I loved OMNI, even in its wacky phase (maybe especially- I also enjoy FATE magazine in the 1970s before it became an issue-long ad for Llewellyn publications). The real reason for its collapse is that PENTHOUSE stopped making enough money to subsidize it.
I loved, loved OMNI magazine back in the late 70s/early 80s. I was a pre-pubescent during its glory days, I would often buy that and Mad Magazine at the same time, in the same convenience store near my house. A few years later, when I saw my first ever issue of Penthouse (purchased from that same store, from a friendly and helpful clerk I had gotten to know), my first reaction was, hey! This looks like OMNI! Except with naked chicks…
Ahhhhhh, memories. Of course as the 80s progressed it gradually became a hollow shell of itself, which was deeply, deeply sad. I could go back over my collection and try to pinpoint when the hollowing-out became complete, but it would be a depressing excercise.
One of my favorite shot stories was in Omni. It’s by Neil Gaiman but I don’t remember the title.
The story is about an ice-cream truck driver that kills children.
Can anybody point me to a spot where I can buy a copy of that story.
Back to the vaults with it! It can reside next to Superman # 17 (the one of Supie shaking Hitler and Tojo by the scruff of the neck) until the market improves.
Thanks for the info!
“Was that a hawk?!..was that a hawk?!..arrrg! a cat!! nope…owl!! look out!!! just a leaf…DOG! DOG! DOG!…not a dog…HAWK! HAWK! HAWK! robin, sorry everybody!..”
Like duffer Omni was my first magazine subscription as well, at about 12.
One of my favorite “Last Word” articles was a short story about a man who was part of a (para-?) military group flying over a post-apocalyptic city hunting down roving bands of mimes, and remembering that he had lost his son to the mime movement. No idea who wrote it, but it was a fond vague memory of the magazine.
Science magazines of 25 years ago; that takes me back! Remember Science80? It changed its title every year, but I don’t think it made it to Science85.
And there was one called NEXT. Lots of cool articles. It was bimonthly; after about a year, we subscribers got a notice that it was becoming a monthly! Well, I waited and waited. Never got another issue, and after about 6 months I got a letter from Psychology Today saying NEXT had gone under. 
I had never been so disappointed in all my 12 years. Never seen a mention of this magazine anywhere else; I think I’m the only one who remembers it.
Wait, it’s not Neil Gaiman the comic book artist but a different Neil G but he draws lots of single panel cartoons and I seem to recall seeing them frequently in Playboy. They were kind of on the dark and twisted side.
Are you maybe thinking of Gahan Wilson? If not, my apologies.
Yes! That’s him! I can never remember the name right.
Google dont’ fail me now.
I do remember Omni. As a matter of fact, when I was a kid in high school, I saved up a few pennies to buy one of my favorite boardgames that was listed as Omni’s Top Ten: Supremacy, where I began to plot my domination of the known world.
IIRC, there was a scene from Ghostbusters where their proton packs were featured on a billboard for Omni.
Tripler
Aaaah, the memories.
I loved Omni; I was a little too young to get them first-run, but my brother had a big collection that I appropriated. Of course I was a sci-fi geek, so it was okay for me to read them. Each issue had at least one story with a sex scene in it, and I was raised really religious, so it was the closest I could get at that age to porn. (Come to think of it, considering that Omni and episodes of The Hitchhiker on HBO were the closest I could get to porn, it’s amazing that I’m not even more screwed up than I am).
I remember two stories: in a society that has perfected cloning and consciousness-transferral, the ultimate penalty is to be killed, brought back to life, and killed again until you confess/repent/whatever. The creepiest thing about that story was that it said there’s no such thing as “dying in your sleep,” that the act of dying itself, of suddenly not existing, was more horrible than any torture.
In the other, called “Fat Farm” by Orson Scott Card, an obese man goes to a special fat farm where they transfer your consciousness into a new, young, slim body. Unbeknownst to him, his old body doesn’t just go away, but is forced to work as a slave on the farm. The cruelest work leader turns out to be, of course, the first version of him. I remember that one because Card goes through a really lengthy description of when the protagonist meets his first replacement body, and he inspects and embraces it and the whole description is pretty gay. Which I thought was ironic considering Card’s outspokenness about homosexuality.
