I love what you share with us. You are talented and a great communicator. What is going on in the print media is so craven and completely overlooks the huge population of people who are over, say, 60 and like to read newspapers and magazines, and get our information that way instead of from tv sound bites.
Does using a desktop computer screen - and a geezer flip-phone - kind of put me right in the middle? I miss all my newspapers, and still get some print magazines, but more and more, the internet rules :-( and I pretty much hate it especially when I quickly look up the spelling of a word I've forgotten instead of looking in any one of my multiple paper dictionaries. Sigh.... I think you're an old soul in a young(er) man's body; I know you bemoan your lack of focus, but maybe it's because there's just sooo much! in your brain - the benefit of all that print media you absorbed...In my humble opinion, that's a good thing, because it allows you (at some point :-) ) to grace us with your thoughts! Than you.
Love how you share the thoughts and worries all of us have in the back of our heads. I may be ignorant but I'm still crossing my fingers for a resurgence of underground print media. But that's not even really a bandaid in the grand scheme of things.
When several reasons I’m helping produce this quarterly print magazine that we just launched.
I know it seems quaint to launch a print product in 2026, but the reception you’re tangible product that people can hold in their hands and read has been pretty fantastic.
I think that’s the right move in more ways than one!
I’m around a lot of Gen Z folk. My studio mates even one. A generation that grew up online and in front of screens are craving something more real and less digital. These people give me hope.
Jason — I watched the movie. Loved it. Then your piece landed and made me sad in the exact way only good candor can — the kind that knocks the wind out of you while you’re laughing.
Here is what I want to tell you. I grew up waiting for Cosmopolitan magazine to arrive in the mailbox the way other people wait for the second coming. I would sit on the porch steps and read the whole thing in one go — the quizzes, the diets that were really starvation plans with footnotes, the advice about how a boy would notice me if I learned to listen with my eyes. I wanted to be one of the cool girls so badly I could taste it, and the taste was Bonne Bell Lip Smackers, strawberry.
I never became one of the cool girls. Almost nobody does. What we became, eventually, was women who could spot a Helen Gurley Brown lie at thirty paces and still feel a small thump of grief watching it shrink to eight “collectible” issues on a coffee table nobody visits.
Your piece is right about Pompeii. But here is the part nobody writes down: ash preserves things. The permanent ink spills on the rented floor, and somewhere a fourteen-year-old is reading every word as if it were scripture, and she will remember it for the rest of her life.
That’s the future. We just won’t be in the photograph.
As someone working in print media (albeit from the B2B side), it's interesting to hear from clients that still love the tangibility of a print magazine. Sure, they want their algorithmic amplification, but to have something in their receptions that shows that They Did A Thing is incredibly important to them.
It is scary to think of all the print media we have lost and are losing, but I believe there will be a resurgence of people wanting more accurate reporting-- with smaller presses and publications.
I think blogs like yours are just the beginning...keep up the wonderful work you do!
I had a heroically good time in a Hinckley Sou’Wester 59 -The Blue Onyx- Montreal - rooting for an Aussie win…. wanted to return. No luck.Stars n Strips took us back to US.
Piloted my single engine Cessna to Rottnest Island buzzing Blue Onyx below - a non racing moment but heady all the same. The build up
Very cool your first job as a “newspaperman” under that banner. Memories.
I buy both my newsprint weekly local newspapers, sit down and read them front to back. There it all is, spread out over the table, big enough to have large photos and articles that are continued on page 2. Somehow they don’t also have that nagging urgency that internet articles do - that somehow by reading this one I am missing that one. I am free to graze and wander back and forth. And, most of all, they have the news about where I live, which informs me about what the local issues are, which then aids me in deciding who and what to vote for. Plus. . . who got arrested, which team made the state playoffs, when is the next lecture at the library, when is the Vice-President visiting and was there a protest?
I think the biggest loss for journalism was local. The ability for people to connect about the things happening around them in their community.
Substack is now seeing a gigantic resurgence of local newsletters for different neighbourhoods particularly around New York but all over America.
I’m personally a Cartoon editor of a new print publication that comes out once a quarter poetry and literary criticism and cartoons and essays and interviews ..and I have to say, the reception has been overwhelmingly positive.
I like hand drawn art and paintings, magazines, a physical book, a good newspaper. I thought of you, Jason when I saw the movie. I still think people value real art and having custom art done. It’s timeless. Collecting art has always been “my bliss”.
You’re a great writer Jason. Love the reminiscing of the old days. We need the hard copies & the art to stay alive, too. There’s nothing like picking up a book or paper & reading it or looking at real art!
I love what you share with us. You are talented and a great communicator. What is going on in the print media is so craven and completely overlooks the huge population of people who are over, say, 60 and like to read newspapers and magazines, and get our information that way instead of from tv sound bites.
