Men's magazines: an A to Z

The January 1956 Carnival cost 2/- for 56 pages. Shirley Ann Field featured in 5 pages

Carnival [closed] To top

Liverpolitan Ltd, Birkenhead, 1955-1958?; City 1965-1970?; Williams; monthly

Originally, Carnival was a pocket-sized pin-up magazine that featured some topless images.

A feature of the title was the 'beauty parade contest' in which readers could vote for the best photograph sent in by readers. The winner's prize was £50 (doesn't sound a lot now, but would have been a month's wages). Voting was done on a postage-paid postcard that was tipped-on the contents page. The same principle is used today in FHM's 'High Street Honeys.'

As with similar titles in this era, full colour was rare. This was not only because it was expensive but also the skills and materials needed were still in short supply (rationing had only ended in 1954; and petrol rationing was reintroduced in the Suez Crisis of 1956). For its first year, Carnival used spot red on the cover for its masthead, and to pick out the lips and bikini of the winning photographs on the centre four pages. Photographer Russell Gay wrote a five-page article for the January 1956 issue entitled 'Posing the model.' In 1956, colour covers became the norm.

A Carnival annual and Rhapsody in Colour with 100 pages, below

Carnival Parade in 1965

October 1967 Carnival for 2/6.
Published by City

April 1974 Carnival
from Williams at 35p (7/-)

Carnival also ran special issues, such as a 1956 annual (2/6) boasting '26 gorgeous girls in full colour', and in 1957 produced a spin-off, Rhapsody in Colour, which was an all-colour special for 5/-, more than twice the price of the monthly.

What happened to Carnival after 1959 is unclear. The title seems to disappear from the scene by 1960.

However, the name was back on the streets in 1966 from City Magazines.

City published Men Only and the weekly Parade in the 1960s. In 1965, Parade Carnival was published in a sub-A4 format. By December of the same year, Carnival Parade appeared. A standalone monthly Carnival was certainly published with a February 1966 cover date.

By 1974, City had folded and Carnival was published by Williams.

Knitted cardigans and pipes are essential accoutrements in the faux nostagalic world of The Chap (issue 10)

The Chap Back to top

1998-
The Chap is a 'satirical magazine for modern gentlemen' that harkens back to an era of pipes, slippers and knitted jumpers. Its readers gather, wearing tweeds, deer-stalkers and plus-fours, to protest against the vulgarities of modern life. If you want moustache news and somewhere to buy a monocle, this is the place. The editor of the quarterly is Gustav Temple; the artistic director is Vic Darkwood.

The format of this men's magazine is more akin to an A5 book and it is more likely to be found in the magazine section of a large bookshop than a newsagent.
The Chap website

Charm (issue 4) with glamour, pin-ups and features

Charm (issue 24)

Charm [closed] Back to top

Modern Fiction (London) Ltd, 6 Morwell St, WC1. Ed: Al Hyde. Printed by EHT (Printers) London N7.
1956-? (at least 28 issues). Small format (4.75in x 7.25in)

Nude art studies of the month: The magazine for students and photographers. Also published film studio shots.

Issue 4 here from 1956 ran pin-ups of Gina Lollobrigida, Felicia Farr (later married to US actor Jack Lemmon), Ludmilla Tcherina and Jane Russell. 34pp.

CKM: the name of was inspired by a machine gun (and it sounds a bit like FHM)

CKM (Poland) Back to top

Verlagsgruppe Jurg Marquard, August/September 1998
Munich-based German group Verlagsgruppe Jurg Marquard launched CKM in Poland. The name comes, just like Maxim, from a type of machine gun, suiting the macho, lads magazine image. VJM runs franchises such as Cosmopolitan and Playboy in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland and Hungary also.
VJM website
CKM website

Club: Jane Birkin on the first issue cover (March 1971)

Club: Raquel Welch on the March 1971 cover. She was also to feature on the July cover that year

Vivien Neves on the August 1971 Club

Brigitte Bardot on the October 1971 Club

Club: last issue February 1972

Club [closed] Back to top

IPC, monthly. June 1970-February 1972
IPC tried to crack the men's market with Club - 'for today's man' and contents page pullers such as: 'If you don't swing - don't come in' and 'Come inside for a look at tomorrow today.' The contents page alternated between the title 'between the sheets' and 'key to the club'.

Club featured topless photo shoots on its colour centre-spreads and often used actresses and models on its covers. Terry Hornet was editor and production was headed by Bridget Rowe - possibly the same woman who went on to edit Women's World (also under Hornett at Carlton) and later the Sunday Mirror and the People. Christopher Ward wrote a column.

Issues were typically divided into four sections:

• Club reports: news and features.
• Sporting Club
• Club Collection: features.
• Pleasure Club: reviews, fashion.

Interposed among the sections were two or three topless photo shoots.

Club lasted just 21 issues. An editorial on the back page of the last issue ('Thank you and good night') claimed that about half a million men read Club each month, but only 80,000 bought it - too few to sustain the magazine. IPC's failure was seen as having wider repercussions: 'The shame is that Club's closing will probably make any other publisher wary of putting out a similar product for young men.' As can be seen in the Men's Magazine History, that statement was prophetic.

