Men's magazines: an A to Z

Ice / So / Switched On [2001-07]

Ice was sold on to top-shelf men's publisher Galaxy, and they tried to revamp the title and take it more upmarket as a mainstream magazine – out went the 'babes' and in came gadgets. However, the title could not shake off its downmarket image. So, in 2007, the magazine was relaunched with the title So – Switched On. However, this only lasted for three issues and was closed in April. The title lived on for a while as a website.

i-D [1980-]

Jack [2002-04]

King [1964-68]

Paul Raymond himself introduces the first issue of King: 'King is financed in part by the money that sophisticated men have spent at the Raymond Revuebar and the Celebrité, and the purpose of this magazine is quite frankly to enlarge on the style of adult enjoyment I know men like.' The magazine's title appears to have been a personification of Raymond: the magazine refers to ' the King, his various lieutenants and the girls of the Raymond Revuebar'. It was seen as England's answer to Playboy and illustrations editor Michael Foreman had been art director of Playboy in Chicago.

They set up Europress as the publishing company. There, staff included:

• managing editor, later managing director, Connor Walsh;
• editor Edward Simon;
• production editor, later managing editor: Kenneth Bound, who became editor of Mayfair and took over King;
• chief consultant editor was film director Bryan Forbes (The Stepford Wives, The Wrong Box, King Rat, The L-Shaped Room and Whistle Down the Wind) and husband of Nanette Newman;
• entertainment editor John Sandilands;
• editor Ted Simon;
• designer Dave Chaston;
• illustrations editor Mike Foreman – who went on to become a leading book illustrator;
• picture editor Roy Giles;
• editorial assistant, later continuity editor Josephine Booker (as Jo Sandilands she became editor of Honey and, by 1978, the weekly Woman. She became editorial director of Seven Publishing when it was set up in 2003).

There was fiction in the form of 'The Changeling' by Ray Bradbury illustrated by Anthony Smart, 'The Magic Coffin' by Michael Baldwin and 'Exterminator!' by William Burroughs; Paul Cantrell covered surfing  in Cornwall; Clancy Signal asked: Will Playboy [the club] work in Mayfair?; a two-page cartoon strip by Michael Foreman of a golf game between Sean Connery, Charlie Drake, Harold Wilson and Harold Macmillan, interrupted by George Brown. Michael Caine donned his Harry Palmer persona for a guide to Berlin, and Acker Bilk talked to Alfred Mann.

King ran colour nudes from the start. The April 1967 issue had an ABC certified sale of 69,878 copies. However, it was swamped by the likes of Bob Guccione's Penthouse and was taken over by Mayfair in 1968.

KO! [not launched]

Later [1999-2001]

Level [1999-?]

Lilliput [1937-60]

Lilliput was intended for a general audience but became a men's magazine after the second world war. Sales of the first issue were estimated at 150,000. At sixpence, Lilliput was half the price of the similarly-sized Men Only. The title was soon bought by Hulton who let Lorant go on to create Picture Post.

Lilliput was a bestseller in its day, famous for its mix of photographs, reportage, fiction, cartoons and an occasional artistic nude. Particularly popular were its picture comparisons, where two photographs were printed on opposite pages with captions that drew comparisons (see below). In 1940, Lorent compiled some of these into a book (left). The title on the dust jacket was 101 Best Picture Comparisons from Lilliput: Or Chamberlain and the Beautiful Llama; inside, it was Chamberlain and the Beautiful Llama and 101 more juxtapositions. The introduction describes how a picture of Rockefeller as a poor old man and another of a happy peasant triggered the idea for the first issue: 'The first issue of Lilliput appeared and we found that what people liked most in the magazine were just these few photographic jokes.' The concept evolved and the 'idea behind the idea' became to debunk, 'to show how stupid pomposity, how silly self-importance is'.

Lilliput was selling about 102,000 copies under Hulton in May 1959. In July 1960, it was merged into Men Only.

