Bummers. I'm posting this because I've just learned that Mandate magazine has called it quits. Actually, Mandate, Torso, Inches, Playguy and Honcho will ALL be going the way of the water buffalo as of this summer. Their publishing company - Mavety Media - has decided to pull the plug on all their gay titles. It's sad to see these magazines go, but it didn't seem like anyone was putting any love into these magazines in recent years anyway. I mean, when you look at old issues (70's-80's) of Mandate or its counterparts, you can see the love that went into it. The photography, the graphic design. EVERYTHING was better. Then, at some point, it all went downhill - the look, the feel - it adopted a cheap and amateurish quality to it. No style OR substance! The airbrushing got so bad the models just stopped looking real after a while. But I wanna know what will happen to the surely THOUSANDS of photos from all the magazines' archives. I'm assuming they're all in a vault some where. It would be nice to see some kind of online retrospective created. Hopefully, some well-to-do collector will purchase all the stuff and preserve it. Hopefully.
