I heard about the launch of Comics! The Magazine I felt that all my dreams have come true, comics, magazines, and ink on paper.  Mr. Magazine™ could not ask for any better.  I acquired every issue since its launch earlier this year and three of the secret variant covers of issues 1, 2, and 4 at a price that will go unmentioned for fear in getting in trouble with the family.

My affair did not end there, I needed to know the folks behind the magazine and why someone will publish such a great magazine in this digital age?  I reached out to Joe Keatinge, the editor-in-chief of the magazine and Atom! Freeman, the publisher and had one of most delightful interviews in my career.  It brought back memories of a pleasant childhood and a firm belief in the future of magazines, as in ink on paper.

So, without any further ado, please enjoy those two lightly edited interviews with the editor-in-chief and the publisher of Comics! The Magazine:

But first the soundbites of the interview with Joe Keatinge, editor-in-chief, Comics! The Magazine:

On the need for Comics! The Magazine: “It’s time that there’s a platform for comics that speaks to that level of enthusiasm is the operative word, but also confidence too.”

On the intended audience: “The younger generation is tired of the Internet. I don’t know how close you follow print sales in the comics industry, stores are reporting up to 30 to 40 percent year over year. And that last year was 20 to 30 percent. The people coming in are like 20 years old.”

On the secret variant covers: “There’s a secret cover program and we don’t do it every issue. We like to keep people on their toes.”

On his mission for the magazine: “My mission, personally, with the magazine, again, is what I said earlier: Is to get people enthusiastic about comics. And so with the variant covers, it’s great. They’re selling high.”

On the connectivity between human and paper: “So when you’re a kid and you’re reading Superman, and it’s on paper, and it’s yours, and it’s in your hand, and you’re reading the story, I would assume that there’s a higher level of connection there.”

On the magazine’s goal: “To be of greater service to this industry and become an essential part about how people learn about comics.”

On his future vision for the magazine: “Is that we help inspire people to make great comics. And read great comics, of course. I want people to read it and think, I could do that. Then, they think they can do that and they work really hard and talk about the fight we mentioned earlier. It doesn’t work out. And then it does work out. They keep going and they keep getting better and better and better. And one day, they’re so good, they’re so undeniable, we profile them on the cover.”

On how people decide to buy a comic book: “Atom! (the publisher) did some research a while ago and found that 82% of customers, at comic bookstores, made decisions of what to buy in the store.”

And now the soundbites of the interview with Atom! Freeman, publisher, Comics! The Magazine:

On the magazines mission: “From a business standpoint, it is a platform. From a consumer standpoint, it is just a celebration and a guide for the world of comics.”

On a major challenge: “But print advertising budgets are not something they’ve been doing for a while. Convincing them to make that room or to take away from something else in order to get involved early, that was a challenge early on.”

On another major challenge: “But as a result of that, really our biggest challenge right now is what do we do next? How do we keep the magazine itself exciting? How do we build off of the success of the magazine? Those are the bigger questions that Joe and I spend a lot of time talking about.”

On the high selling price of variant covers: “It takes a lot to really surprise me. I was pleasantly taken aback by the values.”

On the magazine’s digital future: “While we’ve discussed what it would look like to make Comics! The Magazine digital, I think that so far, everything we’ve heard would just be diminishing of the print version.”

On the value of print: “We’re able to have more complex conversations because you’re going to sit and digest it in a way that you don’t, anything that’s on a screen.”

On the future of magazines: “I do think that magazines are going to have a comeback. What we’re seeing in print in comics and magazine right now, I expect to see all over the place.”

More on the value of print: “One of the things that happens in our world is any comic that is on a digital platform ends up on a piracy site. And Comics! The Magazine is on no piracy sites right now.”

And now for the lightly edited interviews with Joe Keatinge, editor-in-chief and Atom! Freeman, publisher, Comics! The Magazine:

Samir Husni: My first question to you is, you said in your last editorial, I love fighters. I love people with vision. Tell me about your fight and your vision with Comics! the Magazine.

Joe Keatinge: Sure. I really appreciate that. I would say the fight or the mission with the magazine is really simple. It’s just to get people genuinely enthusiastic about comics, and that can be genuinely enthusiastic about reading comics.

