Men's magazines: an A to Z

The Man, based on reprints from Australia's Man for the UK

Man (Australia) [closed] Top

K.G. Murray Pub. Co., Sydney, 1936-1974
Australian men's magazine based around pin-ups, cartoons, features and fiction. Man spun off several titles with similar formats, including The Man (British reprint); Pocket Man; Man (US reprint); Man Junior; and Man Senior.
www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/man.html

Man About Town in Australia in 1968. Note the blue ribbon stuck on the front cover

Man About Town (Aus) [closed] Top

Pendle Publications, 77 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria. September 1968-?
Editor Raymond D. White covered fashion, motoring, wines, gourmet, theatre, finance and Australiana in Man About Town. The first issue carried a promotional blue ribbon stuck to the cover.

Man About Town in 1958 in the UK under John Taylor

Man About Town (1950-60s) [closed] Back to top

Tailor & Cutter, 1952-1968 (as Town)
Man About Town was an offshoot of the trade journal Tailor & Cutter. It was launched in 1952 by editor John Taylor. MAT mainly covered fashion but included other areas of lifestyle and became something of a cult publication. It counted such luminaries as Gerald Scarfe, Michael Heath, Calman, John Arlott, Raymond Postgate, Mark Boxer and Gilbert Harding among its contributors. It was sold in 1960 to Clive Labovitch and Michael Heseltine. As Cornmarket - later Haymarket - Publishing, this duo made a great success of weekly trade magazine Campaign and applied a formula of stylish photography, writing, editing and design to news weekly Topic and then MAT . The title was later abbreviated to About Town and then Town. At one stage it became a quintessential 1960s magazine, under art director Tom Wolsey, helping to establish photographers such as Terence Donovan and Don McCullin. However, like IPC's Nova, and Jocelyn Stevens' Queen it was not very profitable and closed in 1968.
Man About Town case study
Haymarket profile

Man About Town launch issue cover

Man About Town (2007-) Top

Fashion, twice a year, Autumn 2007-
Man About Town is a men's fashion title published twice a year. Like Wonderland, it is backed by Peter Jones from TV's Dragons' Den. The first issue cost £5 and had a reported a print run of 140,000. Most of the advertising is for upmarket fashion brands.
1960s Man About Town case study

Man About Town in New York in 1939 as a pocket format title

Man About Town (US 1939) [closed] Back to top

Man About Town Publishing Co., 149 Madison Ave, NY. May 1939-?
No advertising in the first issue of this pocket format title, though extensive use of spot colour inside.

Man About Town in 1958

Man About Town (US 1958) [closed] Back to top

September 1958-?
No advertising in the first issue of this near-A4 title. Its contents covered 'entertainment for men' with 'fiction, photography, articles and ribaldry'. Extensive use of colour inside. A reprint, Man on the Town, was published in the UK.

Man and His Clothes

Man and His Clothes [closed] Top

1931?
Man and His Clothes was distributed through tailors and men's outfitters.

Man Junior - a Man spin-off

Man Junior (Australia) [closed] Back to top

Man Junior Magazine Pty, Sydney; printed by Kenmure Press, Nth Lidcombe, NSW. Mid-1950s-?
Stories, pin-ups and cartoon series in this Australian monthly. Spot colour used to liven up illustrations. The editor was Loris A. Laidlawand the publisher: Ken G. Murray. see Man

Man on the Town was a British reprint of a US title

Man on the Town (UK) [closed]

Arnold Book Co., 2 Lower James St, London W1. 1958-?
Man on the Town was a reprint of the US title Man About Town (in the UK, the Tailor & Cutter spin-off with the same name was already established). Like the US edition, Man on the Town carried no advertising. It cost 3/6 for 68 pages.

Man Senior [closed] Back to top

see Man

First Maxim (May 1995) under editor Gill Hudson

Maxim with a CD-Rom on the front cover of issue 4

March 2000 UK Maxim

Last issue of Maxim in the UK - June 2009 - under editor Ben Raworth
In April 2000, Maxim came to South Africa. This cover of model Caprice in bondage tape had been used on the June 1999 cover in the UK to celebrate the 50th issue of the magazine

Maximal, the French Maxim (September 2001)

Maxim Chinese edition in 2005

Maxim (UK) Back to top

Dennis, May 1995-June 2009
Competition for Loaded and FHM in the lads magazine sector with Gill Hudson as launch editor. Dennis made its original fortune in computer magazines, so Maxim had the expertise to mount a CD-Rom on its cover in August 1995, its fourth issue. However, the title was never able to challenge FHM as market leader and generally came in third in the UK sales stakes for lads magazines.

Dennis sold Maxim and most of its other titles outside the UK to Alpha Media in the US in August 2007. It carried on publishing the title in the UK and the website under licence.

When UK Maxim closed in 2009, Dennis was able to claim it was 'the best-selling men's lifestyle magazine in the world' because of the success of its many international editions. The website (maxim.co.uk), launched in 1999, continues and Dennis imports the US edition to the UK.

It was a different story from 1997 in the US. International expansion continued apace after the astounding success of the US edition.

In October 2001, the French Maximal was launched by Hachettte Filipacchi under licence from Dennis. In April 2004, Maxim launched two Chinese editions (in Mandarin and Cantonese) - its 22nd and 23rd international editions. In all, Maxim claimed a readership of 17 million and sales of nearly four million copies a month. The Chinese editions are published jointly with the South China Morning Post.

Guardian interview with Felix Dennis
Dennis profile

Maxim hit US news-stands in 1997 to condemnation from the old guard

Maxim (US) To top

Dennis, 1997-
Felix Dennis was never slow to spot a trend, so took Maxim to the US in 1997. Just like the UK industry before the launch of Loaded, American publishers were sniffy about the concept of the lad's mag. Sean Elder on the Salon website quoted Art Cooper, editor of GQ: '[Maxim] is aimed at losers... Their advertising is beer, underwear and condoms. I always wonder why there is so much condom advertising because their readers are all masturbators.' The detractors were soon scraping egg from their faces as Maxim went on to trounce all the established titles, more than tripling GQ's sales by 2003.
In February 2000 Emap provided competition by launching a US edition of FHM. Maxim had set its 'ratebase' (the guaranteed circulation on which its advertising rates were based) at 950,000. In comparison, GQ and Esquire each promised just 650,000 sales and Details 475,000.
Dennis used the Maxim brand in the US to spin off Maxim Fashion, and Maxim's 'younger brother' Stuff (although the company had sold the UK original to Haymarket). It also used the brand on its music magazine Blender in 2002.
In a Guardian interview (15 August 2005), Felix Dennis foresaw brand extensions for Maxim in the US, and said Maxim steak houses and nightclubs were on the horizon. In October 2006, Maxim announced that a chain of restaurants in the US would carry its name. The first of 15 steakhouses would open in spring 2007, with the rest to follow within five years.
Dennis profile
Guardian interview with Felix Dennis