Front of Book

Bad Cover Version

2005-05-02T19:52:00.000-04:00

The Times reports on the Magazine Publishers of America's $40 million campaign to convince advertisers that print is not a dying medium. The ads feature mocked-up covers from magazines as they'll look 100 years in the future -- "California Island: More popular than ever 62 years after the Big Quake," reads Newsweek's, while Time asks the big question "Android Rights: Is Owning One Unconstitutional?" (However, there's no U.S. News and World Report cover boasting "A Century Later and We're Still a Distant Third!") All clever enough, we suppose. But somebody sure got lazy on the faux SI cover ("Hell Freezes Over! Cubs Win 2105 World Series"). Are we to believe that baseball fans of 2105 -- just seven years shy of the dystopian future predicted by Rush -- will look exactly as they do today? For God's sake, at least Photoshop some silly metal hats with lights and antennas onto a couple of those Cubs fans. And while you're at it, give 'em some of those personal jetpacks and steaks in pill form we were all supposed to have had like five years ago already.

15 Minutes in Heaven With Graydon Carter

2005-05-01T23:28:00.000-04:00

Attention glossy-eyed "junior staffer types"! Ed2010 is raffling off a chance to meet with Vanity Fair EIC Graydon Carter for a whole 15 minutes! You have until Tuesday at 5 p.m. (Eastern, presumably) to purchase a $4 ticket for this chance to infiltrate the inner sanctum of 4 Times Square. Now, if you win this publishing Powerball, you can spend your quarter hour groveling for a job or pitching Graydon yet another murdered-heiress story. But if we're triumphant, we plan to use that time to lecture Mr. Carter on the importance of journalistic ethics, digressing but briefly to hail the wisdom of Mayor Bloomberg's smoking ban. And all the while, of course, we'll be sporting our fabulous "Young, Dumb and Full of Come" t-shirt.

Gut Check Time

2005-05-01T22:27:00.000-04:00

In a Q&A at The Black Table, former Stuff EIC Greg Gutfield, who now edits Maxim's UK edition, proves once again he's a lowbrow philosopher king. Our favorite bit: "Perhaps soon The National Magazine Awards will recognize bestiality as important enough a topic to create a category for it. Then Tom Junod will write 10,000 words on it." (Via FishbowlNY)

Men's Journal Readers, Lock Up Your Girlfriends

2005-04-27T15:58:00.000-04:00

In a MediaBistro profile, Men's Journal EIC Michael Caruso explains that MJ is responding to a "crisis in masculinity." (Clearly he hasn't heard the news that Men's Vogue is on the way to address just that situation.) The article gets really good when the writer speaks to Men's Health EIC David Zinczenko about MJ:

"Men's Journal started out as a magazine that was chasing Outside," says Zinczenko. "Then it redirected to become an Esquire clone. Then it went after Men's Health. Then it went after the lad magazines. And now it's trying to be BestLife. The only thing authentic about Men's Journal is the slightly rank smell of desperation." ...

"When it comes to quality and strength in numbers, our readers can steal their readers' girlfriends every time," snipes Zinczenko.

Me-oww! At this point, Zinczenko marches over to Caruso's table at Michael's and kicks sand in his face. "Crisis in masculinity" averted.

The Domino Defect

2005-04-26T23:38:00.000-04:00

Domino is finally here! But before you start mindlessly redecorating your pad with the shiny and alluring products contained in its pages, we suggest you read Stephanie Zacharek's Salon piece on the Condé Nast pub and its magalog brethren: "Throwing hundreds of pictures at us in a crazily cluttered format, as the shopping magazines do, doesn't begin to explain why inanimate objects speak to us." We don't know about you, but when inanimate objects start speaking to us it's usually pretty easy to pinpoint the cause. By the way, we're still waiting for word from Cargo on our "Cruising for Hookahs" feature pitch.

Meanwhile, if you're a man of substance who thinks shopping is one big waste of time, Condé Nast is developing a magazine just for you: Men's Vogue.

Another Post, Another Bob Guccione Jr. Reference

2005-04-25T10:32:00.000-04:00

When we hear the words "intern" and "Spin," naturally we think of the good ol' days, when Bob Guccione Jr. -- our last mention of him for a while, we promise -- was editor and publisher and the whole wide office was his dating pool. Anyway, the latest story involving the words Spin and intern isn't quite so sordid, but it has inspired the scorn of a number of bitter old journalists.

