Omni Magazine in Japan, Spain, and Germany

In my never-ending dedication to informing the world about foreign language editions of American magazines (here, here, here, and probably elsewhere), I offer up this link to a web site that displays some neat covers from the late, great Bob Guccione science/science-fiction magazine Omni.

These issues are from Japan, Spain, and Germany. I actually own two copies of the German edition of Omni, for which I paid a king's ransom in postage (photographed above). I also own a copy of the UK edition of Omni, which cost me considerably (and inexplicably) less. But, because Omni listed on its masthead many foreign editions, Guccione clearly had an aggressive international marketing plan.

Judging from the two German copies I own, it looks like Omni was smart and let the international editions include lots of (mostly?) local content, rather than forcing U.S.-created content down their throats.

Check out Apogeebooks' gallery for more foreign Omnis.

I Can't Beat This Headline

Probably no one can top this headline. No, it's not a headline from the New York Post or the National Enquirer. It's from the perfectly respectable English-language web site about Germany, The Local.

The headline?

Former Neo-Nazi Becomes Leftist After Sex Change

That might seem like just a bit too much change in one's life in so short a time, but it's probably for the better. The story, if you have the interest, is online.

Yes, Lyle Lahey Is Back

For those of you who enjoy good, independent political cartoons, I am pleased to inform you that veteran Green Bay News-Chronicle cartoonist Lyle Lahey's back from his sabbatical, and he's in top form.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker might not be happy about it, but I'm thinking Walker might not like most of what's happening in Wisconsin these days.

You can see all of the action at Lyle's main web site or his blog.

Enjoy.

David Granger Has Seen the Promised Land of Print and Digital Partnership

The January/February issue of Publishing Executive magazine includes an interesting guest column by Esquire magazine editor David Granger. Longtime readers of this blog – or new readers who just have a lot of time on their hands to read all of my old posts on Esquire in general or David Granger in particular – know that I both respect and am impatient with the long-serving celebrated editor of Esquire. On the one hand, he really gets it on why print is important and what it does better than anything else. On the other hand, I think he produces a magazine that underperforms in terms of its writing and intellectual quality and gets sidetracked with silly gimmicks. It's Esquire, after all; it's hard to get an American magazine with a better pedigree than that. But the mag is filled with articles written for people who are hipper than they are bright, smirkier than they are stylish.

But whether or not you agree with me, I think he's someone to whom you should pay attention if you're interested in the dramatically evolving world of periodicals publishing. In his PubExec column, Granger enthuses about the growing "entanglement" between all of a publication's media: print, web site, tablet computer.

[W]e're taking advantage of the Web's awesome disseminative power to broadcast a daily version of Esquire to the widest possible audience and then to entice a significant percentage of that audience to pay for the print and iPad Esquire experiences. Simply, subs sold on the Web are cheaper to acquire, and you can charge more for them. The iPad and other e-readers promise a whole new distribution matrix that will build on this foundation and let consumers carry more of the revenue load. Beautiful. 

And, of course, as this happens, we will get to pour more resources into doing even crazier, more expansive magazine/Web/iPad projects that will make everyone want our products more and make them more valuable to advertisers.

I think Granger's on the correct general path toward finding how different media forms work together, and helping to end the fundamentalist fight between people who just hate print or just resent the internet.

I've received the occasional request from readers of my issue-by-issue chronicle of the late science-fiction film magazine Starlog for directions on where they can find digital copies of that magazine. Each time, I reply that the former publisher of the magazine had at one time promised to release a digital archive of the magazine, but it hasn't appeared yet. Any digital copies you find online are illegal, and I can't support them.

Despite my responses and despite the lack of a legal digital copy available, it's not too hard online to find people who have scanned print articles or even entire magazines and posted them to their blogs or web sites. Think of it as media convergence, rebel-style.