There’s enough in the world about how everything’s horrible, and that’s just not what we do here.

We are celebrating this art form to the highest degree. Bringing in people that have same sort of mentality, different voices, of course. It’s to spread that genuine enthusiasm for the art form.

Art form that’s fueling not just comics, but television and film and video games. It’s time that there’s a platform for comics that speaks to that level of enthusiasm is the operative word, but also confidence too.

Samir Husni: Why did you decide to do it in print in this digital age?

Joe Keatinge: That’s a great question. It’s something we talked about a lot. It’s because there’s so much digital’s gotten through so much noise. If I live a busy life and I have 10 minutes to determine what comics are out there, you go online and you search comics, there’s a lot of different sources.

A lot of them are skewing negative. So there’s that. The other aspect of it is there’s a new generation coming in and they want physical media.

The younger generation is tired of the Internet. I don’t know how close you follow print sales in the comics industry, stores are reporting up to 30 to 40 percent year over year. And that last year was 20 to 30 percent.

The people coming in are like 20 years old. And it’s two things. One is they’re raised on comics.

They were raised on comics by people like Raina Telgemeier or Jeff Smith or Dave Pelkey. They went in their teen years and they got manga from libraries. Now thanks to there’s a book called Absolute Batman, which is The Book.

It’s the top book in the industry by a huge margin. That’s the new readership. These people who were kids 10 years ago, but now they’re 20 and they have disposable income are interested in this. So they have that education with comics, but also they saw the fruit of the generation that is so digitally focused and living lives online and consuming digital media.

I’m not against the Internet. I mean, that’s how you and I are talking.

There’s a huge great net benefit to it. But you got to be careful in terms of how much you like moderation, essentially.

So I think people really want things like this is 32 pages. It’s now going to be 40 pages. We’re increasing the page count by signature.

You can read it in 10, 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes, maybe a little longer, depending on the issue. You can know everything you need to know to go to the comic bookstore.

Samir Husni: I noticed that with some issues, you have two different covers. You have a regular cover and you have a variant cover, which is selling for up to like 150 dollars on eBay.

Joe Keatinge:  We’re experimenting a lot because it’s been a while since there’s been a comics magazine. We’re not the only one. There are other ones.

There’s one called Dummy and there’s one called American Nature. There’s one kind of a comic staple. So, we’re not the only one, but we’re the only one doing it our way.

Part of that is what can we do in print? That’s fun and unexpected. You can’t do in digital.

We were at a comic book trade show, Comics Pro, and coincidentally, it was when we got our first issue comps. We did an early edition of the first issue. An Absolute Batman cover.

I was sitting there and I knew that we did bundles of about 25. And I was thinking you could put anything in these bundles. Because, when the stores receive the bundles, they just have to scan in the initial receiving the UPC of the bundle itself. And then the individual UPCs of the covers so that we can sneak in something really cool. And so I contacted Skybound, the company that created Invincible and The Walking Dead. They do surprise better than anybody else in the industry right now. I knew they would get it. I contacted them and said you got this great book called Terminal coming out. Robert Kirkman, Joe Casey, Art Adams, Dave Finch, Andy Kubert, like all- star team. I was like, what if because we were already planning to do a Battle Beast cover with them, what if we did a secret Terminal cover? We don’t announce it. And it gets in there. And then that sold really well. Then we just did a cover. So, we did a feature in the new issue with Mark Spears, the artist behind a series called Monster Monsters. He is doing a new Spawn book.  Spawn, one of the most popular comics in the last 30 years. He actually suggested it.  I’ll give Mark full credit.

He suggested what if we do a secret Spawn cover? I thought that would light the world on fire. If Todd McFarlane would approve it, that’d be great. And he did.

There’s a secret cover program and we don’t do it every issue. We like to keep people on their toes.

We also do variant covers with different partners. Sometimes it’s a store. We’ll want to do a variant cover with an artist whom we have relationship with.

With number five, we’re doing covers with Alex Ross. So we have an Alex Ross interview in there. The opportunity came because of that interview. To do a variant cover with him that he will be given out at his booth at San Diego Comic Con. Mad Cave Studios, another publisher. They’re doing a similar thing.

