Review: MyMag part 3, RatMag

The third in my roundup of MyMags, RatMag is a little different from AOKI and Hey Olivia!

Firstly, guest editor Brett Ratner’s creations have a little more mainstream recognition, being the director of movies including the Rush Hour series and X-Men: Last Stand. Secondly, as his job suggests, he’s a lot more interested in visual style than the others.

He’s also a lot closer to the publishing world, as a friend of current Interview owner Peter Brant, as well as being a former guest editor of Vogue Hommes.

He uses his MyMag to pay tribute to both friends and mentors. From the opening spread – a photograph by Ratner of legendary producer Bob Evans kissing Helmut Newton on the cheek, apparently the last ever photo taken of Helmut Newton – Ratmag has a greater depth, and a deeper understanding of its format, than the other two MyMags.

The cover follows the same basic format of the other two: title plus a list of publications featured, all in the title’s chosen pantone, in this case a deep red. Instead of handwriting, we get faux letterpress – less personal but more stylish. I’ll speak more of the cover photo later, but again it’s a move away from the closely cropped publicity-style stills of the others.

We get the same simple contents format as the others, then the editor’s letter. It starts promisingly. “If I weren’t a film director, I would probably be a magazine editor. When I was pitched the concept for MYMAG, I was shocked – how did they know I had a treasure trove of favorite magazine articles saved in my closet? When would I ever get to consolidate all my favorite articles into one magazine?

“MYMAG has made my fantasy a reality. Not only does it offer an opportunity to introduce some of my favorite images by the photographers I love – Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton – but it also gives me a chance to show all my magazine photography in one place. I had a lot of material to choose from, and I tried my best to separate the wheat from the chaff.”

Unlike the other magazines, he then goes into some detail about most of his choices, explaining a little of their context, and what they mean to him.

In the opening, exclusive material pages, we get two double-spread pictures of Ratner with Helmut Newton and Hollywood mogul Dino de Laurentiis, then six pages of scrapbook, first of memorabilia, from high school pictures to set passes, then pictures of him with famous faces, with a couple of notes from the influential and famous thrown in. It all feels a bit much, as if trying to cement his legacy and place among the more-famous and more-established, though true Ratner fanboys may enjoy it. (Is he yet a sufficiently distinctive auteur to have many of those?)

Two of his choices focus on Roman Polanski. The magazine doesn’t mention his arrest – it’s certainly not clear if it was created before or afterwards. Either way, it’s hard not to read it now as a sort of defence of the man, or at least his legacy.

The first piece comes from a 1981 edition of Rolling Stone, with an illustration of Polanski on the cover. We get all six pages of a long, well-written interview by Mitchell Glazer, along with the advertisements that appeared next to it (“More and more doctors are recommending his birth control method to her.”)

The pages have greyed a little with age, and there’s no attempt to clean that up, which means you get something of the sensation of reading the actual pages. It scales down to MyMag’s page size rather well, and the article remains a highly readable portrait of an eccentric, egotistical and masculine director at the height of his fame.

Before the second Polanski piece, we get a curious four-page article by Ratner about how badly he was treated at a five-star Cannes hotel during the film festival. It’s an odd piece for a few reasons, not least because it completely lacks context (it was actually printed in Variety’s V-Life magazine, which goes uncredited – perhaps because it doesn’t quite fit alongside the other titles in the magazine: Rolling Stone, Interview, Paris Vogue, Vogue Hommes, Spy).

It doesn’t quite have the weight or broader historical context of most of the other articles he’s chosen, and its design stands out as being more lightweight than the rest. It also suffers from the same problem as AOKI – it may make the fans happy, but putting your own work into a selection of your favourite magazine articles doesn’t come across as particularly humble.

Next we get the Dec/Jan 1976/7 edition of Paris Vogue. It may or may not be the only time they haven’t put a photograph on the cover, as Ratner claims, but its cover was still pretty remarkable. One of the reasons this issue hasn’t been featured much in classic magazine discussions could be because, only two months after it came out, Polanski is alleged to have had sex with a minor, and according to her testimony, he had showed her a recent issue of Vogue that he had made, and told her he wanted to feature her in a future edition.

Still, that’s not the magazine’s fault, and it’s interesting to see part of the issue. Unfortunately, we don’t get much content created by Polanski himself in these pages, restricting itself to a silly small strip of pictures showing a mock fight with the magazine’s editor, and then we only get images from Polanski’s childhood and stills from his films – in fact, it comes across a bit like a MyMag, which makes the whole thing rather meta.

The French text isn’t translated, which feels a bit of a missed opportunity, especially given the space around the pages. But this magazine isn’t so much something to read as to look at, as we’ll be reminded later.

Next is something of a quirky treat, a selection of images from Guy Bourdin’s lingerie catalogue, shot for Bloomingdales in 1976. It was the only publication that Bourdin himself created. Ratner’s editor’s letter doesn’t illuminate much about his memories of it, or his choice, beyond being by “one of the greatest fashion photographers”. Accompanying the front cover is an excerpt from Artforum about its historical importance, which seems considerable, within its world.

Without Bourdin’s name, it would be an odd curio; with it, the pictures deserve closer examination. It’s certainly an unusual and fascinating piece of work. My favourite detail was where he featured one of the required outfits only on a Polaroid image stuck on a mirror inside another photo.

Next we get Vogue Hommes – this time, with special guest editor Brett Ratner. See above for the odd feeling of narcissism that it generates, and this is also the most-excerpted-from magazine in Ratmag – 23 pages, compared with Rolling Stone’s 7 and Polanski’s Vogue’s 19.