The image above that accompanies this post is of a cover of Esquire magazine, but it's not the American edition, despite my discussing the editor of the U.S. edition. The above image of the South Korean edition of Esquire is from a screen grab of a web page that I came across doing a simple Google Images search for "Esquire 2011" – and it's apparently a site where you can illegally download digital copies of a wide variety of magazines (from the looks of the featured magazines on the site's home page, they specialize in soft-core porn magazines, which is an interesting twist on the one print publishing niche that I do agree has no reason to continue existing in a world where nekkid pictures are disseminated much faster and cheaper online). Cut off at the bottom of the image above is the handy download button.

But I'm not sure the publisher of Esquire can or should be too upset about the magazine's unauthorized distribution over the internet. Granted, they don't make any direct money from it, but as Granger notes in praising his magazine's own authorized digital forays, digital offerings can allow the magazine to reach a wider audience, some of whom can be enticed "to pay for the print and iPad Esquire experiences."

The print edition of the U.S. Esquire is not expensive; I believe the price has risen since I entered into a ridiculously cheap multi-year subscription a while ago, but it's still dirt cheap. Esquire is one of those consumer books that makes its money not from circulation but from advertising. I understand that model, though I've been criticized in the past by people who didn't know there was another model. Really, I think publishers should pursue whichever model – or a hybrid of the two – works for them.

And ultimately, that's the angle that interested me the most about Granger's PubExec column. Because, after praising entanglement and silly "augmented reality" gimmicks, he points out that it's not just a one-way street, of print endlessly hemorrhaging advertising and readers to its online "competitors." The two can be symbiotic in numerous ways, including the ability of digital to increase the sales of print subscriptions. "Simply," he says, "subs sold on the Web are cheaper to acquire, and you can charge more for them. "Beautiful," indeed.

Empire Magazine's Science Fiction Love; Spinoff to Follow?

The March 2011 issue of Empire magazine, the giant movie magazine from the UK, has a special section focusing on science fiction. This Sci Fi section is 32 pages long and features the exhaustive, well-assembled content for which Empire magazine is known.

I haven't read it yet; I've just returned from the magazine shop. But just a quick perusal of the articles in this section are what made me commit to buying the periodical. (Several articles on knockoffs of Star Wars, for example. I'm there.) 

It also made me wonder: Is this a market test for a possible science-fiction spinoff magazine launch? Something to take on SFX and Sci Fi Now, two other oversized, attitude-filled UK science-fiction film mags? Those two magazines also are published by large UK media houses, which put out tons of periodicals, including SFX parent Future's Total Film magazine, which competes directly with Empire, as far as I can tell.

Empire is part of Bauer Consumer Media, which is a unit/division/branch/whatever of German media Giant Bauer Media Group. They own zillions of newspapers and magazines across Europe, plus radio stations and other media. Looks to me like they have the capacity to do just about anything they want.

Treks Ahoy! The Starlog Project, Starlog #189, April 1993

After writer Harlan Ellison was finished with putting out his An Edge in My Voice columns, which began in Future Life magazine and then migrated to other publications after FL folded, he put out a book with the collected columns and new introductions. The book, also called An Edge in My Voice (1985), was one of my favorites of that decade, and I gave it as a gift to several of my friends.

I always expected Ellison’s friend and fellow writer David Gerrold to one day collect his long-running Starlog columns in book form. Gerrold began writing for the magazine with its fourth issue in March 1977 and continued every month (later switching to bimonthly frequency) until issue #101, rejoining its pages a couple years later to chronicle the birth of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which he helped birth with Gene Roddenberry. Over the years, his columns ranged from controversial reviews of the first Star Trek movie and The Empire Strikes Back to computer insights to thoughts on life and encouragement for readers. I figured that was a no-brainer candidate to become a book, but none ever appeared. Gerrold seemed more intent on producing new novels and some television work, which is his right, of course. But still, a missed chance, no?

Then there’s been some talk in 2011 about a possible book collecting Kerry O’Quinn’s From the Bridge columns, literally hundreds of which were written over decades by the magazine’s co-founder and former publisher. In Starlog #189, O’Quinn begins his column noting that he had recently received a letter from a friend, who wrote, “I’ve seen a few of your most recent Bridge columns, and they’re fun to read because you wrote them – but I haven’t seen a ‘reach for the stars’-type column lately. I hope you still feel that they’re important.”