They have a book coming out with John Cusack, the actor. And again, they thought, hey, can we do a variant cover of this? We don’t do pay to play. As the editor, I don’t care what advertisers we have.

It doesn’t affect in terms of content. Obviously, we love our advertisers, and they make the magazine possible. But in terms of content, it’s what’s interesting, period.

If it’s not interesting, they can’t pay enough money to be in there. But it just worked out. Alex Ross is one of the greatest artists of all time.

I’d want to talk to him. And then this opportunity came to do the cover. Great. Same with John Cusack. That’s interesting. He wants to make comics.

Why? If there was a compelling story there, and there was, great. So any opportunity to do something interesting in print.

I think you’ll appreciate this. It feels like there is a re-education going on. Which is funny, because we work in a print industry.

But in terms of having a promotional venture in print, there’s a lot of re-education. And a lot of like, you can do things differently than you were doing them digitally. Actually, I will even go further and say, a level of freedom.

This is going off on a tangent here. We serialized a comic book called Chew. Chew was by Rob Guillory and John Layman.

One of the major hits of the 2010s. And we were talking with them about doing a new comic. And they agreed to do a new Chew, which is a big deal.

And at first, it starts off as, from the get-go, now that I think about it. They have been doing things you really can only do, storytelling-wise. Because it’s a single page every issue, is Chew.

Just one page. The things that they were storytelling are so interesting. Like the first ever edition looked like it was just an ad.

Then in the second issue, well it turns out that ad is part of the story. Why is it? What’s going on there? And then John Layman, the writer, just sent me scripts for issues 9 and 10. And he is doing, again, it only makes sense in print.

The advertisers really get it. We work with a company, one of their advertisers is a company called Oni Press. And they run ads for, it looks like it’s an ad for another product.

Like a liquor ad that takes place in the world of the comic. It only makes sense. It only makes sense in print. If you ran it online, it wouldn’t work as well. They really understood how we can utilize print to tell a different story than we would be able to if it was just like an Instagram ad even.

Samir Husni: What do you think about those variant covers demanding high prices on eBay and are selling much, much more than the regular $2.99 cover price of the magazine?

Joe Keatinge: Well, you have to understand the perspective of the person you’re asking.

Because I’m the editor-in-chief, right? And so, you might get a different answer from our publisher. You might get a different answer from the ad sales guy. My mission, personally, with the magazine, again, is what I said earlier.

Is to get people enthusiastic about comics. And so with the variant covers, it’s great. They’re selling high. It seems like higher every time we do it. But to me, what that metric really… Because that’s data, right? And the data, to me, says people are excited about this. People want… We put the variant covers out in the marketplace and the marketplace dictated the value of it.

And the value of especially that Spawn cover is, again, upwards of $130.  We did a giveaway. We gave it away for free at a convention. A number zero issue. That was something we handed out. And now it goes for $80 to $100. You know what I mean?

What I love about your story is you were a kid when you first saw that Superman. It was this relationship between reader and the magazine. There was nothing else in that world. There was nothing else distracting you. But I assume that there’s ads in there, you know. But otherwise, it’s the experience between reader and story. There’s no other noise.

There’s a lot of great digital ventures. I’m not discounting them. Like, obviously, Webtoon. Webcomics in general have been going strong.

A lot of the comics I cited earlier, like Raina Telgemeier’s work and a lot of her contemporaries had webcomics. But there’s just something about the relationship between the reader and print.

It may be biological as well. I read a report a long time ago about the data retention you have reading print versus digital. This is purely hypothetical. I don’t know this for sure. But I wonder, too, when you’re reading a fictional story, if there’s a level of empathy you have when you read print versus digital. So, when you’re a kid and you’re reading Superman, and it’s on paper, and it’s yours, and it’s in your hand, and you’re reading the story, I would assume that there’s a higher level of connection there.

Samir Husni: I noticed in some of the issues you have DC on the cover, and some issues you don’t have DC on the cover. So how do you that?

Joe Keatinge: That’s part of the arrangement we have when we utilize their covers and characters. You know, DC is not the publisher of the magazine.

But it’s just how they protect their copyright of their characters. As simple as that. It’s just like other licenses they do; it’s the same arrangement.

