One Way Omar Vizquel: Classified Magazines Destined for the Bin

Ethan Switch - Wednesday, 20 August 2003 - Print Version

As there's no point in reason or appropriate introduction I'll just open the first classified magazine from the stack. All of which just happen to only have half a cover. Some have two-thirds, but none have a complete cover. The exact dates of the issues reviewed is sketchy...

First up, Owners Own, a 100 page magazine on real estate, residential and commercial. On what was left of the cover it started the game early and presented a few properties going for sale. Things started off glossy, and with the gloss, colour advertisements. But then, the contents page and black and white newsprint. The editorial features a photo of the Advertising Manager on the phone presumably trying to suggest how busy they are that they can't put down the phone. But they also try and shout the fact that they're "first in private sales," which in light of this, might mean she was trying to pose as a prospective buyer who saw one of the ads in the magazine. The sections are divided according to New South Wales and Queensland with the rest being lumped together in "Other States and Overseas" category. It's like reading the story of standing outside a real estate agent's with the occasional SOLD and photo-less sections.

Next, with 116 pages and in the stock style of previous (around 8 plates of gloss covering the newsprint stock), Campervan and Motorhome Trader. In total there were about three articles, one of which was split in half by 60 pages. Another was about visiting graveyards for fun. Possibly a hidden message on the dangers of buying a vehicle without the proper checks and inspections? Whatever. Helping to break up the monotony of endless black and white classifieds slightly spaced advertisements for related products. No one's game enough to buy a blank page and so the only difference between these and the regulars lies in what empty space there still is.

Loose a couple of wheels, hammer out the chassis, pump the page count to 282 and you end up with Australian Motorcycle Trader. Cover listings were still there, but above it were captions and photo lays almost like a legitimate magazine. And from the first few pages, I thought it was. Articles, columns, features and even a letters page populate the first 50 or so pages. Sprinkled in between these are slightly relaxed ads and the occasional classified pages. Which leads you to almost fall into a lull of content until wading through after the first quarter, you realise that the classifieds have taken over and there are no more pages set out in columns of three but boxes and boxes and boxes.

In light of the previous stunt I was wary opening the first of 144 pages of Trailer Boat Magazine. From a glance it looks and feels like the same kind of magazine the previous was. Change the focus from motorbikes to boats and it pretty much is, down to the thickness. Double the thickness of the saddle stitched, the glue bound mag sported a nice difference in that instead of the newsprint, what felt like 70gsm offset was used for the classified bulk at the back. As such, the ink didn't rub off onto my fingertips as eagerly as before.

Up 530 pages, Trade-A-Boat magazine felt like two of the previous, but didn't feel like it. Especially considering the move to have none of the editorial or articles start until two thirds of the way into the tome. The newsprint was back on with the classifieds section at the rear. There's a nice change up in the stock as the pages move from the front to the back, thin gloss to weak offset to slightly thicker gloss and ending with a type best felt like weak offset and strong newsprint. But this nicety could have also meant a magazine that didn't quite know itself and unsure of where and when to break itself up. Distracting now that I think about it.

Swimming in a sea of font overlay in the contents, first of 450 pages, lead to discovery in the indicia that the bulldozers and caterpillars were in Earthmovers and Excavators. The lay out of the contents page was not comforting, issue covers of old were shown in what looked like an effort to distill the fear of the reader. It may just be my kind of liking, but I was pretty well occupied with the pages and pages of heavy moving equipment and landscaping vehicles. Colour must have been it. Drained when the four pages of news hit and then the gloss turned into the usual newsprint on the second half and I was left again with the feeling of betrayal.

Glue together the two previous and slamming down with 750 pages of vehicles for sale, Deals On Wheels. Much like the one on earth moving, the extra content comes in the middle and last for only a few pages before sending you back down into the classifieds. It's the heaviest and rather cumbersome to handle. As the pages are rather thin it's worse than trying to read a street directory. Pages of different dealers are clearly set apart with the colours changing dramatically, although they do keep to a similar lay out, as they all do. For something of that size I expected more than reading about the features one truck had over another.

Dejected from all the crap of the publications from Australian Consolidate Press, as they have all been, I decided to see if the I could stem the haemorrhaging and picked up something from Mount Gambier, one without prices or vehicles. Horse Deals. 346 pages of all the way gloss, it really "mixed it up." The articles and such are "hidden" in amongst the bevy of horses and horse care products and related. In comparision to the previous titles, the layout and generous use of colour and pages that don't lose their inks, makes for a deceptive time in flicking through thousands of advertisements and classified listings.

Having turned the last page of the review pile I was heartily in the mood for some cathartic recycling. These magazines have been duly pulped. With no appropriate introduction follows an equally insipid conclusion.

Ethan Switch