O’Quinn then goes on to offer up just such a column, about Jok Church, creator of the Beakman’s World TV series and the syndicated comic strip You Can with Beakman. Reading the story about how the young man struggled to get his ideas off the ground and then found success in print and on television, I found myself agreeing with O’Quinn’s friend about how much I enjoy the “reach for the stars” columns. It’s one of the ingredients that is missing from all current science-fiction media magazines, not to mention any other magazine I can think of with a young audience. It’s easy to throw together a magazine with all the ingredients that your focus groups tell you are important and that the MBA in the corner office insists are critical; it is much more difficult to engage readers on the level of their dreams, their souls. Seeing them as consumers is one thing; seeing them as humans is another.

Let’s hope O’Quinn publishes that book.

Starlog #189
84 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $4.95

There is some personnel-shifting at Starlog this month. Managing editor Michael McAvennie is heading off to greener pastures (actually, DC Comics; DC and Marvel seemed to hire away a lot of Starlog junior staffers over the years). He will continue to write the magazine's video-game review column, Gamelog. Taking his place as managing editor is Maureen McTigue, who would herself end up working at DC Comics and Harris. In a long interview with Sequential Tart in 2002, McTigue was asked about her Starlog tenure:

ST: What was the main difference between being an intern at Starlog and being an assistant editor there?
MMT: [grins] I got paid better.
ST: Between being an assistant editor and being a managing editor there?
MMT: [smiles] More responsibility.

For more on the joys and tribulations of working at Starlog, see my interview with former staffer Carr D’Angelo in my digital magazine-about-magazines, Magma.

The rundown: It’s Trek, Trek, and more Trek on the cover of this issue, where Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and even animated Trek get featured placement, with a note that inside there’s info on the oft-maligned Star Trek V movie; on the contents page, we get a Trek-breather and instead some comic-book aliens get the spotlight. David McDonnell’s Medialog column tells us that the little-talked-about CBS science-fiction series Space Ranger, noted briefly last issue, debuted months earlier than planned, in January rather than in spring, which seems to have wrong-footed Starlog’s coverage of the series. That coverage starts this issue. The series, though, only lasted six episodes, so the magazine was left dribbling out coverage of the show after it had died. Michael McAvennie’s Gamelog reviews a Star Trek: The Next Generation game called How to Host a Mystery, which McAvennie warns “can take as long as four hours to play.” And the Communications section is filled up with mostly kvetching about Alien3, though the magazine’s recent 20th-anniversary Blade Runner coverage gets some reader love, too; also, It (just It) is featured in Mike Fisher’s Creature Profile.

Booklog reviews Kingdoms of the Wall, Damia’s Children, Kalifornia, Dirty Work, The Red Magician, Demons Don’t Dream, and Assemblers of Infinity. Starship Invasions is out on home video, warns David Hutchison in his Videolog column. Maureen McTigue’s directory of fan clubs and publications and the convention listings fill up the Fan Network pages. In a two-page Tribute section, T.L. Johns remembers the late writer Fritz Leiber, while Tom Weaver does the honors for actor Robert Shayne. And, as noted at the top of this post, Kerry O’Quinn highlights Jok Church’s efforts to make science fun and understandable to young audiences.

Marc Shapiro kicks off Starlog’s feature coverage of Space Rangers with an interview of actor Jack McGee, who portrays the, um, zaftig cyborg in the series, and who comments on similarities with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator cyborg: “I guess you would say we’re quite the same. I know he would love to have a body like mine.” Animated Star Trek episode writer Larry Brody (“The Magicks of Megas-Tu”) is interviewed by Bill Florence; he also discusses his never-filmed script for Star Trek: The Next Generation, how Harlan Ellison got fired from a TV series over one of Brody’s scripts, and other interesting tidbits from his career. Craig W. Chrissinger profiles actor Dale Midkiff, star of Time Trax. And Marc Shapiro checks in with Time Trax’s creator, Harve Bennett, to discuss his views of William Shatner’s Star Trek V.