Samir Husni: If you and I are having this discussion a year from now, what would you tell me Joe accomplished in this year, in 26 – 27?

Joe Keatinge: That’s an excellent question. I just want to be of service to this industry, you know, and I think I can speak for myself and my business partners, Atom! Freeman, Rico Renzi, and Gabe Yocum.

We’ve got a good team. And I do feel that we’re all unified. Atom! did some research a while ago and found that 82% of customers, at comic bookstores, made decisions of what to buy in the store. Not influenced by the internet, not influenced by anything else. And that’s why Comics! The Magazine, at this current state, is exclusively through comic bookstores. Because it’s there. and that’s where you’re making your decisions, we want to be there. To me, if you ask the publisher the question, his answer may be different. But for me, it is just to be of greater service to this industry and become an essential part about how people learn about comics. It’s not just reading comics. It’s not just sales to me. That’s an aspect that’s important.

But my real dream with this magazine, beyond 2027, is that somebody reads it and they read about whoever we’re profiling. Che Grayson, Scott Snyder, Mark Spears, or Alex Ross and they read it and he and she are like, you know what? I can make comics.  This is just a person. That’s one thing that’s really important to me with the magazine, is the how and the why.  Who, what, where, when, why.

All those questions. How and why interests me the most. In part, because I want people to read it and think, I could do that.

Then, they think they can do that and they work really hard and talk about the fight we mentioned earlier. It doesn’t work out. And then it does work out.

They keep going and they keep getting better and better and better. And one day, they’re so good, they’re so undeniable, we profile them on the cover. That’s the dream for me. Is that we help inspire people to make great comics. And read great comics, of course.

Samir Husni: Before I ask you my typical questions at the end, is there any question that I failed to ask you I should ask you about Comics! The Magazine?

Joe Keatinge: I mean, honestly, you’re doing great. Your insight is wonderful. So, I’m really grateful for the opportunity.

Samir Husni: Joe, tell me how did you get involved with comics in general?

Joe Keatinge: Oh, boy. Nobody really knows. Comics have just always been around. I am a child of the 80s. And comics were at 7-Eleven. Comics were at Toys R Us. Comics were everywhere. Comics were at newsstands. I think it was probably pack-ins with action figures. There was the Masters of the Universe had comics.

I believe Transformers had comics as well. G.I. Joe, maybe. But Masters of the Universe definitely did.

I had those toys around. So, I would guess that that’s how I was first exposed. However, I will say what made me really love comics were comic bookstores.

I was blessed enough to be surrounded by some of the greatest stores of all time. Like, Santa Monica, California, where I was frequently at. There was a store, unfortunately, no longer there. There was a store called Hi De Ho Comics. If you research the history of Hi De Ho, and I really hope someone writes an extensive history of Hi De Ho, I’d run it in the magazine. You know, it was a comic store where so many people came through.

And they had everything. And it was kind of a mess from what I remember. It wasn’t very, in terms of the organization, Rob Liefeld comics were next to Mobius, which was next to Hugo Pratt, which was next to Manga, which was next to Underground Comics. It was all just there. I remember the first time I ever saw Wizard was there.

I was just like, what is this? Why is Spider-Man wearing a, like a wizard hat? What is this? Everything was so wonderful and strange. Because it was just like Matt Groening, I discovered around the same time, pre-Simpsons, when it was Life and Hell ran in the newspapers. And then they had the Pantheon reprints there.

And it was just this wonderful assortment of work. And that’s really influenced my brain.

It also really influences the magazine. Because I don’t distinguish, people are like are you going to cover Manga at all? Are you going to cover Webtoons? You’re going to cover, it’s all comics. It’s all lines on paper.

A lot of the early issues obviously are influenced by what I’m, what I’m aware of and everything. But, again, talk about what I want in 26 – 27. I want there to be a larger scope to what we cover. I know I have blinders on. And I know there’s so much, I was talking to one of our frequent contributors. Well, he did the thing in number one.

He’s doing another thing in number 10. He’s interviewed in number six. It’s Jim Rugg.

And, you know, great guy. He wrote, he was one of the guys behind Cartoonist Kayfabe, which is really instrumental in building an audience. And he was saying after that Comics Pro conference I mentioned earlier, he realized there are more channels than ever to sell comics in.

