Recalling some favorite magazines

By Jnana Hodson on August 20, 2024

As an editor and a writer, I've long been inspired by a stream of classy, glossy magazines with outstanding illustrations and design supporting sharply edited, masterful writing.

In this category, I'm skipping over purely literary periodicals, even the ones with deep pockets, as well as newsweeklies and many other kinds of magazines.

The ones I've admired, as I'm seeing now, all reflected a single editor's voice and vision, not that I remember all of their names now. Maybe that's for another Tendril.

For now, here's what I mean.

The New Yorker. The writing and editing, of course. I was captivated way back in high school – the staff of the Hilltopper even gave me a year's subscription when we graduated – and still a delight in my retirement, maybe even more, in its current direction. Still, there's no way to keep up. I should mention, in passing, its assiduous fact checkers, a vexation for many famed writers.
Fortune, back when it was big and classy. Big? The pages were large, like 10 or 11 inches by 12 or 13 inches deep -- often on high quality paper, and each issue was fat and thoughtful. Artists were commissioned to create portfolios, with authors to match. It definitely reflected wealth and luxury, unlike other business publications, which often felt pinched. And then the U.S. Postal Service began charging extra for oversize mailings, leading many magazines to shrink their formats. Titles like Life, Look, and Vogue lost their impact, and photographers, especially, took a hit.
New York. Originating as the Sunday magazine of the New York Herald Tribune, this one took off on its own in 1968 after the newspaper's demise. Brash and definitely connected to everyday life on Manhattan streets, it was an avatar of New Journalism and Push Pin graphics. Still has that cutting edge.
Esquire. By the late '60s this former cheesecake vehicle had evolved into a champion of New Journalism and high-impact graphics. Some of the covers remain classic. More recently, Vanity Fair continued in that vein until its solid content evaporated in a demographic desert.
Evergreen Review. Another of the late '60s blossoms, this one had a West Coast perspective, openly leftist leanings, and literary ambitions, including Beat poets. Its cartoon serial "Phoebe Zeitgeist" became an underground cult item of a scandalous sort.
Playboy. As a matter of candor, consider its now-classic interviews, plus the fiction, and, yes, the cartoons, a nearly extinct venue these days. The photography was often masterful, no matter the content. The editor in this case did go on to become a pathetic caricature of himself, reflecting the vapid "philosophy" he was espousing.
GEO. This hip German-based alternative to the National Geographic debuted in 1976, distinctive for its green-bordered covers, trend-catching photography, and progressive topics and awareness. The English editions blossomed and then trickled from sight. Much of it, like the international hippie roots it reflected, looks dated today.
New England Monthly. Published from 1984 to 1990, it was an epitome of ambitious, sophisticated, city- and region-based magazines that flourished during the decade. It ran into an identity problem when big advertisers wanted a Greater Boston focus, while important regional issues spilled over into western Massachusetts and Cape Cod as well as Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, where subscribers existed. The final edition featured a devasting account of the high-level executive arrogance regarding the Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire led to its corporate bankruptcy, rather than the commonly blamed regulations and enraged environmental protests. After revenue shortfalls shuttered the magazine, some of its writers went on to stardom.
Elle. This upstart to established fashion bastions Vogue and Harper's Bazaar was actually founded in 1945 in Paris as a newspaper supplement but came to prominence with a monthly American edition in 1969. Propelled by Gilles Bensimon's inspired, fresh, even exciting photography and sharp page layouts that delivered in tight spaces, there was no mistaking this entry from its rivals. Another upstart, Sassy, a feminist teen platform aimed at well-healed Seventeen, lacked gloss and polish but sizzled on editor Jane Pratt's brilliant assignments from 1988 to 1996, when it finally succumbed to a longstanding boycott by an evangelical women's organization. As a former lifestyles editor, I found Pratt to be most refreshing.
Harper's. These days, it rules the roost for me. Its monthly index of seeming random statistics and trends, toward the beginning of each issue, even provided inspiration for these weekly Tendrils.