Leaving that aside, the opening Edward Norton piece isn’t anything special, and neither are Ratner’s images. The Steve Wynn piece that follows is much better all round. Then we get an in-depth interview with Ratner’s erstwhile housemate, Bob Evans – he of the opening spread of this magazine – which rather curiously isn’t printed in its entirety. We get two pages of the text, and then it is “Continued on page 272″, which isn’t included in Ratmag. A deliberate act, or a mistake? Either way, it shows that the name and Ratner’s portrait are more important than the article here, which is rather a shame all round, as I was enjoying it.

Then we get a nice piece about an overlooked figure who Ratner has championed (and shot the portrait of, his best in this magazine), Phil Stern – himself a photographer of the glamorous and the good back in the 1950s.

Finally in the mix is Interview. It’s refreshing that Ratner is honest about his friendship with its owner, Peter Brant – however, we only get articles reprinted that were accompanied by Ratner’s words or images. One of them gives a chronological context to the piece in the folio (August 2008), the others are of date unmentioned, which as cultural artifacts leave too many questions unanswered.

First from Interview is a discussion with a friend, James Toback, about his movie Tyson. It’s an interesting piece, and again it’s a shame that it’s cut off midway with a “continued on page 132″, where presumably there aren’t any Ratner photographs to make a reprint worthwhile.

Then we have a pleasantly low-key discussion between Ratner and Michael Jackson, presumably printed before Jackson’s death – this time, probably because the words are Ratners this time, the end of the interview, “continued on page 126″, is printed. Finally, we get an interview and photo by Ratner of Hugh Jackman, of the offhand kind that Interview does so well. Again, despite the piece being split between the front and the back of the original magazine, it’s printed here in its entirety.

And then on the inside back page, Ratmag presents a Rolling Stone obituary of an old Jewish gangster who Ratner knew as a kid, as revealed in his opening editor’s letter. It’s a clever finish, well thought-out and really taking advantage of the archives at his disposal to find something personal and unexpected. Unlike AOKI and Hey Olivia!, the end feels as curated as the beginning.

As in AOKI, the ads inside are for various projects of the guest editor, with the back page taken, as in Hey Olivia!, by search engine Bing.

The one thing I haven’t mentioned yet is the remarkable insert, perhaps the strongest endorsement yet of MyMag’s potential. It’s a rather odd and potentially libellous fold-out from a 1989 edition of Spy magazine, that rather wonderfully sums up both the publication and its approach (and explains why it isn’t around any more). The reprint has been done with care, and seems to be actual size, which is especially lovely for a print fan like me.

It’s content is about James Toback as a sexual predator, trying to get women off the street and into his bed. It lists his pickup lines, and follows the sequence of some of his unsuccessful conquests (no successful ones are included).

Ratner describes it in his editor’s letter as “one of the most slanderous (but colorful) exposés on another mentor of mine… It’s obvious that the woman who wrote the article was either a feminist or was just disgruntled because Jim refused her advances. It is by far the most entertaining article filled with lies and bullshit I’ve ever read.” Which makes you wonder why he would reprint it, unless it’s a private joke that we’re not in on. Either way, Toback comes across atrociously in it, but it is, as Ratner says, very entertaining.

Overall, the content of Ratmag can be summed up as Real Men, written with a capital B for cojones. Helmut Newton, Roman Polanski, Bob Evans, Guy Bourdin, Hugh Jackman, Ed Norton, James Toback, Mike Tyson – these are either men who womanize and shock, or who portray shocking womanizers. Strength, ferocity, control are the key words throughout. The only exception is Michael Jackson, whose sheer star power seems to outshine his lack of Big Man-ness.

As the offhand, sexualised cover itself suggests, this is about men being men, and women being pretty (or disgruntled feminists) – which makes this by far the most potentially revealing of the three MyMags, in terms of the psyche of the person behind it. It just doesn’t necessarily make it a pleasant read, depending on your tastes.

That said, it’s by far the most visually interesting and stylish of the three MyMags, and contains more than enough to please Ratner’s obsessive fans, if indeed they exist in any great numbers.

If print fetishists were to choose one Mymag to buy, then they should definitely go for RatMag. Just mind the balls.

A brief summary of the MyMag experience

It’s a smart idea, created by a strong team with plenty of contacts and specialists in rights management. With some higher profile guest editors – and hopefully at least one without an overwhelmingly male target audience next time – this could build into a very interesting series.

However, it still feels like it needs more editorial guidance and structure. I’d suggest dividing the MyMags into three clear sections: exclusive content, the chosen person’s magazine cuttings featuring themselves, and then their chosen articles that don’t feature them or were buy them. Otherwise, their selection within the conceit of “they’ve chosen from a world of magazines” comes across as egotistical.

I also want to see more connection between the people and their choices – perhaps a spread that you read clean, and then on the next page is repeated, annotated by the editor, explaining their choice, what it means to them, and why. Too many of the articles feel just added in to make up the numbers, or that the editor chose only the title, and not the articles. If that’s actually true, then it shouldn’t be; if it’s not true, then it shouldn’t feel that way.

And with the exception of RatMag, they just end, abruptly and unsatisfactorily. A good ending can completely change how a reader views a publication, and with AOKI and Hey Olivia!, the opportunity is missed. A little more schooling in publication rhythm and flow would benefit all parties.

All that said, this is, after all, three launch issues at once. Improvements will surely come, and I look forward to see what MyMag does next. I’m all for anything that celebrates print in such an imaginative and personal way, particularly one with a unique financial model, and high production values.

And so, despite my reservations about the execution so far, I’m really looking forward to their next set of publications – whoever they’re called.

Tomorrow: an exclusive interview with Magnus Greaves, founder of MyMag.