Does using a desktop computer screen - and a geezer flip-phone - kind of put me right in the middle? I miss all my newspapers, and still get some print magazines, but more and more, the internet rules :-( and I pretty much hate it especially when I quickly look up the spelling of a word I've forgotten instead of looking in any one of my multiple paper dictionaries. Sigh.... I think you're an old soul in a young(er) man's body; I know you bemoan your lack of focus, but maybe it's because there's just sooo much! in your brain - the benefit of all that print media you absorbed...In my humble opinion, that's a good thing, because it allows you (at some point :-) ) to grace us with your thoughts! Than you.
Love how you share the thoughts and worries all of us have in the back of our heads. I may be ignorant but I'm still crossing my fingers for a resurgence of underground print media. But that's not even really a bandaid in the grand scheme of things.
Me too, my friend.
When several reasons I’m helping produce this quarterly print magazine that we just launched.
I know it seems quaint to launch a print product in 2026, but the reception you’re tangible product that people can hold in their hands and read has been pretty fantastic.
I think that’s the right move in more ways than one!
I’m around a lot of Gen Z folk. My studio mates even one. A generation that grew up online and in front of screens are craving something more real and less digital. These people give me hope.
Jason — I watched the movie. Loved it. Then your piece landed and made me sad in the exact way only good candor can — the kind that knocks the wind out of you while you’re laughing.
Here is what I want to tell you. I grew up waiting for Cosmopolitan magazine to arrive in the mailbox the way other people wait for the second coming. I would sit on the porch steps and read the whole thing in one go — the quizzes, the diets that were really starvation plans with footnotes, the advice about how a boy would notice me if I learned to listen with my eyes. I wanted to be one of the cool girls so badly I could taste it, and the taste was Bonne Bell Lip Smackers, strawberry.
I never became one of the cool girls. Almost nobody does. What we became, eventually, was women who could spot a Helen Gurley Brown lie at thirty paces and still feel a small thump of grief watching it shrink to eight “collectible” issues on a coffee table nobody visits.
Your piece is right about Pompeii. But here is the part nobody writes down: ash preserves things. The permanent ink spills on the rented floor, and somewhere a fourteen-year-old is reading every word as if it were scripture, and she will remember it for the rest of her life.
That’s the future. We just won’t be in the photograph.
— Gloria
Thank you for this, Gloria.
I was the same way growing up, but with MAD magazine instead of Cosmopolitan… is it any wonder I grew up to become a cartoonist?
LOL! My cousin, Stanley Ray, has all his copies of MAD magazine squirreled away in his attic. Some boys never grow up and that’s a good thing.
As someone working in print media (albeit from the B2B side), it's interesting to hear from clients that still love the tangibility of a print magazine. Sure, they want their algorithmic amplification, but to have something in their receptions that shows that They Did A Thing is incredibly important to them.
It is scary to think of all the print media we have lost and are losing, but I believe there will be a resurgence of people wanting more accurate reporting-- with smaller presses and publications.
I think blogs like yours are just the beginning...keep up the wonderful work you do!
Jason - Fremantle. America’s Cup 1987.
I had a heroically good time in a Hinckley Sou’Wester 59 -The Blue Onyx- Montreal - rooting for an Aussie win…. wanted to return. No luck.Stars n Strips took us back to US.
Piloted my single engine Cessna to Rottnest Island buzzing Blue Onyx below - a non racing moment but heady all the same. The build up
Very cool your first job as a “newspaperman” under that banner. Memories.
em last few days in Huntsville-Rocket City
I buy both my newsprint weekly local newspapers, sit down and read them front to back. There it all is, spread out over the table, big enough to have large photos and articles that are continued on page 2. Somehow they don’t also have that nagging urgency that internet articles do - that somehow by reading this one I am missing that one. I am free to graze and wander back and forth. And, most of all, they have the news about where I live, which informs me about what the local issues are, which then aids me in deciding who and what to vote for. Plus. . . who got arrested, which team made the state playoffs, when is the next lecture at the library, when is the Vice-President visiting and was there a protest?
I think the biggest loss for journalism was local. The ability for people to connect about the things happening around them in their community.
Substack is now seeing a gigantic resurgence of local newsletters for different neighbourhoods particularly around New York but all over America.
I’m personally a Cartoon editor of a new print publication that comes out once a quarter poetry and literary criticism and cartoons and essays and interviews ..and I have to say, the reception has been overwhelmingly positive.
That’s great.
I still love to read a physical book
I like hand drawn art and paintings, magazines, a physical book, a good newspaper. I thought of you, Jason when I saw the movie. I still think people value real art and having custom art done. It’s timeless. Collecting art has always been “my bliss”.
Looking forward to your quarterly magazine.. I would order it! Book clubs are popular again, too. I joined one with Katie Couric 🙂
You’re a great writer Jason. Love the reminiscing of the old days. We need the hard copies & the art to stay alive, too. There’s nothing like picking up a book or paper & reading it or looking at real art!