The flap involves a young woman named Krystal Grow, who writes in the North Adams Transcript about her experience being rejected by Spin for a summer internship. With six whole apparently non-music-related clips to her admittedly very cool name (makes you think of Magic Rocks, no?), she assumes she's a "shoo-in" and starts looking for apartments in the East Village. It all ends in tears worthy of a post-breakup Bright Eyes listening session: "I went home and cried until I passed out, then woke up and cried some more." There's some back-and-forth with the editorial intern coordinator, who reveals "his reasons for rejecting my application were the font I used in my resume and cover letter headings, and that I didn't show a 'passion for Spin magazine.'" We have three words for you, Krystal: Times New Roman. Garamond if you're feeling fancy.

So, is Krystal Grow presumptuous and self-entitled, hopelessly naive or all of the above? We report, you decide, here in The No Spin (Internship) Zone. (Via Romenesko)

Bullet Time: Men Behaving Badly Edition

2005-04-21T21:55:00.000-04:00

It's Sly vs. Sly! American Media, the publishers of Sylvester Stallone's new vanity magazine Sly, have been hit by a $1 million trademark-infringement lawsuit brought by the publisher of a women's pub of the same name. Stallone better start dreaming up some new titles. May we suggest Rocky Start?
Esquire has managed to piss off the feds by running ads for an offshore company's online casino, the NY Post reports. Dubious Achievement Awards writers, you might want to print out the Post story for your clip file.

Playboy will offer pics of ladies -- both nekkid and not -- that are specially formatted for viewing on the PlayStation Portable. Suspiciously, no word yet on the availability of the articles.

How To Make Out With a Liberal (If You Must)

2005-04-21T19:17:00.000-04:00

We finally bothered to read the Time magazine cover story on Ann Coulter that we wrote about a couple of days ago and discovered this amazing coincidence:

"When I first met her," says a fellow conservative, "[Coulter] was walking around with a black miniskirt and a mink stole, making out with Bob Guccione Jr. in the stairwell." (Coulter dated publisher Guccione, son of the porn mogul, for six months. She says the stairwell story "could be" true, although "I make out in public less often now that I'm publicly recognizable.")

So clearly our last two posts were far from the first time that Bob Guccione Jr. was on top of Ann Coulter.

Growing Up Goochy: The Reunion Episode

2005-04-19T21:52:00.000-04:00

The heart-warming media story of the week, so far: Former Penthouse editor Bob Guccione Sr. and former Gear editor Bob Guccione Jr. have ended their feud! The reconciliation is all thanks to the elder Gooch's insanely chesty fiancée April Warren. And how will the father-son team catch up on the 17 years they've lost? By reviving Sr.'s science magazine Omni and then, if history is any guide, running it into the ground. (Link via MediaBistro)

Between this development and the recent news that former Screw owner Al Goldstein is getting back into the porno biz it's been a grand couple of weeks for disgraced smut peddlers. Happy endings for everyone!

Two Right Feet

2005-04-19T19:47:00.000-04:00

Fiery conservative Ann Coulter is upset at Time magazine for using as its cover image a pic of her -- taken through a fish-eye lens -- that makes her legs look freakishly long and skinny. Hey, Ann, just remember the old maxim "You can never be too pro-rich or too thin." And just be thankful the liberal media didn't mistakenly brand you a former Leg Show model.

That Giant Sucking Sound You Hear

2005-04-17T20:52:00.000-04:00

Giant magazine EIC Mark Remy has quit. Or, as he puts it in a staff memo, having served his function as an "editorial booster rocket," he is "peeling off to fall back into the sea of freelancing." Which we interpret to mean, if we may continue the space program motif, "Houston, we have a problem." Namely a decline in newsstand sales since Giant's Oct./Nov. premiere, which the men's mag is apparently trying to stem by abandoning its dudes-only cover policy. And, for God's sake, if Rosario Dawson doesn't outsell Ethan Hawke, it'll be -- forgive us -- one Giant flop for mankind. Over and out.

