101 Reasons to Stop Writing

Oregon, IL (Dec 5) — Editors and staff of sci-fi and horror fan magazines Starlog and Fangoria today announced their participation in the inaugural International Back-Issue Bonfire Day, and marked the occasion by incinerating their entire stock of previous issues of both magazines, along with the warehouse where they were stored.

Tony Timpone, editor of Fangoria, spoke about the event while roasting a s’more over the smoldering remains of copies of Fangoria #37, with Gremlins on the cover. “International Back-Issue Bonfire Day is an opportunity for the print magazine industry to move forward by burning the bridges to the past. Literally. Storing the old issues was holding us back. We’ve always over-printed Fango and Starlog, hoping to keep a lid on the collector trade. But the end result after years is an entire warehouse full of magazines that no-one wants. Sure, once in a while someone orders some issues with old Joss Whedon interviews in them, but we had an entire pallet of copies of Fango #142. Where’s the groundswell of interest in on-set photos of Halloween 6 going to come from? Does anyone even remember Tales from the Hood? It’s a shame the warehouse had to burn down as well, but if it survived, we’d've just filled it up again. Now we have to find a better solution.”

“Many people in the biz seem to think that just because the content is printed on paper that doesn’t turn to dust after a month, that somehow it’s meant to stay around forever, like it’s some kind of literature or something.”

Starlog editor David McDonnell agreed. “Starlog is dedicated to gushing puff pieces about Hollywood’s upcoming visions of a socially homogenous, spandex-clad, scientifically impossible future. We’re all about the cutting edge of science fiction in film, and shots of hotties with prosthetic makeup. We’re not about the past. Our core readership already know which episodes of Star Trek: Voyager Jeri Ryan appears in, and everyone who could possibly give a hoot already knows about the on-set technical problems that plagued the production of James Cameron’s Abyss. Not to mention all those uncritical coming-soon articles about lame skiffy shows that were cancelled before the issue hit the stands. Seeing old issues forces me to face how we have always made upcoming movies sound much cooler than they turned out to be, and I can’t handle that when I’m compiling and editing another issue’s worth of kissassery about next season’s batch of disappointing blockbusters. I’m glad the back issues are gone now. There’s nothing cool and sci-fi about warehousing magazines. And it was such a pain in the ass to walk around looking for issue such and such for that same guy in Cleveland who’s completing his collection at the rate of one issue per paycheck.”

The bonfire burned out of control for several hours, fuelled by the organic quality of much of the magazines’ contents. Firefighters fought valiantly to save the last copies of Starlog #287, with Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider on the cover, but the fire’s destruction was total.

“If any of this content was really topical and interesting, we’d blog about it, and if we thought it’d be worth a damn in a year’s time, we’d put it in a book.”

Ian Birch, editor-in-chief of TV Guide and one of the event’s principal evangelists, was on hand to witness the bonfire. “International Back-Issue Bonfire Day is designed to focus the magazine industry on the transience of the material we publish. Many people in the biz seem to think that just because the content is printed on paper that doesn’t turn to dust after a month, that somehow it’s meant to stay around forever, like it’s some kind of literature or something. But most magazines are only good for papier-mâché by the time the next issue comes out. TV Guide is leading by example — we recall unsold issues after three days, and ship them to a power station in upstate New York as a coal substitute. We’re now meeting three percent of Manhattan’s power demands.”

Chris Anderson, editor of Wired, described the fallacy of maintaining stocks of back issues: “Magazine content is designed to be consumed and replaced. Half the stuff in magazines is out of date before it even gets to readers, half is evergreen topics that just get rewritten every six months to a year, and the remaining half you can already find online somewhere else. I mean, look at any issue of Wired from two years ago. Half the stuff we covered has been bought out by Google or Yahoo, half are profiles of companies that have run out of funding and locked their doors and let porno sites take over their domain, half is meandering essays about hip tech trends that the blogosphere has already memed to death by the time we get to it, and the other half were just puff pieces so gadget makers would keep sending us toys. If any of this content was really topical and interesting, we’d blog about it, and if we thought it’d be worth a damn in a year’s time, we’d put it in a book.”

When asked for comment, Harry Knowles, founder of movie rumour website Ain’t It Cool News, replied: “Wow! Ha ha! Magazines like that still exist? That’s crazy! Ha! Who waits around to read about new movies and stuff in a magazine? That’s what the Internet is for, man! That’s a crack-up. I gotta tell the guys in the forums about this. Ha!”

“We’ve both known for years that selling all the back issues was a pipe dream, and that sooner or later we’d have to pay someone to haul them all away. In the long run, torching them will save us money.”

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said this was the ideal time for Starlog and Fangoria to embrace the digital revolution. “Books are works of art, and things of beauty in themselves, worth collecting and preserving. But magazines are just throwaway trash. You read them once then leave them somewhere, hoping someone else will be bothered to dispose of it for you. Most of them seem to roll downhill into dentists’ offices, and I sure as heckfire wouldn’t trust my mouth to a dentist with Fangoria in the waiting room. Books are one-off products, but magazines are ongoing synergies between advertisers and readers motivated enough to spend money on something. That’s why the dead-tree print magazine model is dying. You can’t synergize a dead tree. Fango and Star … Starlo should go fully digital, and publish electronically, like maybe on the Amazon Kindle! Yeah, that’d be neat. Readers could download back issues instantly rather than sending in a check and waiting six weeks. Only, the screen on the Kindle is small, and mono … monochromo, so readers would have to put up with that for a few years until the Kindle 2 or 3, when we’ll charge them another four hundred bucks for a color screen. I’d love to read all the back issues of Starlog on my Kindle. Anyone who’s seen the design of the Kindle knows I’m a huge Star Trek geek.”

Editors Timpone and McDonnell expressed confidence that participating in International Back-Issue Bonfire Day was the logical next step in rethinking their magazines for the 21st Century. “We’ve both known for years that selling all the back issues was a pipe dream, and that sooner or later we’d have to pay someone to haul them all away. In the long run, torching them will save us money. We’ve both got complete collections at home, of course. Look for them on Ebay real soon.”

Stephen Jayson Harris covered the magazine industry for Business 2.0, until it closed earlier this year. No bonfire was held — remaining back issues were pulped and recycled into pink slips.