Magazines are dead. Long live magazines.

Print is dying. No, I'm not going to bother backing that up, I'm pretty sure we all know and realise that. Ad sales are down, magazines are rapidly dwindling to nothing, major newspapers are folding. Hell, the Rocky Mountain News is no longer in print, and the Boston Globe isn't looking too healthy.

Magazines are dying too, but not all of them. Because, it seems, the magazines that are vanishing are the ones that use their pages solely as a way to transmit information. Magazines like Cosmo, Time, Maxim, EGM and Wired all come out regularly, and use their pages to bring as much information (though I use the term loosely) as they can to their readers, and that's it. Because of this, the paper is usually as low quality as they can get away with, and so too is the writing and content. The problem with this is that all this information is available easier, cheaper and faster online.

The ones that are arising in their place, however, are fetish magazines. Not in the kinky sense (though there are those too), but in a more traditional manner, as objects of worship. This is the magazine as an Object in and of itself. These are magazines that you don't buy for what's in them, but rather to possess them. They are high quality, of inherently niche topic, and designed to be kept. You don't throw them away in the recycling a week after you get them, rather they're closer to art books. The message isn't in the medium, the medium is the message.

The two that spring to mind (though both are occasionally NSFW), are Coilhouse and Filament. Coilhouse is home to the weird and the wonderful. Each page is stunningly laid out on heavy stock paper, with gorgeous photography and illustrations. Even the advertisements are freakishly beautiful. Filament is a magazine of intelligence and male nudity aimed at "the female gaze". Once again, it doesn't come out very frequently, and it's an object to be purchased as a thing of beauty in its own right.

A wonderful historic example of this is the magazine Gentry, which was aimed squarely at the upper-class British male, and it even came with fabric samples woven in. Once again the importance was in the object itself, as a permanent Thing.

Another excellent example (though in fiction) is Jon Armstrong's novel Grey (available for free as an ebook here). The plot in the book is by all accounts mediocre, but it's worth reading just for the outfits. It is pure clothing porn in a way I can't even begin to explain. In the novel, the main character is a devotee of the magazine "Pure H".

Then she introduced me to Pure H and everything changed again. Published every other month, the magazine is one-half meter square and printed on the most luscious and expensive paper made. It is a joy to touch and hold. But the most extraordinary thing about the magazine is that one anonymous person produces it. Although I’d heard speculation about who he might be, I preferred to enjoy his art without worrying about identity. He photographed every photo. He wrote all the copy. And each issue was a complex puzzle to be savored and deciphered.

You know what? I love this trend. I love the idea of magazines that exists as an Object itself, more than its readily pirated contents. An Object of inherent value. Magazines are dead. Long live magazines.