zine freak

zine freak friday

i, like many other women, have always been a huge, huge fan of magazines. i mean, just huge!! i’ve bought magazines in stores, off of newsstands in airports and on the lovely streets of nyc, subscribed to a slew of them…any way to get ‘em, i’ve got ‘em.

i think the very first magazine i ever purchased was right on!, or maybe it was black beat, but whichever it was the addiction to all that information and those beautiful (and not-so-beautiful) pictures started right there.

when vibe magazine was launched in 1993 by the one and only quincy jones, it was absolute music magazine heaven for me. the magazine featured in-depth interviews with all of my favorite people, great photos, stories of up and coming music artists…and the magazine just spoke to me and my friends. to my generation.

i had a new love…magazines.

being the “collector” that i am (ha!) i still have the premiere issue of vibe (to my husband’s dismay) and several others that feature biggie, mary j., tlc, jodeci, mase…

but of course it wasn’t all about music magazines. i was knee deep into the fashion scene too (i majored in fashion design) so picked up vogue and bazaar along the way, and when i attended the f.i.t. in nyc it was mandatory in one of my classes for us to purchase w and wwd (women’s wear daily). oh, where on earth had w been all my life? it was like on a another planet of magazines to me. the size, the images, the information… just wow.

and then oh my goodness…when honey magazine launched a couple years later i nearly lost my daggone mind. i’m talking about a quickened heartbeat and the whole nine. (yeah, magazines get that deep for me.) i’m serious. to me, this was the perfect magazine for young and fly african-american women. this was it. and when i found out it was launched by two young women…i was beyond inspired. the magazine has since changed hands a number of times and isn’t quite the same now, but that’s another story.

after college i got an internship at a popular entertainment magazine and later became the associate editor. so for nine years, not only was i knee deep in love with magazines, i was able to see what makes them tick, see readers’ reactions firsthand, and have some control over the magazine’s direction. honey, it couldn’t get any cooler than that.

we had subscriptions to a fair number of magazines, trade publications and tabloids like the hollywood reporter, billboard, star, people, the source, xxl… and part of my job was to scour magazines. how great was that? oh, it was great, let me tell you. then at home i had everything coming in from food & wine to jane to lucky. and come on, who didn’t get excited when lucky pounced on the scene? i know i was.

i won’t even get into all of the magazines i discovered while i was pregnant! some of them i didn’t even have to subscribe to because my doctor’s office had a stack of freebies they gave away. now how daggone awesome is that?

i think i’ll always get excited when i discover a new glossy and i figured hey, maybe you get excited over them too. i mean, maybe you don’t get the whole quickened heartbeat thing going, but you know. so i’ve decided to launch zine freak fridays!! woooooooohooooooooooo!! i’ll mention a new magazine every friday (and some of them may just be ezines), tell you a line or two about it (or maybe more if i feel up to it), and let you know how you can subscribe. now how’s that sound? actually, i don’t care how it sounds ’cause i’m doing it anydaggoneway. ha!

i’ve discovered bunches of magazines recently, but if you’ve got some ideas then shoot them over to me at mamasgotmoxie(at)gmail(dot)com.

© 2008 mama’s got moxie.