Cover Issues: Batman & Robin on German & English Starlogs

This post is really just for magazine geeks like me, though Batman geeks might also enjoy it. Below are three magazine covers.

The English-language Starlog #239 from June 1997 features the stars of Batman & Robin.

The same basic cover is used on the German edition of Starlog, though it was released as a special edition ("Starlog feiert Batman & Robin" – "Starlog celebrates Batman & Robin") in Germany. The German Starlogs were put together by the New York headquarters of Starlog Group, with the involvement of some German language translators and consultants.

And, finally, there's a special one-shot English-language Starlog Presents Batman & Other Comics Heroes magazine that utilizes a different cover photo but clearly the designers were enamored of the lettering used on the German magazine title.

All of this plus $3 will get you a cup of coffee, of course, but it's fun to contemplate magazine designs sometimes. Again, for geeks.

When Times Are Tough, Get Bigger, not Smaller

Good Housekeeping is going to increase the physical dimensions of its magazine (its trim size, in industry lingo) and increase its cover price, reports Folio:. Its January 2010 issue will be the first to sport a size of 8.25 x 10.875 inches (up from its current 7.875 x 10.5 inches). Cover price will increase 99 cents from $2.50 to $3.49 (still very cheap by magazine standards).

Bravo! I think one of the worst things magazines do is reduce, reduce, reduce in attempts to save money and cut costs. (ahem, Rolling Stone.) Magazines become thinner, smaller, print on cheaper paper, and include less content, and their costs still usually increase.

It's like the 1970s all over again. That was a decade in which everything got more expensive, smaller, and worse. Candy bars (okay, I was a child in the 1970s, so my perspective wasn't really on Rolling Stone and Good Housekeeping) got smaller and they cost more and there were fewer types of them.

Let's see innovation and growth instead. If I'm paying money for a magazine, I'll pay another dollar or two for one I want, if I get more for it. Since Playboy is reportedly considering raising prices, which I think is a good move, they should also consider increasing the trim size of the mag. After all, even many foreign editions of Playboy sport larger sizes (see the German edition, for example). Make the magazine stand out on the newsstands, and send the message that the magazine -- whatever magazine it is -- is confident enough in what it has to sell that it's willing to be bold, demand fair payment from customers, and escape from the path of ever-smaller, ever -thinner, ever-worse.

Good is better than worse.