Cover models included Jane Birkin (actress in 1966 film Blowup and singer of 'Je t'aime' with husband Serge Gainsbourg); Marsha Hunt (singer in Hair who posed nude for Patrick Lichfield on a Vogue January 1969 cover shot); Raquel Welch (twice); Vivien Neves (in 1971, the first nude model to appear in The Times, who contracted MS aged just 54); and Brigitte Bardot - with the cover line 'The sexual appeal of the older woman'. Bardot was also used as the cover model for the re-issue of Esquire in the UK in 1991.

The January 1971 issue (which has a 1970 copyright because it was on the shelves in December 1970) featured a 6-page article with Michael Caine's byline. In it he described how he had done the research for Get Carter (though the film is just called Carter in the article). It was based on interviews with the man on whom he had based his character. 'I mean, between you and mean,' says 'Jack Carter', 'I could have done porridge for GBH more than once. But it's not like Al Capone when they were running around with tommy-guns. Nothing like. Our firm is British ... It gets a gets a bit rough sometimes. But then life gets rough sometimes, don't it.' Sounds more like Bob Hoskins' Harold in the Long Good Friday. It was the only issue with a topless woman on the cover.

Club International lives on as a top-shelf title (Paul Raymond).

IPC profile

All 21 covers of Club magazine, from June 1970, top left, to February 1972, bottom right. The image was scanned from the last issue of the magazine. The 'New For today's man' flash in the top right corner only dropped the New at issue 9

Clubman: March 1955 (issue 51) included four 3D images of circus acts

Clubman [closed] Back to top

Princedale Press, Pelican Passage, 128 Cambridge Heath Road, London E1. 1950?-1955?
Short stories, cartoons and photographs in sub-A4 format.

Clubroom: issue 38 (1953) included 3D images and glasses

Clubroom [closed] Back to top

Bayard Production Ltd produced this sub-A4 format title. 1950s

Code with Liv Tyler on the cover 'for men of substance'

Code [closed] Top

Monthly; Surcutus, Cornwall. November 2001-?
The first issue of this magazine 'For men of substance' cost £3 for 132 pages under editor Nigel Pengally. Liv Tyler was interviewed and on the cover, with other interviewees Jane Fonda and Jason Flemyng, whose Snatch follow-up Rock Star had just come out.

Company for Men: December 1979 issue with 44 pages

Company for Men [closed] Top

National Magazine Co, London. 1979-80? Printed by Mondadori, Verona, Italy

Free A4-ish, stapled supplement with women's monthly magazine Company. The December 1989 issue shown here ran to 44 pages. The centre spread photo shoot - 'Blondie the raunchy rocker' - was of Debbie Harry

Company profile

Cosmopolitan Man: the one and only standalone issue

Cosmopolitan Man [closed] Top

National Magazine Company, April 1978 (one issue only)
Cosmopolitan publisher the National Magazine Company noted that many men read their partner's magazine and in April 1978 tried a one-off edition of Cosmopolitan Man. This had French actress Aurore Clément and Jack Nicholson on the cover and cost 50p. There were no more issues. However, Cosmo Man was later published as a section inside Cosmopolitan and then as a banded supplement (at least until 1989).
National Magazines profile

Cream, a men's magazine from John Brown as a Bizarre special

Cream [closed] Back to top

John Brown, December 1988-?
The publisher of Bizarre came up with this special 'for men with bottle'.
John Brown profile

Cut: Bauer's attempt at a weekly men's magazine lasted just three months

Cut [closed] Back to top

H Bauer, 12 August 2004-11 November 2005 (on sale Thursday)
The German publisher behind popular women's weeklies Take a Break and Bella tried to break into a different market with Cut. Reports put its investment at £8 million. Simon Geller, former editor of Men's Health, headed the title. TV advertising backed the launch, which the company must have seen as a mass-market title, into the booming men's weekly sector being created by IPC and Emap. The first issue was priced at just 50p, rising to £1. It took a different approach from IPC and Emap on the day that official circulation figures showed Nuts and Zoo averaged half-a-million sales a week in their first six months.

The new title took 'the best' from newspapers and magazines (including Emap's Zoo!). This strategy had been used for several years by Dennis with The Week and the Guardian with its Editor supplement. The first issue culled from 54 papers and 185 mags for a mix of news, humour, gadgets, quizzes, sport, cars and, of course, women, although the flesh count was refreshingly low.

However, in October, Marketing Week reported that Bauer had stopped taking any advertising for Cut (14 October 2004, p15), and was rumoured to be gearing up for a relaunch. By November, Press Gazette saw 25 editorial jobs under threat as Bauer said it was reviewing the future of the title (11 November).

The issue published on 11 November was the last. Print Week said sales had fallen to just 10,000 after an initial print run, believed to have been about 700,000 copies, at Quebecor World in Corby (25 November, p9). 'It has been criticised for the poor quality of paper on which it was printed and the editorial content, which aimed to tone down the "booze and birds" focus of its rivals,' said Print Week.

The Brand Republic website ('Cut fails to make it as Bauer pulls plug on men's weekly,' 10 December) said Bauer blamed a 'highly competitive and promotionally led market'. David Goodchild, managing director of Bauer, was quoted as saying: 'Cut was an exploration of new territory for the company. The intent was to provide men with an alternative weekly read to the lad's weeklies.' Brand Republic said unofficial industry figures put sales of the first full-price issue at just 30,000.

Geller went on edit Sky, the free magazine for the 7 million subscribers to the satellite TV channel, at customer publisher John Brown Citrus.

H Bauer profile