Many issues have a page describing the contributors, who included people such as actor James Mason, Antonia White, Ronald Searle and Tom Driberg. Among the people who worked on Lilliput were Jocelyn Stevens, whose uncle, Sir Edward Hulton, owned the title.

Kaye Webb, who joined Lilliput in 1938 and was assistant editor from 1941 until she left in 1947 to marry the cartoonist Ronald Searle, edited the book Lilliput Goes to War, which was based on clippings and photos from the magazine (Hutchinson, 1985).

Line [2002]

Loaded [1994-2015]

In October 2010, IPC sold Loaded to Vitality as part of a sale of several 'niche' titles.
IPC profile
Vitality Publishing profile

Loaded Fashion [closed]

London Gentleman [closed]

London Life [1922-60]

Before the second world war, London Life was published at a larger than A4 size (9.5 x 12.5 inches), but paper rationing saw it cut down to a smaller format in 1941 (7.5 x 9.75). In October that year, the cover carried a warning that paper controls meant it had to reduce further to a 'magazine size', in this case pocket size (4.75 x 7.25), from the next issue and also go fortnightly. Furthermore, its Fleet Street offices were bombed and it moved out to Reading, though later returning to a London address in the Strand. After the war, it adopted a slightly larger pocket format (5.25 x 7.25) with spot colour and later four-colour outer covers; however, it never regained the glory of its pre-war days.

London Life was printed by Keliher, Hudson & Kearns, Hatfields, London SE1.

The title London Life was also used by Tatler in 1965-67 (London Life / Tatler) and for a pornographic title in 1977.

London Opinion [1903-54]

However, survive it did, bringing in cartoons and much more varied content. It used large black-and-white cartoons on its cover before adopting colour illustrations in the late 1920s. By 1914 it was also insuring readers for up to £1,000 (a popular tactic with magazines and newspapers since Victorian days). The printer was Love & Malcolmson Ltd, Dove St, High Holborn. The publisher was London Opinion Ltd, Watergate House, York Buildings, the Adelphi. It still costs 1d. The summer annual cost 1/-.

A September 1914 cover by Alfred Leete inspired the famous 'Your country needs you' poster of Lord Kitchener.

London Opinion introduced spot colour on its covers in 1925. There was a Christmas special in 1927 with a full-colour cover and these 6d specials became more frequent, with Easter, Whitsun and summer editions as well. London Opinion was a 2d weekly until it reduced its frequency to monthly in late 1931 and raised the price to 6d. In the spring of 1931, it introduced a jaunty new masthead, though it reverted to the old style when it went monthly.

The magazine used an A4-ish format (7¼" x 9½") until it was relaunched in 1939 in a pocket digest format (as Men Only had been since 1935). This was described as a move to a more popular size, but Newnes might have had paper rationing in mind with the onset of war. London Opinion took over the weekly Humorist in 1940 and carried that title as part of its masthead until 1950. It used a formula of stories, cartoon and photographs – including a couple of artistic nudes.

The November 1945 issue of London Opinion published a photograph of a woman wearing a headscarf on which was printed the cover of Men Only from October 1942 (showing a cartoon of a Russian sailor). The picture caption read: 'Just a "babushka" turns Pat into Patrushka.' (One meaning of babushka being a headscarf.)

In 1950, the Economist criticised the closure of the Strand while London Opinion and Men Only continued (although published under the C. Arthur Pearson imprint, the company had been controlled by George Newnes since 1914).

Among the famous names who cut their teeth in the magazine were Keith Waterhouse, who had his first published article in London Opinion in 1954 at the age of 15, and Norman Thelwell, the cartoonist famed for his strips about a girl and her dimwitted pony, who ran a series – 'Sweetie-Pies of Other Days' starting in March 1949. Dennis Gifford has described London Opinion at this time as 'probably the funniest magazine of its era'.

The last issue was April 1954, when London Opinion was taken over by Men Only. The issue carried a 16-page colour section promoting the changes and the introduction of Vargas pin-ups. Men Only made no mention of the merger in its April issue, the editorial only promoting the 'Raft of despair' real-life adventure serial.

London Opinion and the best magazine cover ever