Men's magazines: an A to Z

Ice first issue of the men's magazine in 2001. Later covers became even more racey. The one below features 'Pammi', Pamela Anderson

Ice / So / Switched On [closed] Top

Ice Publications / Galaxy. 2001-2007
In 2001, Ice appeared from its eponymous publisher. Its covers became more and more indistinguishable from top-shelf titles. It branded itself 'The men's magazine for real men.'

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 title was relaunched with the title So - Switched On. However, this only lasted for three issues and was closed in April. The title lives on as a website.
Switched On website

I-D with singer Sade on the cover for February 1984

i-D Back to top

Levelprint, 1980-
Style magazine that has outlived all its competitors. A feature of the cover is that all the subjects are shown with one eye closed or covered (a visual pun on the smiley-like title i-D). Issues are usually themed: skin, happiness, scratch and sniff. Publisher Terry Jones has published a book about the magazine: I-Dentity: An Exhibition Celebrating 25 Years of I-D Curated by Terry Jones. Dylan Jones became editor of i-D in 1984. He worked on The Face and Arena and is now editor of GQ in the UK.
i-D website

Jack: first issue of James Brown's compact format men's magazine

Jack [closed] Back to top

IFG/Dennis, 2002-August 2004
After bemoaning the state of the men's market, James Brown. launch editor of Loaded and former editor of GQ, set up his own company, I Feel Good and launched film magazine Hot Dog. Then, in 2002, he put his reputation on the line in launching a men's quarterly, Jack. It took the A5 ‘handbag’ format popularised by women's glossy Glamour. It described itself as ‘an orgy of war, animals, fashion, genius and cool’ and ‘another great British men’s mag with lions instead of lager.’ However, Jack failed to achieve substantial sales and, with an ABC of about 33,000 copies, IFG was taken over by Dennis in autumn 2003. Jack was relaunched for its November issue in a larger, sub-A4, format (176mm wide by 255mm - 8mm wider and 29mm taller). However, this did not work either and Jack closed in August 2004, selling fewer than 40,00 copies.
IFG profile
Dennis profile

King: first issue funded by Paul Raymond

King [closed] Back to top

Europress, winter 1964-1967?
According to an obituary of journalist John Sandilands in the Telegraph, King was launched by Paul Raymond: 'Raymond baled out after the first issue, and Peter Sellers, Bryan Forbes, Bob Monkhouse, David Frost and others were persuaded to invest to keep it going.'

King ran colour nudes but was swamped by the likes of Bob Guccione's Penthouse and was taken over by Mayfair in 1967. To save money, the first issue of King used 21-year-old editorial assistant, Jo Brooker, as the cover girl; she later became editor of the IPC weekly Woman.

KO! [not launched] Back to top

Code name for men's magazines that was reported to be in development in 2005 by Daily Express and OK! publisher Northern & Shell.
Northern & Shell profile

Later: Loaded strategy for 30-plus men

Later [closed] Back to top

IPC, 1999-June 2001
Later took the Loaded lads magazine strategy to a 30-plus readership under editor Phil Hilton. Failed to catch on. Closed with sales reported at below 50,000.
IPC profile

Level aimed to come out six times a year with music as its core offering

Level [closed] Back to top

4130 Publishing, Brighton. April/May 1999-?
Editor Chris Quigley put together a mix of people, style, music, film, travel, life and adventure - a mix of 'all things good' that aimed to create 'a brand new hope'. Unfortunately, from the editor's letter it seems obvious that the publishers weren't clear about what Level was and wanted to do. Music was important, though, with pieces on hip hop and a cover interview with The Cardigans.
4130 profile

Lilliput first issue. The cover was by Trier, who always featured a man, a woman and a scottie dog

Lilliput in its heyday (1946)

The last issue (July 1960) - it was taken over by Men Only

Lilliput [closed] Back to top

Pocket Publications/Hulton Press/Longacre Press, July 1937-July 1960
Lilliput, a pocket magazine (stapled, 136x196mm), made a name for Stefan Lorant - the title was bought by Hulton who let Lorant go on to create Picture Post. At sixpence, Lilliput was half the price of Men Only. It was intended for a general audience - subtitled 'The Pocket Magazine for Everyone' - but became a men's magazine after the second world war.

It was a bestseller in its day, famous for its mix of photographs, reportage, cartoons and air-brushed nudes. It 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.

