Nothing is sadder than getting your favorite magazine and seeing “LAST ISSUE” pasted somewhere on the cover…unless it’s waiting for that magazine and later finding out that it stopped publishing without even getting a chance to say goodbye.
For me, they would be The Wittenburg Door, a religious satire mag written by religious people. You can get a small taste of what is was like here.
It was definitely a product of its times, but I really enjoyed Spymagazine. As a tool for satirizing celebrities and politicians, it couldn’t make it today – that’s what the Internet’s for.
Briefly, when I was a kid, there was a magazine called Provoking Thoughts. It had a lot of great math and logic content, geared towards curious children. I was one of the original subscribers when it started up, and enjoyed it right up until the company went bankrupt.
And it’s technically still around, but the modern Scientific American is so far fallen from its heights that it might as well not be the same magazine. Not only are the classic columns like “Amateur Scientist” and the math columns by Gardner and Hofstadter gone, but the general reporting now falls prey to any crackpot willing to write up a few pages.
Some magazines I miss are still around, but they’ve changed so much, effectively “my” magazine is dead.
I miss Omni, Starlog, Science '80, TV Guide (the “real” one, not the crap that exists now), Popular Hot Rodding (it “died” about 1980, if you ask me, but was still in print not so long ago).
Command - it’s a wargaming magazine, the perfect mix of historical background and game complexity. It went new places with game mechanics and topics, current ones don’t even try.
The 70s and 80s versions of Popular Photography and Modern Photography.
Yes, I know there is a current PopPhot and it pretty much swallowed up (or merged with) ModPhot, but it is nowhere near the same. ModPhot had nuts and bolts and PopPhot had techniques galore, both crossing over into each other’s forte, too. Any month growing up as a photographer, I could get my tech-y fix, learn new (to me) techniques, and see what was happening all over the wonderful world of photography.
Online sources, such as dpreview and others, are nice, but there was just something major cool about holding those mags in my hands, reading them on lunch breaks, going back to an older issue in my pile to reread something based on a current Q, etc…
Even Shutterbug has changed with the times. I get it online now, via my tablet.
The way Sky & Telescope has changed over the decades is a little disappointing, as well. I liked the boring details, ya know? One super important current plus for me, tho, is the online customizable sky chart. Adjustable to my exact location for any time of day (or night). Try doing that in a dead tree mag!
I know it’s mostly because of the changing landscape of publishing, and some things are actually better now, but I can still miss those old rags, right?
As a kid I spent countless hours reading Cracked and Mad but I can’t say I miss them now because I’m not their audience anymore but I loved them back then.
I miss Computer Gaming World. But when it was in its heyday. The issues were sometimes over 200 pages long and had real journalism. It became a shell of its former self and then died.
As a kid and teenager I loved pouring over TV Guides each week. The articles. The Cheers and Jeers and planning what shows I would watch. I would often check the schedules of the movie channels for any late night “To Be Announced” entries because they would often be premieres of movies months before they were supposed to air (it was often near the end of the year so I assume they did it for tax purposes).
I also miss many SF magazines:
Aboriginal SF
Realms of Fantasy
Galaxy
Worlds of If
Fantastic (especially in the Barry Malzberg era)
Omni
In general magazines, I miss Newsweek. I subscribed for over 30 years, but quit just before the end when they tried to be relevent. To a certain extent, I miss the original Life, which I read as a kid.
Wow, I thought I’d come in here and be the only one to mention Spy and here it’s already received a couple of mentions. I guess great minds do think alike.
The British kids magazine Look and Learn damn well educated me as a kid in the 70s: the breadth and quality of the articles was astonishing, and the artwork was captivating. Here’s a sample: it’s amazing to reflect that this stuff was pitched at 12 year olds, and very successfully. If I have a love of history now, this magazine is why.
3-2-1 Contact was my favorite as a kid. I miss it in the nostalgic sense.
Entertainment Weekly has experienced the magazine version of “network decay”. I miss it from 5-10 years ago. It was for the masses, but was a lot smarter. Back when Stephen King wrote an article every now and then.