Sea Change at The Atlantic

2005-04-14T22:38:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, The Atlantic Monthly won a National Magazine Award for Fiction Writing -- just as the pub is dropping fiction from its pages. And today The Atlantic announced that the mag will move from Boston to D.C., at which time Managing Editor Cullen Murphy will step down. We checked, and it turns out that Murphy quit writing Prince Valiant last year, so our planned "See you in the funny pages!" sendoff is kind of ruined.

In other news involving less august journals:

Sex sells, as do its results! Celeb pregnancy is "a much bigger seller than rehab -- unless it's Mary-Kate," says the Star's Bonnie Fuller. US Weekly editor Ken Baker offers this mixed-gender metaphor: "Pregnancy is the granddaddy of them all."
Story update: Valuable '65 issue of Electronics Magazine heisted! Interpol suspects international magazine-fencing ring -- or sticky-fingered geek -- at work.
WebMD the Magazine and months-old copies of People to vie for your attention in your doc's waiting room.
We failed to mention yesterday that Glamour won a National Magazine Award for General Excellence... In Driving Your Man Wild in Bed!

Blood on the Tracks

2005-04-14T08:45:00.000-04:00

Our favorite part of the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory tour in Vermont was the Flavor Graveyard, full of tombstones bearing the names of discontinued flavors like Peanut Butter & Jelly (1998-1999) and Coffee! Coffee! Buzz Buzz Buzz (1996-1999). So we've ripped off our hippie friends' idea and are building a Magazine Graveyard in our own backyard. We've just commissioned a tasteful Haunted Mansion-style tombstone for the Disney Magazine, which has gone the way of Bambi's mom. And we've reserved a plot for "don't call us a boomer music magazine" Tracks, which is on "hiatus" after a main investor pulled funding. (Links via MBToolBox)

View-Masters in Publishing

2005-04-13T11:11:00.000-04:00

Just an hour or so to the Oscars of the magazine world, the National Magazine Awards. We can't wait for the breathless reports from Keith Kelly on what everyone was wearing at today's awards luncheon. Until then, this morning's Times story on how the nominated pubs are promoting their Ellie nods will have to do. The must-have promo tchotchke? The Country Home View-Master, out today. We'll be obsessively checking eBay for one of those bad boys all afternoon.

Update: The New Yorker cleans up! Martha wins! Graydon loses! Click here for the list of winners and also-rans.

Source of Conflict

2005-04-12T20:26:00.000-04:00

Strange goings-on at The Source! On Friday, co-founder Raymond "Benzino" Scott resigned from his post at the hip-hop mag (citing in part his ridiculous feud with Eminem), only to rescind his retirement on Monday (at the urging of the Rev. Al Sharpton!). Earlier that day, Benzino had been hit with a sexual-discrimination suit filed by ex-EIC Kim Osorio and another former employee. At some point, The Source issued -- then retracted (see a pattern here?) -- this statement:

"It is a fact that Osorio had sexual relations with a number of high-profile rap artists during her employment as editor-in-chief. We also suspect that [other claimant Michelle] Joyce falsified health claims in an effort to attack The Source when she learned that she was going to be terminated. We look forward to our day in court on this matter."

We're neither legal scholars nor public-relations experts, but we're convinced this "lying ho" defense is a brilliant way for The Source to demonstrate its commitment to gender equality in the workplace.

Radar Jammers

2005-04-11T18:48:00.000-04:00

Today's Times article on the relaunch of Radar (mark May 24 on your calendars) brings out the factchecker in both Gawker and FishBowlNY. First, Gawker calls bullshit on Radar editor Maer Roshan's reported age, 35, saying it's off by three years (need we say in what direction?). A white lie, shoddy reporting or both? Then FishBowlNY catches Radar selectively quoting an October '04 Times piece in its media kit. Devious! We certainly hope that come May 24 somebody at FAIR is going over Radar with a fine-tooth comb.

In completely unrelated news:

Attention, old nerds: Your April 19, 1965, copy of Electronics Magazine may be worth $10K. Let's hope you polybagged it.
Oprah weighs in at 200 or so. Ad pages, that is.
Real Simple coming to TV. Not really that interesting, but having just two bullets looked kind of anemic.

Cover, Line & Sinker

2005-04-10T23:55:00.000-04:00

As solid blue staters, we don't often pick up copies of Outdoor Life. But something about the April coverline "Deep in the Amazon for Fish That Eat Deer!" reeled us in. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the story fails to live up to the hype -- the deer-eater in question (the anjumara, a.k.a. Hoplias macrophthalmus) isn't even mentioned until the last page of the six-page piece. And in the very end, [SPOILER ALERT!] a 10-year-old boy catches one of these vicious predators.

