Blueboy

views updated

Blueboy

From its first issue in 1975, Blueboy was a pioneer in gay monthly magazines. Its focus was on an upscale, urban gay market. While containing slick, full frontal male nude photography, the publication also strove to include contemporary gay authors. Writings by Patricia Nell Warren, Christopher Isherwood, Truman Capote, John Rechy, Randy Shilts, and many others graced the pages. Led by former TV Guide ad manager Donald Embinder, the magazine quickly went from a bimonthly to monthly publication in a year and a half. By the late 1970s Blueboy was cited in the press as a publishing empire, producing the monthly magazine and a small paperback press collection, and trading on Wall Street. Blueboy's style was soon mimicked by other publications. Due to changes in style, content, and format Blueboy lost its appeal during the 1980s and 1990s. At the same time, an ever increasing range of competing glossy male magazines, modeled upon Blueboy principles, diminished its readership.

—Michael A. Lutes

Further Reading:

"A Gay Businessman: Out of the Closet … And onto Wall Street."Esquire. March 13, 1979, 11.

Kleinfield, N.R. "Homosexual Periodicals Are Proliferating." New York Times. August 1, 1978, Sec IV, 4-5.