Magazine Death Pool

Weekly World News: RIP July 2007

This hurts the Reaper in a few ways.

First of all, it isn't every publication that features the Reaper itself as a character visiting in many different forms.

Second, forget about most of the garbage sold to you on newsstands. This was always one of the most genuinely entertaining magazines the Reaper read, more than Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair and many others.

Third, we're seeing the shoe drop on the tabloid world. The cultural paradigm is shifting and people can read about exaggerated and questionable things on most blogs. This is why David Pecker is in the hot seat, and the National Enquirer and The Star are losing circulation faster than Paris Hilton goes through dogs.

So down the River Styx goes the Bat Boy, where I have a nice dark cave he can hang and watch "The Maury Povich Show" and "Judge Judy."   

Shock magazine: RIP 2006

You thought FHM was going to be it? C'mon -- it's only December 21st! We have nine more days to scrutinize the value of these tax write-offs. Looks like Ad Age is going to have to add one on to their list of 10 2006 Magazines That Met Their End.

Even the Reaper likes to look at photos of accidents, bruises and stunts every once in a while. You should see me drive -- it's tough when you've got a hood covering your face, so it's difficult to change lanes.

Anyway, seems like I'm the only one that feels this way, and so today the Reaper came for Shock magazine, Hachette's tabloid experiment.

Reason for death is very simple: Nobody was going to advertise in this baby (unless it was Spanish Fly or re-used term papers), so it had to sell on the newsstand in order to live. And we all know what the newsstand is like these days....

So if Mike Hammer, Bill Schulz and the others think they've seen ghastly sights while working on Shock, well, wait until they arrive down here.  It's darker and uglier than what's under Greg Gutfeld's bed.

P.S. What is with these proclamations that the web site is going to continue? Hachette said it with ElleGirl, Emap said it with FHM, and now it's being stated again for Shock. Maybe it's for legal mumbo jumbo, but does anybody really believe either of these parent companies are beefing up the edit staffs of these web sites to make a go at it?