What would you like to see in a Magazine?

[demonchild781]

[COLOR=DarkGreen][FONT=Arial Narrow][CENTER]My friends and I were thinking about starting are own magazine through self publishing. So I've been asking around what people would like to see or contibute to it, then I thought of you guys on OB. You guys are from all over the world and of all ages, what better way to find out what to put into a magazine then by asking such a massive group the question.

Some of our basic ideas were wrapped around an advice column, comic strips, and embrassing moments.

So, what would [B][I]you[/I][/B] like to see in a magazine?[/CENTER][/FONT][/COLOR]

[Morpheus]

Funny news. Fark.com has bundles of it, and I'd really like a no-loading compendium of lots of stories.

[Panda]

I've always been partial to strange bits of news. Not like "Weekly World News" that is all just made up, but stories like how someone has removed themselves from the gene pool in an interesting way. Darwin Award quality of death. Or stupid criminal stories like the guy who went streaking at a Denny's restaurant in the winter, left his car running so he could make a quick get away and unfortunately had his car stolen while he was in the restaurant. So he ran out into the snow to find his car gone. No clothes, no car and now a criminal record since the police picked him up. Funny/stupid stories. They are always good for a laugh.

Best of luck with your magazine!

[NinjaJedi007]

Girls! Sex appeal sells anyway and works pretty well for the most part :catgirl:

[demonchild781]

[COLOR=DarkGreen][FONT=Arial Narrow][CENTER]Lol. Omg, thank you. All of your ideas were completely awesome and I probably would have never thought of them on my own...as for the chick thing...I know sex appeal sells. That's what we're trying to work on to get both chicks and dudes to want to buy/read our mag. So if you might want to elebrate on your idea, that would really help.

Some other ideas that have come up through others was an anime/manga section and a gamer section. Mostly of Nintedo and PS2 until I find a hardcore Xbox fan. We're also thinking of different contest we can run. Like poetry or short stories, and photography bits. We're also thinking of having a tech support and monthly adventures from the outting club at one of the local colleges.

So keep the ideas flowing! The more the merrier :)[/CENTER][/FONT][/COLOR]

[Brasil]

Is this going to be a print magazine or an online publication?

And you can't go wrong with science-fiction reviews, analysis, etc., like what goes on at [url]www.somefantastic.us[/url]. ~_^

Advice columns and all are interesting, but why not cater to the nerds, as well? There are far more Trekkies out there than backpackers, after all.

[Pumpkin]

[FONT=Arial][SIZE=2]First of all, who is the magazine going to be distributed too? I know you said to women and men but is this for your highschool? College? or just for anyone in town to read? It takes a lot to have a zine of some sort especially if its for free and if you don't have someone to help you with the design it'll be tough. The appearance is sadly pretty important. But anyways...

I think the Advice collum is a great idea. Other ideas I might add would be maybe you could write about events and in general just write about fun and exciting things happening around you. Contests and things that will involve the community will obviously attract people, maybe a raffle of some sort. Also I like Panda's idea, reading about stupid people is fun lol. I also recommend maybe having members submit their articles for a way for people to contribute somehow, that would be fun to have. Hope that helped some. And good luck with your magazine! [/FONT][/SIZE]

[Drifting soul]

The things I read magazines for are real life stories since they're interesting and make you think. Maybe you could ask people to send you some of those. I hope this suggestion helped a little.

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]Interesting, most interesting.

I have to admit that I don't read many magazines aside from my monthly issue of PC Zone and the National Geographic that arrives in the post on what could be loosely described as a monthly basis. I suppose I'd like to see a magazine like Alex suggested that catered towards nerds rather than any other group, the trials and tribulations involved in being a nerd, though I have a sneaking suspicion many issues would degenerate into either "[I]Who's the hottest Trek babe[/I]" debates, or the infamous "[I]Kirk vs. Picard[/I]".[/SIZE]

[quote name='Panda']Or stupid criminal stories like the guy who went streaking at a Denny's restaurant in the winter, left his car running so he could make a quick get away and unfortunately had his car stolen while he was in the restaurant. So he ran out into the snow to find his car gone. No clothes, no car and now a criminal record since the police picked him up.[/quote]

[SIZE=1]Damn I feel sorry for that poor amadáin, I can't imagine what kind of story he'd have to try and spin in order to explain why he was in that position, that is of course if he didn't want to get in deeper trouble over the whole streaking incident. [/SIZE]

[Morpheus]

Answer lots of reader mail in each issue. Try to do at least a page per week (i.e. a monthly will do well with four [B]FULL[/B] pages). It helps a lot.

If you do video games, fill a few (3-5) pages with simple, quick classic reviews. Review Notable games like pong and space invaders.

[Sinistra]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype]Y'know DC, I thought about it for a long...two minutes :animeswea...and thought up the fact that:

We have the Picture Caption Games here on the OB. Why not have half of a page dedicated to that? I know a lot of us here like to participate. Plus, it gets publisher/reader interaction going, even if it's rather simple. It's a start. But I don't know, it's just a suggestion.[/FONT]

[John]

Sinistra's idea could be pretty good, if you could get the right photos. That thing works well in gaming magazines (I've seen it in PSM), but that's probably largely due to the fact that they use game screenshots, which are already detached from reality and thus well-rendered to comedy. Being able to accomplish the same with photos (or even random paintings or what-have-you) would be a chore, but well worth it if it could be done right.

I've always envisioned that if I started a magazine, it'd be me and maybe a couple people who would write about literally whatever the hell we could think of, lol. I've got no hardcore interest in any field of life, so I think it'd be pretty unique to really take that fact as absurdly far as I can, and whenever I (or my co-writers) actually tried to review something like a movie or game, we might include facts that are intentionally grossly inaccurate. Maybe also do fake interviews, though making it very obvious that they're fake, heh. I don't know if that would help you any, but it may create a spark or something for you. ^_^

[RedSkyCoffee]

[size=1] You should have a music section, everybody likes music xD [/size]

[Shi no Tenshi]

I'd say environmental issues, politics and how today's youth can get involved. Not something you'd necessarily would have to base your magazine on - a page side would probably suffice.

[Esther]

[COLOR=SlateGray][FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=1]Yea, there has to be a lot of color to it. Possibly on the cover, people won't pick it up if it just has plain boring stuff on it.

You might want to use various colors, all splashed on it. Then maybe a picture to go right in the middle, I know I would definately pick it up and see what it's all about.

Oh! There should be a section where readers can send in their own story to be published in. That would be fun!

Most magazines use gossip, but I don't know if that would be such a good idea to implement in it just yet. As the magazine progresses gradually add new sections.

I think that's all to my suggestions. Good luck.[/SIZE][/FONT][/COLOR]

[luzkage]

I'd like to see interviews with manga artists or anime creators about romantic pairings of their characters. Lolz, that's just me. More importantly, how about background information to obscure characters such as D from Vampire HUnter D through the answers of the interview. Inspirations and motivations of the creators ought to be considered as well. ^_^