Bronwyn C.'s 2009 Top-Ten Magazines That Folded

Don’t tell me that magazines are always folding, just because they always are. Yes, but! This year, many more magazines folded than launched, and lots of them were magazines where my friends worked. Or where I worked. I have now ended my 16-year dayjob career in periodical publishing and moved on to another field, because—face it—print is going … going …

1. Nickelodeon—Publisher of wayward cartoonists and home of the great, great comics editor, Chris Duffy. Sluggo and I both happily freelanced for Nick Mag, and it was a lot of fun. Alas, no more.

 2. Craft—Oh, I liked Craft. I even made things that it showed me how to make. The last  issue made me sad, because it looked so much like they were just burning off inventory stories. So, yeah, now they’re a website or something. Whatevs.

 3. I.D.—The American international-design one, not the British one-eyed fashion one. 55 influential years, home of the Annual Design Review competition. Who’d a thunk it?

4. Gourmet—The hoity-toitiest foodie mag of all. Shock-horror at Conde Nast when that plug was pulled. And the Gourmet Today cookbook was just published, with a sad coverline promising a free year’s subscription to Gourmet mag. What are they gonna do, send them Bon effin’ Appetit instead?

  5. Editor & Publisher—Another venerable title. But who needs ‘em, now that there’s no longer any editing or publishing going on?

 6. Kirkus Reviews—I loved the cranky, crabby, snarky reviews the best. Turns out they paid their reviewers twice the going rate: $50 per review, as opposed to $25. How many reviews would you have to write in a year to equal a minimum-wage job? 302 at Kirkus, 603 everywhere else.

 7. Vibe—Yeah, I know, but still. Although I’m glad now that they never got back to me when I sent them my resume earlier this year. Plus I hear their big plan to increase circulation was to distribute free to hair salons.

8. Cookie—Do I care about Cookie? Not so much, except that it was profitable, and supposedly successful, and Conde-Nast killed it anyway. So what does a magazine have to do to stay in business, then? Or is there no hope?

9. Mandate, Playguy, Torso, Honcho, Inches—What kind of world is it that can’t support gay porn magazines? A world full of online porn, apparently. Oh, well.

10. I can’t even decide what to put for #10. There are about 400 other magazines to choose from, so pick your own dead favorite. Print is starting to seem a little ridiculous, even to me—and yet I’m going to miss it.

Comments

[grumpy]

Yes, actually Gourmet subscribers were given Bon Appetit instead. I received my 1st issue of it earlier this month and promptly got on the phone with Conde Nast to tell them not to send any more. I spent a few minutes looking at it before recycling it and it's frightening to think anyone would pay for it knowingly. The photos didn't even look the slightest bit appetizing and the writing seemed shallow and pamphlet-like. I would swear some of the photos were taken with flash, which even amateur bloggers know makes food look slimy. The worst was a feature about a supposedly vegetarian dinner party attended by people who would never in a million years be vegetarian ... artless snapshots of dudes in khaki pants and their frosted-blonde realtor wives ...

Hopefully some of these dead publications will do as Arthur Mag did and keep going on the internet, but if they do it will only be because people love them enough to work for free or nearly-free ... very sad!

[Dale Hazelton]

When I had a solid day job I bought mags like Mojo at $10 a pop all the time - there was just so much in there. I'll still pay for publications that are instructional (the Taunton Press puts out some good ones) and maybe Make: once in a while. To grumpy's comment, I think editorially a lot of publishers have lost any sense of art or focus in their craft as holding company accountants are steering the boat these days. Sad.

I hate to admit it but I once briefly freelanced for a publisher that put out Alf magazine. I wonder if that's still around...

[michael C]

Heard that Kirkus might be coming back.
Possible good news for the new year.
cheers,
michael c

[DAVIDG]

I'd add BIOGRAPHY----a classier, more varied version of PEOPLE. Yeah it had celeb interviews, but also stuff on travel, historic events/people, etc. (OK, I used to be an editor, but it was still good...esp. in the early days, 1997-2001 or so).
MUSICIAN was great too, informative and good in-depth interviews.