Atom! Freeman, the publisher, joins our conversation…

Joe Keatimge: We’re just talking comics here. I was going to say what Jim Rugg was mentioning that there’s more channels than ever. And he also estimates that there are more creators working in comics right now than there ever has been, including the golden age, so to speak. I’m assuming there’s stuff I’m not aware of.

Samir Husni: My typical last questions are, one, if I come to visit you one evening at your house unannounced, what do I catch you doing? Reading a comic? Watching TV? On your computer having a glass of wine?

Joe Keatinge: I live a very private life. I’ll say that. I don’t talk about my personal life openly. But I may be fly fishing. I may not be home.

Samir Husni: And what keeps you up at night?

Joe Keatinge: That’s an excellent question. That might be my favorite question you’ve asked. Providing for my family.

And now for the lightly edited interview with Atom! Freeman, publisher of Comic! The Magazine:

Samir Husni: Tell me, from a business point of view, what’s the mission of Comics! The Magazine?

Atom! Freeman: Comics! The Magazine is designed to celebrate the world of comics. It’s designed to give somebody who is new to comics, maybe they just picked up their first Superman comic and they are trying to figure out what this world is.

It’s an entree into a world that Joe and I speak natively. I would say that from a marketing business side, it is a platform upon which marketers and advertisers and promoters can use to launch new properties into the world of comics. The world of comics is very open to new ideas.

It’s a wonderful place to build IP. We’re seeing companies that do multiple TV series, multiple video games. They have tons and tons of properties and projects that are going in other multimedia and making tens of millions of dollars there still launch all of their properties inside a world of comics.

The problem that we saw as marketers was how do we get in front of that audience? Because nothing that was happening on the internet was doing it in this way that magazines used to. There were many of us behind the scenes who were thinking, boy, we really just need a magazine. Eventually, Joe and I ran out of excuses for why not to make one.

We had to do it. I think from a business standpoint, it is a platform. From a consumer standpoint, it is just a celebration and a guide for the world of comics.

Samir Husni: Since issue Zero, has it been a walk in a rose garden or did you have some challenges? How did you overcome them?

Atom! Freeman: Wide open field, Samir. Wide open. We’re just one step in front of the next.

I will say the biggest challenge from a business side was convincing companies that really do need a platform like Comics! The Magazine, that a print advertising budget is something they needed to make room for. They all have advertising budgets. They all have marketing budgets.

But print advertising budgets are not something they’ve been doing for a while. Convincing them to make that room or to take away from something else in order to get involved early, that was a challenge early on. Now I will say that our challenge really is just where do we grow to? We are the best-selling magazine about comics in our space.

There are a few others. They are with different focuses and different mission statements.

But as a result of that, really our biggest challenge right now is what do we do next? How do we keep the magazine itself exciting? How do we build off of the success of the magazine? Those are the bigger questions that Joe and I spend a lot of time talking about.

Samir Husni: Were you surprised when you saw the value of the variant covers selling on eBay for $150 and $80?

Atom! Freeman: Listen, it takes a lot. I’ve been at this now for, I don’t know, 30 years, Samir.

I’ve been in this industry. It takes a lot to really surprise me. I was pleasantly taken aback by the values.

But we know the value of a secret, the value of a surprise. That’s the real challenge. That’s why we come to fiction.

That’s why we come to story, is we want to be surprised. And so we know now occasionally do, like I will say, the Spawn one I really thought was going to, I didn’t know if it was going to do as well as it did. And we have a couple more that are coming up, a couple other surprises that are coming up that I think are going to have a similar effect.

But you never know. Where the market decides those values land, that’s always a surprise, no matter what you do.

Samir Husni: Do you think this can only be done in print?

Atom! Freeman:  So far, yeah, so far.

Magazines, books and movies, TV, all of them really did lend themselves to the shift to digital. I don’t know about you, but I don’t even have cable TV or broadcast TV in my home anymore. I only stream.

