The magazine-as-roast-chicken analogy
The perfect magazine, for me, should be just like a
roast chicken* – bear with me on this, and
excuse the crunching gears of metaphor and reality.
* Assumes you like chicken, and that, like me, you’re a breast man.
- There should be a real feeling of anticipation before you begin reading.
- You should be excited about getting started on a nice bit of breast – the big main coverfeature that attracted you to the magazine. And it should be mighty satisfying...
- ...but there should also be delicious legs and wings – smaller features that are just as delicious as the main ones but that you didn’t necessarily buy the chicken for.
- And even when you think you’ve finished, there should be a few little regular treats – the oysters, say, or bit of crispy skin – that you tend to forget about before you actually start eating the chicken, but that when you remember about, you’re really glad the chicken’s, um, editor, implemented them some years ago.
- Even then – after the breasts, legs, oysters, skin and everything else have been eaten – there’s still some enjoyable picking to be done. Captions to be read, sidebars to be enjoyed, letter to be read; that sort of thing.
* Assumes you like chicken, and that, like me, you’re a breast man.
