News from the Magosphere 9th October ’09

Newspaper supplement launches reader campaign
El País Semanal is the Sunday magazine that comes free with El País newspaper in Spain – and a major reason why people buy the Sunday paper. It’s actually very good (if a little thin), at times reminiscent of the heyday of the Sunday Times Magazine in the UK. “Yo leo” means “I read”, and that’s what the TV spots and the website focus on. The site also includes reader-made covers, some of which are really quite good. Can magazines help save newspapers? The Times certainly hopes so

Grazia launches fashion range
Brand extensions keep on running. Whereas the InStyler might want to change its name/logo to avoid a lawsuit

File magazine comes with three hours of free watching
Looks rather good

Wallpaper* makes region-specific covers
Collect them all to spell out the headline. Here’s the missing one from that image. Bonus link: meet the team at an EDO event soon

Men’s Health editors really kind of shy
They should probably be a bit more confident about their industry-leading product

Acido Surtido gets a making-of documentary
The link goes to the trailer. It couldn’t happen to a nicer Argentinean poster magazine. Caution: contains We Make Magazines

How Paper (not paper) keeps going
A former poster magazine themselves, the event-planning/trendcasting company might just be the key

A bomb in every issue
A new book remembers Ramparts, a classic independent American politics magazine (requires registration). Bonus links: roundup of some Ramparts designs, The Fanzine Scene is alive and kicking in the UK

November: when cover lines aren’t needed
Don’t things look nicer without them?

Contraswap lets magazines advertise with each other
Created by one of the owners of Grafik, it seems rather well thought out

5 ways to save magazines!
Alternatively, magazines don’t need saving with gimmicks. I’m with Rex on this one

The living magazine!
A very expensive way of showing the same old thing again, without addressing the same vital questions: how and why will disposable screens be made cost effective and environmentally sound? None of the technology examples they show are designed to be used once and then thrown away. And you thought glossy paper was bad. Bonus link: Will we see a Time/Conde Nast/Hearst e-reader soon? My guess? Probably. And it will fail

We’ll take your leftovers!
Eater blog offers to buy unpublished Gourmet stories. I agree to the sentiment of this piece – it’s kind of sad to see Versailles crumble. Bonus links: Gourmet cover archive, great food magazines are alive and well

Tar magazine “on hold”
Having its founder named as Interview‘s editor in chief might have put a dampener on things. Still, it’s yet to make the In Memoriam wall

The Economist strategy – revealed
Nothing too revelatory, but an interesting read

New Statesman cover morphs Obama and Bush
Now an old visual gag, last seen during the election. First record I can find of it used with two politicians like that is Michael Moore’s music video for Rage Against The Machine’s Testify. Anyone know of earlier?

Artist turns New York Times into poetry using only a Sharpie
Lovely. He has a book of them coming out next year