I do still buy physical books, but I’m just as likely to read them as a Kindle app on my phone, right? Audiobooks are more likely what I consume the most. I will say that of those other platforms, comics really has not made the shift to digital in the way that the others have. And so while we’ve discussed what it would look like to make Comics! The Magazine digital, I think that so far, everything we’ve heard would just be diminishing of the print version.

And I will say that there’s a focus that comes with reading in print that we’re not getting from anything digital. If you’re reading the pages of a magazine, you’re never going to be caught off guard by an alert popping up on the screen, on the page. You’re never going to have anything reminding you of a calendar invite that you agreed to six months ago, which is not exactly what’s going on here, maybe a little.

But it’s never going to happen that way. It’s going to be you are able to sit and focus. And so as a result, there’s this really interesting thing where websites, even social media posts, they could go 10,000 words.

They could go 1,000 words, but they don’t. They go 10, 20, maybe 50 words. We, in a magazine, we have your attention.

So in that having of your attention, we are able to tell more complex stories. We’re able to have more complex conversations because you’re going to sit and digest it in a way that you don’t, anything that’s on a screen.

Everything about the experience. I love the fact that you have Mr. Magazine because I do think that magazines are going to have a comeback. What we’re seeing in print in comics and magazine right now, I expect to see all over the place. People want that community that comes from sitting and consuming something on a monthly schedule, and they want the ability to reclaim their attention.

They want those things, and all of that comes with print, and all of that comes with magazines. I also want to focus. I’m already seeing it in my other interests that I have.

I just picked up two new jujitsu magazines. Field and Stream is back, and it’s a huge, beautiful format.

I think people are ready to unplug and to focus. Unplug and refocus.

It’s a good time to be Mr. Magazine.

I can tell you it’s going to be a good time for that.

Samir Husni: Allow me to ask some personal questions. First, I have to ask, why the exclamation mark after your first name?

Atom! Freeman: That was a social media, or early, it wasn’t even social media. It was an early Internet joke that kind of got out of hand, and it just made it easier to get myself. I’m a marketer by trade, so it just made it easier to get people to talk about me and to quote me and, you know, ask for interviews.

And also, it’s fun listening to British people pronounce it. That’s always fun, too.

Samir Husni: If I come to visit you one evening unannounced, what do I catch you doing? Reading a book, watching TV, fly fishing?

Atom! Freeman: I’m trying to get everyone in comics to fly fish, but we’ll see.

I’m not nearly as private as Joe, but I will tell you that I, in the evenings especially, sometimes I’m gardening. I spend a lot of time, I’m very lucky in that we moved into a property with a big garden. I do spend a lot of time in that, you know, might be a dip in the pool, might be whatever.

But a lot of times it is just sitting and reading. I’ve learned that if I don’t sit and read, my 11-year-old doesn’t sit and read, and I want that for him more than anything else. And, you know, otherwise it’s just cooking, spending time with family.

I will say, the more often than I like, I’m working. Because, you know, trying to build a career inside of comics, it means you do a lot of different, you wear a lot of different hats.

Samir Husni: And what keeps you up at night these days?

Atom! Freeman: Keeps me up at night these days. That’s an excellent question. Very little.

I sleep really good. I work real hard, Samir. I wake up early.

I’m already on, I was up at like 4 or 5 a.m. and outbuilding bamboo garden beds and then working for several hours. And then I’ll spend some time with family. So, by the time my head hits the pillow, it takes a lot to keep me awake.

But when it does, it’s usually these businesses that we run, that Joe and I are involved in, they’re here because people have forgotten how. They’re viable because there’s not as much competition for what we do because people have forgotten these skills. And so a lot of times we will come up with an idea or a solution, and it doesn’t feel like it fits right. Or if we just had more experience, we might be able to find somebody who knew how to solve this problem.

Those are the things that will wake me up is, that’s not how we should have done that? It’s that stuff. So, running businesses in this environment that are not AI data centers, it’ll keep you up at night, that’s for sure.

Samir Husni: Well, see the nice thing about AI, I didn’t ask you about AI, but the nice thing about if it’s print, AI cannot steal it.

Atom! Freeman: That’s very true. You know, Samir, one of the things that happens in our world is any comic that is on a digital platform ends up on a piracy site. And Comics! The Magazine is on no piracy sites right now.

Samir Husni:  Thank you and best of luck.