Magazine Stack

Dazed & Confused landed with Karim Sadli’s photography—beautiful androgynous faces that don’t announce themselves. You just stop and look. It’s the kind of thing that makes you remember why you keep buying magazines instead of scrolling through filtered versions on a screen.

I get why people moved to the internet. Speed. Quantity. Constant refresh. But there’s something about a magazine that asks you to sit with what’s in front of you. You can’t swipe past a photo if it’s on the next page. You have to actually look.

So I keep checking what’s coming out. Milkshake is being philosophical about youth like it’s some lost empire. Front published Biffy Clyro and then put naked women on spreads—Melissa Clarke and three others in poses that don’t apologize. Get off the office chair and do something. I like that approach.

VICE loads up on provocation—Japanese erotica, sensual French film, Richard Kern photographs. I Love Fake is free, 244 pages of city photography, doesn’t really exist but looks like it should. NEON documents Palestinian smugglers in Gaza and German relationships. BLANK just put Wilson Gonzales Ochsenknecht on the cover. POP found Abbey Lee Kershaw for a fashion series and sent this model kid Tavi through Tokyo.

But Wendy is the one that actually gets me. Posters. New comics. Something ruthless about what it chooses to put on the cover. That’s a magazine that knows what it’s doing.

The internet isn’t going anywhere, but print still has teeth.