December 16, 2008

Morbid Major Magazine Song

Bill Dyszel shoots and scores with the scathing Morbid Major Magazine Song As a book and magazine writer, editor, and agent for over 30 years I can attest to the fact that there's nothing but the adamantine truth in this song.


A musical list of the names of defunct magazines.

(To the tune of I Am a Very Model of A Modern Major General by Gilbert & Sullivan)

By Bill Dyszel

The many paper publications writers once were writing for
Have mostly disappeared and left a handful all are fighting for
They went by names like Mirabella, Cosmo Girl, and Living Well
Amazing Stories, Omni, and Organic Style and Mademoiselle.

And Spirit of Aloha, which you may perchance have read in flight
And also Windows Sources, HomePC, Musician, Cue and Byte
And 7 Days and Audio, and Quick and Simple and Cachet
And, PC Magazine, but no one understood that anyway.

When Budget Living says they're broke, you know conditions aren't so nice.
And don't forget Success, whose claim to fame is that they failed twice.
McCalls, Industry Standard, House & Garden all have gone away
And Rosie sank as fast and deep as Underwater USA.

When Country Journal, Harper's, Jewish Woman, Coronet and Mode
Have followed New Age Journal as they all were flushed down some commode
When Blueprints future plans have all been relegated to the past
And National Lampoon will surely not be who is laughing last.

When Women's Sports and Fitness, Golf for Women, Gusto, Sync and Spy
Are only sold along with Lifetime at that newsstand in the sky
All writers start to fear that their careers are headed for the drain
A lot like Talk and Child and Life and Look and Lear's and George and Jane.

The experts all are telling us that in our brave new century
There'll be new opportunities exciting and adventur-y
But to a freelance writer none of this may seem too funny,
Cause you know the next to go will close up shop and owe you money.

Posted by Vanderleun at December 16, 2008 3:34 PM
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Comments:

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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Amazing Stories really doesn't fit, in so far as AM was never a major magazine, and her death is due more to mishandling by her last publisher and the subsequent animosity of the people who purchased that publisher.

In short, Wizards of the Coast (who still own the trademark) had no idea what to do with Amazing Stories, and Hasbro (who bought Wizards a few years back) didn't think a game publisher had any business publishing a magazine. A case of "If we were supposed to use it as an antitank gun we'd call it an antitank gun." The major magazine stuff comes more from the television show than the magazine itself. And that came about because Gary Gygax was a long time fan of the zine, and bought the rights to it when the previous publisher was going under. Steven Spielberg was also a fan, and the two got together to produce the anthology series. Since I worked with Gary on a few projects, this gives me a Spielberg Number of two. Same as my Al Gore and Stephen Hawking Numbers of two.

Now you know the rest of the story.

(Ask me about my John Lennon Number of two.)

Posted by: Alan Kellogg at December 16, 2008 7:17 PM

Thanks so much for picking this up! I'm flattered! I'll post a sequel on Monday.

Posted by: Bill Dyszel at December 17, 2008 4:15 AM

Isn't Harper's still publishing?

Posted by: Fred2 at December 17, 2008 1:29 PM

Yes, Harpers is still publishing, a mistake on my part (I confused it with Harper's Weekly, which is long gone). I'm still trying to figure out how to fix that w/in the limits of YouTube.

In any case, I've posted the sequel to this one, The Freelance National Anthem, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjlvYOmXLc8 .

Thanks!
Bill Dyszel

Posted by: Bill Dyszel at December 21, 2008 6:03 PM

Ich bemerke jetzt in diesem Moment, dass ich diese Seite wesentlich öfter besuchen müsste ;-) - da kommt der Leser wirklich auf krasse Ideen

Posted by: Manipulieren von Novoline Automaten at November 21, 2010 5:51 AM