Kim Howard Johnson previews ALIENS: Colonial Marines, a new series from Dark Horse Comics. Ian Spelling visits the set of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Joe Nazzaro interviews Red Dwarf’s Hattie Hayridge, who plays the ship’s computer. Ian Spelling also talked to actor Robert Patrick this month, and Patrick discusses his roles in Terminator 2 and Fire in the Sky; meanwhile, Kim Howard Johnson provides a sidebar chat with that latter film’s director, Robert Lieberman, who claims it’s “much more science fact than science fiction.”

Craig W. Chrissinger checks in with Star Trek: The Next Generation story editor Rene Echevarria. Mark Phillips profiles actor Arthur Batanides, who discusses his roles in Star Trek (“That Which Survives”), Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers, Land of the Giants, and others. Kim Howard Johnson talks with screenwriter Nicholas St. John about his new Body Snatchers interpretation. Bill Warren chats with writer George R.R. Martin about Doorways. And editor David McDonnell wraps it all up in his Liner Notes column by saying hello/good-bye to his managing editors, plugging the next issue of Comics Scene magazine, and announcing a giveaway of new Alien Nation novel The Day of Descent. Did you get one?

“I told Bill [Shatner] that he was doomed to disappointment at the film’s [Star Trek V] end. It’s not that the film couldn’t be great, but that he was going to be stuck with a philosophical unsolvable. In the end, he would end up saying, ‘Well, it isn’t really God, folks,’ and the audience would know that you were going to have to say that. I explained my feelings to Bill until I was blue in the face. But he was very persuasive in defending his idea. It was the way he wanted it and everybody over at Paramount was telling me to do what Bill wanted to do. And ultimately I did because I love Bill. … Ultimately, my fears about that storyline came to pass. But the funny thing is that, not too long after [Trek V] came out, Bill came up to me and said that the next one we do should be about the Fountain of Youth.”
–Harve Bennett, producer, interviewed by Marc Shapiro: “School’s Out”

For more, click on Starlog Internet Archive Project below or visit the Starlog Project's permanent site.

The New Tina Brown Newsweek: More Week, Less News?

Lord knows (or at least regular readers of this blog know), I'm a big supporter of Tina Brown's takeover of Newsweek. As I've written elsewhere, if anyone can make a go of Newsweek, which has lurched from problem to salvation to problem over the past decade, it's Tina Brown, who knows print and online, clearly believes in both, and has been successful at both (with the exception of Talk, of course).

So, note the Tina Brownification of the cover, which was revealed this past week:

• There's nothing newsweekly (or Newsweekly, either) about the cover text, by which I mean it suggests feature articles, not weekly news reports. All of the cover-blurbed articles look like they could appear on the cover of Vogue or The Atlantic or Vanity Fair. Considering the moribund state of newsweeklies, that's probably a good move.
• No fewer than four article authors are listed on the cover. Tina Brown is known for using star writers to sell her publications. She's been criticized for being somewhat ruthless in her use of them and then disposal of them when they no longer deliver, but I don't think you can claim that she doesn't know what she's doing. 
• Keep the logo, which is good. No need to scare the loyal Newsweek readers.
• Celebrity. On the cover. Sells magazines.

This new issue reportedly goes on sale today, so I haven't yet picked up a copy. But I will, because I am interested in what else has been changed in this new Tina Brown era. One of its biggest tests will be if it draws in the advertising; the magazine had become very anemic in ads and total page count.

So, Ms. Brown: We await the rollout.

Thomas Mann's Wise Words

On my subway ride to work this morning, I began reading "The Best German Novelist of His Time," an article by Phillip Lopate in the February 24, 2011, issue of The New York Review of Books. Lopate is discussing the writer Theodor Fontane, whose work I have never read. In fact, I hadn't planned on reading this article; I'm way behind on my magazine reading (I'm already carrying around the March 10 issue of NYRB), and I usually find the reviews of novels and the articles about novelists to be the less-interesting part of that excellent magazine. But I guess the Germanophile in me won out, and I didn't have to wait long for my reward.