Writing this entry made us think of our favorite coverline of recent years, courtesy of Men's Health: "Sex So Hot She'll Speak in Tongues." Insert your own snake-handling joke here.

Bullet Time: Maxim's Prowess, Vodka's Ill Effects and More

2005-04-08T19:29:00.000-04:00

From today's Variety: "Maxim puts the make on Hollywood: Men's mag nails NBC, Dimension" ...and sneaks out before they wake up the next morning.
Life & Style ought to take some lessons from those charming rakes at Maxim. The NJ-based celeb rag is striking out left and right in its attempts to seduce US Weekly staffers.
Grey Goose vodka creator Sidney Frank to launch Tenz, a not-at-all gimmicky magazine full of Top 10 lists. May we suggest "Top 10 Ways To Squander a Fortune Plucked From the Pockets of Label-Conscious Yuppies"?
Papal infallibility, indeed. You can't go wrong with the Pope on your cover this week.

The Talk of the (Insular Media) Town

2005-04-06T22:25:00.000-04:00

The Observer provides this handy, clip-n-save PDF of the oh-so mysterious New Yorker masthead. It seems fairly exhaustive, listing everyone from David Remnick on down to the receptionist with the perfectly upper-crusty name of C. Stanley Ledbetter III. Also on the masthead are the head of makeup, the deputy head of makeup and the three-person makeup staff. All those folks dedicated to makeup, yet no indication of who tends to Malcolm Gladwell's hair.

A Dose of Realiteen

2005-04-06T21:10:00.000-04:00

Media Life reckons that 2005 "could be a record year for launches, outpacing even the boom years of the late 1990s." Unfortunately, it's hard to get excited for mix-and-match titles like Celebrity Living Weekly and Quick & Simple. It's only a matter of time before we get Simple Celebrity Weekly. Speaking of simple, the new Inside Columbia -- Columbia, Mo., natch (map provided for those on the coasts) -- is underbidding FOB by "keep[ing] editorial content to snippet-length, with many stories running less than 100 words."

In other launch news, Domino is coming! As is Christ! In the pages of Realiteen -- "the magazine that knows faith is a lifestyle!" -- that is. We're still mulling which has the worse title.

A Well-Developed Trend Story

2005-04-05T21:03:00.000-04:00

One of our favorite magazine-related articles of the past couple of weeks comes courtesy of the Photo District News. And it's not because the story, "Magazines Upping the Cleavage Quotient To Boost Sales," offers any bold insights (Boobs sell magazines?! Somebody notify the editors of Maxim!). It's for this delicious detail alone:

Nancy Jo Iacoi, the photo editor of Esquire... says the black-and-white [cover] shot of [Scarlett] Johannson might not have appealed to everyone, but she says there was at least one eyewitness account of someone picking the magazine off the newsstand and kissing it.

In related news, Benicio Del Toro was spotted having sex with the magazine in an elevator after the Oscars.

Ahem. The PDN article illustrates this boobalicious "trend" with a shot of Vanity Fair's April cover ("Meet the New Wave of Eastern European Supermodels"). If only they'd waited a month, the folks at PDN could have featured an example with 40 percent more mammaries.

Point of Entry

2005-04-04T23:00:00.000-04:00

"I love magazines. I love them. And when I read them, I get very excited. They are emotional things for me." So gushes New York editor Adam Moss in today's New York Times. Well, we too love magazines and everything about them, Adam -- from the shallowest of deep captions to the lengthiest, most self-indulgent of New Yorker pieces. (The latter love, of course, belies our tagline: "Because if you can't say it in 350 words or less, why bother?").

This blog is our (occasionally bloody) valentine to magazines. We at Front of Book promise to be: Provocative and newsmaking. Funny and fearless. Independent and irreverent. Honest and authentic. Sexy and stylish. But never dutiful or dull....

OK, we stole everything from "provocative" on from Radar's media kit. But they're goals we hope to achieve nonetheless.

Please enjoy and drop us a line at frontofbook AT gmail.com with any fan and/or hate mail or hot media tidbits.