Line [closed] Back to top

Time Life Ent. Group Ltd, Spring 2000
Line was a sports fashion magazine launched by Wallpaper founder Tyler Brûlé. It used two covers: male and female models. Line failed to build on Wallpaper's success and was closed.
IPC profile

Loaded established the lads magazine sector that has spread around the world

Relaunch in May 2005 with a DVD of Lucy Pinder and Michelle Marsh, a price cut and a redesign were designed to protect sales from the new weeklies, Nuts and Zoo

Loaded Back to top

IPC Media, May 1994-
Loaded defined a 'laddish' culture that was ground-breaking and was to reverberate around the world. On television, the same laddish element was seen in BBC programmes such as the sitcom Men Behaving Badly, the sports quiz They Think It's All Over and the irreverent news quiz Have I Got New for You (in which one of the teams was led by Private Eye magazine editor Ian Hislop). Other TV presenters and stand-up comics were part of the trend, such as Paul Merton and Frank Skinner (who was featured on the cover of issue 6 - 'Nudge, nudge, wink, wink: Frank Skinner's world of smut').
A couple of photographs of up-and-coming actress Elizabeth Hurley, an article on hotel sex and a competition to win a dirty weekend in Brighton's Grand Hotel (scene of the IRA's bomb attack on Margaret Thatcher's Conservative party a decade earlier) were as far as the first issue of Loaded went.
Founding editor James Brown wrote a regular editor's letter entitled 'page three', a reference to the Sun tabloid newspaper, which had become famous for its topless women on that very page. In the first issue, Brown wrote: 'What fresh lunacy is this? Loaded is a new magazine dedicated to life, liberty and the pursuit of sex, drink, football and less serious matters. Loaded is music, film, relationships, humour, travel, sport, hard news and popular culture. Loaded is clubbing, drinking, eating, playing and eating. Loaded is for the man who believes he can do anything, if only he wasn't hungover.'
Of course, this is too long for a front cover, so it became 'For men who should know better.' There were variations on this: 'For men who should know letter' for a July 1995 cover on David Letterman; and '...snow better' for the January 1995 cover showing Santa being knicked.
The first issue sold 59,400 copies and Loaded broke the 100,000 sales barrier with its ninth issue, its lads magazine formula overtaking the fashion-based Arena and GQ in the process. Its first audited yearly sales figure was 96,000 - and this rose by 82% to 174,763 for the period Jul-Dec 1995.
Brown went on to edit GQ and found Jack at IFG.
Loaded deputy editor Tim Southwell (and founder of Golf Punk) described the magazine's early days in his book Getting Away with It (Ebury, 1998).
IPC profile

Loaded Fashion was relaunched as Fashion Inc

Loaded Fashion [closed] Back to top

Most of the big men's titles have tried to move into the upmarket fashion niche, launching Arena Homme Plus, FHM Collections and Loaded Fashion. These met with limited success. Loaded Fashion was relaunched as Fashion Inc in spring 2006.
IPC profile

London Gentleman was a free men's magazine distributed to central London homes. Above is the July/August 1985 issue

London Gentleman [closed] To top

Viewstead Ltd. mid-1980s
The London Gentleman was published 10 times a year and distributed free to '200,000 selected homes within a 30-mile radius of central London'. Viewstead was a member of the European Courtesy Magazines Group. The editorial was based on darker side of English sports, sparked by the Heysel stadium disaster.
Customer magazine publishers

London Life was fond of punny cover lines. This issue (9 August 1941) featured: 'Her first flying lesson ... at the Serpentine lido' and 'Another "panky" portrait on page 21'. Another was: ‘Little man you’ve had a busy day, by "Mounted mannequin"’

London Life [closed] To top

New Picture Press, London. 1922-(at least )1960
London Life was a strange mixture of bathing suit pin-ups sprinkled among copious letters pages full of fetishistic correspondence illustrated with readers' drawings and photographs about corsets, stockings, high heels and artificial limbs. The covers were black and white but with spot colour or duotone and occasional use of silver ink. A feature was often made of the middle four pages, which were printed on a coated, thicker paper.

Before the second world war, London Life was published at an A4-ish size, but paper rationing saw it cut down to a much smaller format. Also, its Fleet Street offices were bombed and it moved out to Reading, though later returning to a London address in the Strand.

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

The title London Life was also used by Tatler in the 1960s (London Life / Tatler).

London Opinion during the first year of the second world war. The cartoon caption on the cover of this August holiday issue reads: 'Hello Fred! I got your card saying you wished I was here!'

London Opinion and The Humorist (Nov 1945)

London Opinion [closed] Back to top

George Newnes, 19?-1954
London Opinion was a monthly that merged with Men Only in 1954. A similar formula to Men Only with stories, cartoon and photographs - including a couple of artistic nudes.

The November 1954 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, which showed a cartoon of a Russian sailor. The picture caption read: 'Just a "babushka" turns Pat into Patrushka.' (One meaning of babushka being a headscarf.)