The fourth paragraph of the article is an extended quote from another great German novelist, Thomas Mann, discussing "The Old Fontane":

Does it not seem as though he had to grow old, very old, in order to fulfil himself completely? Just as there are youths born to be youths only, fulfilling themselves in early life and not maturing, certainly not growing old; so it would seem that there are other temperaments whose only appropriate age is old; who are, so to speak, classic old men, ordained to show humanity the ideal qualities of that last stage of life: benignity, kindness, justice, humour, and shrewd wisdom—in short a recrudescence on a higher plane of childhood’s artless unrestraint. Fontane’s was such a temperament.

What a great quote. What a great insight in one man and into men. One could probably stretch Mann's words too far by trying to apply them to not just people but countries, but it would be a fascinating effort, if done well. Until that occurs, however, I am going to let Mann's words shift around in my head and grow more interesting as their human applications add up.

Mr. Lopate's full article (partially behind a pay wall) is on the NYRB's web site. It's also available in print if you can still find the February 24, 2011 issue around.

Harve Bennett’s Time Trax: The Starlog Project, Starlog #188, March 1993

A TV show! On the cover of Starlog! A series that I only watched for five minutes! So I have nothing worthwhile to write about it!!

Well, I’ll try anyway. Harve Bennett, who worked his way into the hearts of Starlog fans with his producing work on the Star Trek movies, launches this science-fiction/cop hybrid television series with high hopes. Time Trax features a policeman (Dale Midkiff) who tracks down criminals who fled into the past. Nothing terribly stunning in that concept, but nothing that is terribly terrible in that concept, either. But when I did sit down to try to watch an episode, I found it completely lacking in personality, a well-produced by uninteresting show. So, as I noted above, I turned if off after about five minutes and was never tempted to try it again.

But the program lasted for 44 episodes, so someone liked it enough to keep it on the air. And that probably made Mr. Bennett happy.

Starlog #188
84 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $4.95

This issue, Starlog publishes its annual postal statement of ownership and circulation. Basically, you’re supposed to publish these statements in the late fall or early winter; you’ll find them in most magazines’ November or December issues. But Starlog, for whatever reason, published them as late as their March issues, which can only tell me (someone who has to fill out and publish these forms every year) that Starlog’s post office was more lax in enforcement than the San Francisco post office, which runs through my numbers with a fine-toothed comb and checks every detail. (This is painful if, like me, you’re not great at math.)

Anyway, assuming the numbers are correct, Starlog’s circulation is holding remarkably steady. The total paid circulation for the issue closest to the statement's filing deadline is listed as 164,886 (roughly the same as the previous year's 164,074), including the number of paid subscriptions of 9,675 (little changed from 9,521 in the last year).

In staffing notes: Maureen McTigue, previously a more junior staffer, is now listed as co-managing editor along with Michael McAvennie.

The rundown: Actor Dale Midkiff poses for the cover shot from his new TV series Time Trax; on the contents page, some artwork from the Beauty & the Beast comics are featured. David McDonnell’s Medialog column informs us that six episodes have been shot of a new science-fiction television series called Space Rangers, starring Linda Hunt. What? A new SF television program is coming out, and it earns nothing more than a two-sentence drive-by in an omnibus media news column? Well, I managed to watch more than five minutes of Space Rangers, and it was anything but Shakespeare, but at least it was at times amusing and I am almost always a sucker for space opera. But note that this CBS show only ever had the six episodes produced. What does that say about the obvious difference between Harve Bennett’s team and Space Rangers’ team when it comes to talking to the genre press?

In Gamelog, Michael McAvennie reviews Alien3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time, Taz-Mania, and other games. The letters in the Communications section are not, thank goodness, all Trek-focused; instead, they discuss the then-new Sci Fi Channel, Beauty & the Beast, Quantum Leap, and more; while The Thing is featured in Mike Fisher’s Creature Profile. David Hutchison’s Videolog announces a new widescreen release of Terry Gilliam’s great film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, plus other videos. Booklog reviews Triumph, The Ancient One, The Caterpillar’s Question, The Ring of Winter, Whatdunits, Deus X, A Sudden Wild Magic, and The Harvest. Maureen McTigue’s directory of fan clubs and publications, along with the convention calendar, fill up the Fan Network pages. Mark Phillips continues his look at The Immortal, with a profile of actor Don Knight. And Kerry O’Quinn plays virtual reality games in his From the Bridge column.