Now here’s what bugs me: one of the stories had the coolest painting attached to it. I’ll never forget the painting, but have no idea how to get a print of it or even to find out who it was by. The style was a lot like that of an album cover by The Beautiful South. It was a big grass yard with a southern plantation house in the background. A man in a tuxedo with demon wings was playing croquet versus a woman in a white dress with angel wings. Both were smiling. In the background you could see a tornado coming towards the house.
You might try a Google search for the magazine and/or its collectors. A lot of people have stashes of this magazine, including some who have every copy ever published. Some of them may be able to give you information on who painted it and possibly how to obtain a copy of it.
I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.
Any time I find a magazine I really love, it is guaranteed that it will change hands and slide into suckitude.
Omni was probably the first. I read the first issue, and was fascinated by every article. It was great, for a couple of years.
Next was a really good, intelligent health magazine. It started out being called “Hippocrates,” and then became “In Health” (while keeping a special “doctor’s only” version still called Hippocrates), and later became Health magazine. When I saw that the magazine had added two beauty editors, I knew it was time to say goodbye. Farewell to the brilliant but quirky writing of Mary Roach…
And then Walking magazine, which was really a very good and health and fitness resource, and enjoyable read. It was bought out by the evil scourge known as Reader’s Digest.
I’ll try to avoid getting attached to good magazines in the future to avoid spoiling it for the rest of y’all.
I’m pretty sure this story is also by Orson Scott Card. He picked up a very weird reputation for writing stories about torture, and these torture stories always seemed designed to glorify Nietzsche’s dictum that whatever does not kill us makes us stronger.
In fact, I published a story I thought of as my “anti-Card” story that was meant specifically to show that torture destroys people: real-life torture victims never truly recover.
Scott’s a very talented guy and I’m met him and we’re kinda friends - but I agree with his mindset about 0.1% of the time.
Loved that mag when it first came out. Hated the Antimatter section when it showed up, not only for the crappy pseudo-science they were always touting, but also for the silver-on-gray color scheme that really hurt my eyes to read.
I was quite fond of some of the contests they would have, although I only ever entered one of them. It was a challenge to send in descriptions of a single-panel comic you would draw, if you could draw. I sent in about a dozen ideas. One was chosen as a $25.00 runner-up winner, and one got an honorable mention. I was quite stoked to see my name in the magazine, but I never got my twenty-five smackers.
Cheap-ass welching bastard Guccione. He probably spent it on the post-production of Caligula.
Another old Omni reader checking in. Of course, I don’t have issue #1. I don’t think I have an issue #1 of anything. But let’s see … I could’ve sworn I had a few issues from 1978 before I all I can find here in a quick survey of my library are some from 1979-1980. Of course, that would explain why I always mentally connect Ben Bova with Omni, despite his relatively short association with the magazine.
And, oh yea, do I ever remember Sandkings. :: Shudder ::
I remember hearing a science fiction author tell a story at a SF convention about why Omni was able to stay in existence for so long, despite the fact that it was never a big money-maker and probably always lost money. Bob Guccione was willing to lose a little money on it because it was Kathy Keeton’s pet project. But he would never have been able to get it started at all if he hadn’t had the right contacts in the magazine distribution business. Apparently much of the magazine distribution business in the U.S. is Mafia-controlled. (Note: A distributor is neither a publisher nor a newsstand (or bookstore) owner but someone who ships the magazines from the printing presses to the stores or stands.) Guccione persuaded his pals in the distribution business to tell magazine sellers that if they wanted to sell Penthouse, they had to prominently display Omni also. This got him enough initial sales for Omni that it took several years before it became clear that it would never be a significant money-maker.
One thing people don’t realize is that much of the magazine business is very marginal. I’m told that every single political magazine in the U.S. is run at a loss. Every single one, regardless of its political positions or how long it’s been in business. (This doesn’t apply to a few magazines that do general cultural commentary with occasional political articles, although those magazines are marginal too.) All these political magazines are run at a loss as a personal project by some multimillionaire or by a foundation.
I’ve notice that there are a lot of copies for sale on ebay! 