Magazine memories

I am going through all our old files (quite a task) in order to prepare our new digital archiving system. Yesterday I found this image below, which is an old cover design of the magazine Airbrush Art + Action which later changed it’s name to Art Scene International. This was, in fact, one of those first rebranded issues.

I founded that magazine and headed it as Editorial Director for 10 years (give or take a few months), until I decided to leave: my publisher was forcing me to lower my standards which was not something that I was willing to do. One of my editors took over the wheel for a few years but recently the magazine closed down for good.

The interesting thing about this cover is that – personally, I think it was one of our better ones. However, last minute it was stopped by my publisher, something that had never happened before. Most of the time he was not messing with the content but this time he did. It was the start of a very bad habit that eventually justified my decision to leave the publishing house a few months later.

Later I found out why my publisher pulled the cover and had it replaced by a ‘not so good’ version (in my opinion). His explanation: “We don’t put people on our covers, we are an Art magazine. We put art on our covers”.

That was the most absurd statement that I ever heard.

Back then I knew Marissa as a rapidly rising star, and this was also her very first, well deserved article. The photograph on this cover version which never made it to press made me smile, because not only does it depict her artwork but also her sparkling personality. Genuine human emotions often make great covers.

Two years later I married her. She still has the same sparkling personality today as I saw it on that (unpublished) cover photograph back then.

Eddy