Marc Shapiro talks to writer/producer Harve Bennett about Time Trax, though he also talks about his abortive plans for Starfleet Academy, the “reboot” of the Star Trek franchise that Paramount didn’t want to make (but J.J. Abrams kind of later did, sort of, in a way). Drew Bittner previews the new Beauty & the Beast comics series from Innovation. Another defunct TV series, Alien Nation, returns in printed form, and Joe Nazzaro explores the franchise’s novels. Jean Airey interviews actor Andreas Katsulas, who portrays G’Kar on Babylon 5 and who also guest starred in several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which he discusses along with his other roles – and the role he didn’t get: a continuing character on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which he says he didn’t get because “they were looking for someone ‘cute.’”

Ian Spelling profiles Terry Farrell, who was apparently judged to be cute enough to play the Trill character Jadzia Dax on Deep Space Nine. Jean Airey also talks with actor Ray Winstone (Will Scarlett in Robin of Sherwood). Mark Phillips interviews actor Joseph Ruskin, who portrayed a number of villainous characters, including one in the original Star Trek TV series. Kyle Counts profiles comedian and actor Richard Moll, who was a recent Starlog cover boy, and they chat about Moll’s Night Court tenure and roles in Highlander, the animated Batman, and more.

Stan Nichols has the enviable job this month of interviewing Douglas Adams about life, the universe and everything else. (For example, they discuss atheism, computers, and other serious stuff, in addition to his books.) Victoria Selander chats with former Dr. Who Colin Baker, who discusses his work on the faux-Who series The Stranger and Miss Brown. And an even odder character, Red Dwarf’s hologram Arnold Rimmer, is portrayed by Chris Barrie, who talks with Joe Nazzaro. And in his Liner Notes column, editor David McDonnell relates a tale of obsessive (and maybe dangerous) fandom.

“I was doing Mission: Impossible when I got the call for Star Trek. The costume I wore was a robe that went all the way to the floor, and that gave me an idea. I had just seen the Morsaef Dancers, and in one dance, you thought for sure that they were on bicycles. But when they open their robes, you see they’re not. It’s an illusion, and I discovered how they did it. That’s how I played [Trek villain] Galt. My head didn’t move and I moved as if I were on wheels.”
–Joseph Ruskin, actor, interviewed by Mark Phillips: “Untouchable Evil”

For more, click on Starlog Internet Archive Project below or visit the Starlog Project's permanent site.

Who's More Delusional? Muammar Qaddafi or Charlie Sheen?

I'm not so sure that it's a great thing for people to be clamoring for Western military intervention in Libya, as horribly as that country's despotic leader is treating his people. Qaddafi's done for, and we'd be better off if that situation ended with outside support – from the West, from Egypt, from others – but not military intervention.

Qaddafi, of course, does not do himself any favors by appearing in television interviews refusing to accept a reporter's assertion that street protestors were opposing him. "No," he told BBC's Jeremy Bowen. "No one against us. Against me for what?"

Ah, yes, military intervention or not, we can all have pleasure in his certain upcoming defeat.

But is mental instability the new normal? Qaddafi, don't forget, told his nation that the protesters who have been piecemeal taking over his North African realm have been controlled by the West, by al-Qaeda, and by hallucinogenic pills.

Well, one person who it's hard to imagine isn't under the influence of drugs is actor Charlie Sheen, who is on a crazy tour of the news media this week, telling everyone he's cured himself of drugs, partying is his birthright, he's some sort of alpha-dog human genius that would make Scientologists jealous, and that no one can understand him because his mind is so Sheen-tastic that only he knows how it operates.

Well, I'm sure there's at least one person who knows where he's coming from, but that guy's living in a Libyan tent on a short-term lease.