Magazine Review: Adbusters #2

09/27/06 - The average issue of Vogue begins with 20 pages of advertisements hawking various clothing designers, jewelry boutiques and make-up conglomerates. Somewhere after these ads is a standard table of contents. Flip through the next 100+ pages, and each article is broken up by the glossy, airbrushed styles of Ralph Lauren and Louis Vuitton. If you ever thought that you could afford that magazine without all those annoying ads, you would be severely wrong. Adbusters, an internationally distributed, "independent" magazine, features no advertisements. That's right, not a single one. It's sort of their gimmick. And it's sort of why they feel they can charge you $7.95 an issue.

The November / December 2006 issue happens to be "The Creative Non-Fiction Issue," which is PR slang for "articles sent in by those on anti-depressants." Every periodical captures in it current events relating to its subject, and this issue of Adbusters is no different.

The goal of the magazine is to produce and nourish independent thought, and as such it takes a different position in the ongoing conflict between Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. It features a piece entitled "An Open Letter to President Bush," in which the author, Jonathan Woolson, sounds off at the president for using his Christian faith to reassure the country that it is right to drop bombs during wartime. Other pieces are poems and narratives written by Palestinian poets.

One of the larger articles in the issue, "Brand-New Cities" by Wayne Curtis, is about Frank Gehry. It explores the architect's early life and his rise to fame as a "starchitect," a new breed of designers whose buildings are evaluated as the works of celebrities.

His recent work in Cambridge, Mass. and upcoming work in Denmark are acknowledged to explain his immense popularity. Discussion of Gehry's hometown of Toronto leads to an examination of the city itself, and how it has progressed from a rundown urban center to a vibrant metropolis after renewal efforts city-wide.

As far as formatting is concerned, there is none. No table of contents, not even page numbers. This makes it impossible to point to a certain page, and is an ideal way to ensure that readers start at the beginning.

The content is often overshadowed by the choice of heavy graphic elements and fonts. The ridiculous font changes and contrasting colors make most of the articles hard to read, just like someone who purposely types in ALL CAPS, then wonders why you don't respond to their e-mail telling you about new stock options and Viagra for sale in Canada.

Intense doses of pink, red, yellow and blue contrast with each other and over-stimulate the eye. Other pages are much darker and use smudges of black to convey its dark and polluted message. Grotesque images of charred, dead bodies speak out against the war in Iraq.

Adbusters is the equivalent of a coffee table book; it is expensive, timeless and mostly for decorative purposes. Those who prescribe to an "independent" school of thought will choose to pay its high price for self-reassurance. The rest of us will look past it at the newsstand and pick up the latest issue of Vogue.