A Collegiality of Periodicals

In the beginning there was the Trojan Blade. Then there was True Blue. By now there are Tan & Board, The Beach, The Beachcomber, Trail Blazer, Titan’s Best, The Beatnik, The Bohemian, The Brave, The Brand, Tattle Back, Total Blast, The Breeze, Tasty Bug, Tide Breaker, Trancas Blues, Tough Breed, Tiki Breeze, That’s Biola, and the sublime True Brio.

These are not the winning entries in a contest to devise names starting with the letters T and B. They are the names of a family of magazines circulated monthly from September to May on the campuses of Southern California colleges and universities. Or, more precisely, the names on the covers of more or less the same magazine as it appears at different Southland schools.

Three years ago this month two USC students, Jane Kim and Marcus Jansen, introduced a glossy campus magazine called Trojan Blade. It was successful enough to inspire them to keep going. By the fall of ‘86, the same magazine appeared at UCLA as True Blue. By the end of the school year, the number of versions had grown to six; by this year, like horror movie progeny, they had multiplied to 20--and the Satellite College Network, Inc., had caught up with its impressive name. With the current issue, according to editor John Griffiths, the company “broke even” for the first time.

Griffiths, who is 24 and a recent USC graduate, says the TB magazines--distributed free at student unions and other campus meeting spots--will hold at about 20. “Beyond that, it’s a logistical nightmare,” he reports. “Although some editorial material appears in all issues, we are trying to tailor each magazine to the individual campus.”

Few Talented Contributors

At some schools--San Diego State, Cal State Northridge, Orange Coast College are examples he cites--local input is strong, but at others, Griffiths says he is having trouble finding talented contributors. “We realize we have a way to go before the magazines are what we want them to be.”

Because he, Kim and Jansen are recent graduates--in fact, they still operate out of a cramped office in a fraternity on USC’s Greek Row--Griffiths believes they can relate to students better than the editors of other journals, especially national journals aimed at college readers.

“Southern California students are discriminating,” Griffiths said. “They establish trends and they deserve their own set of magazines. We try to offer students articles they can really get into. We don’t condescend. We don’t have articles on ‘How to Party.’ ”

Not quite. Articles on laid-back restaurants and surfer fashions don’t exactly pander, but recent issues of the TBs pose no threat to the New York Review of Books either. The editors’ entrepreneurial zeal is reflected in enthusiastic articles about making it. Features blatantly amplify the appeals of advertisers.

The Same Old Faces

Covers display the same celebrity faces--Jami Gertz, Justine Bateman, Chris Isaak--that grace, say, Circus or Spin. The writing, by both students and professionals, is competent, but the design--reflecting the fact that the magazines have no art director--ranges from adequate to atrocious. There is little in the TBs that can be characterized as challenging or original.

Although the TB team may not be condescending to their audience, they certainly seem to be underestimating them. Other college periodicals like US and Campus Voice, and for that matter Fast Times, the monthly newspaper for high school students, have demonstrated that student journals can be classy, entertaining and informative at the same time.

As a marketing tool, however, the magazines work. A mom-and- pop store can reach the local campus by buying space in one title at a relatively low rate, while a national or regional advertiser can blanket the region by going into the whole set. Total circulation is 100,000 copies with a potential readership of 400,000. With the current issue, the TBs have color on inside pages. Advertisers include Budweiser, Sapporo, Benetton, Sizzler, Kinney Shoes and the FBI.

According to Griffiths, the TBs will go national soon by transplanting the cloning idea to New England, Florida, and the Chicago area. “We’re still growing,” he said. “We’re still finding our way.”

(Satellite College Network is at 625 W. 28th St., Los Angeles, Calif. 90007).

The Christian Science Monitor, which already publishes an excellent weekly, Wednesday released a prototype of its new monthly news magazine, World Monitor. To be officially launched in September, the four-color magazine will concentrate on international news.

The 94-page prototype, which includes a look at Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s skills, plans and domestic opposition by Marshall Goldman of Harvard’s Russian Research Center, is a little out-of-date, but editor Earl Foell promises that, when it’s up and running, the magazine will feature “savvy forward-looking analysis of specialists deeply familiar with the intricacies and historic cycles in their fields.” Other articles in the prototype include John Simpson on Iran’s fading revolution, Jane Holtz Kay on post-modern architecture, political media consultant David Garth on how to run for president, and auto industry analyst Maryann Keller on the future of the Japanese car business.

The handsomely designed publication covers the usual categories--TV, books, films, music, travel, investing, science--but with an eye on the global picture. World Monitor will sell for $2.50 a copy. The charter subscription rate is $14.97 per year (World Monitor, CSPS, P.O.B. 10116, Des Moines, Iowa 50347-0116). . . .

Congratulations to ZYZZYVA, the quarterly of West Coast writers and artists, for making it to its third anniversary issue, no small achievement in the precarious world of literary publishing. In fact, the sharp, good-looking review has gotten strong enough to outgrow its one-man operation and is advertising for a publisher (long hours, hard work, low pay, etc.). Vigorously edited by Howard Junker, the current issue has contributions by Juan Felipe Herrera, L.T. Jordan, Robert Peters, John Daniel, Scott Miller, Minoru Ohira, Susan Hauptman and Yuji Morita. “Zyzzyva” is the name of any of various tropical American weevils; more to the point, it is also the last word in certain dictionaries. A single issue is $7, a year’s subscription $20 from ZYZZYVA, 41 Sutter St., Suite 1400, San Francisco, Calif. 94104. . . .

Norman Lear’s Act III Publishing plans to introduce Corporate Video Decisions, a controlled circulation monthly targeted to 40,000 executives who make in-house, corporate video decisions. . . . Although it’s all very hush-hush for now, the folks at California Magazine will announce soon a new large-format art magazine. . .

River Runner, which rightly calls itself “America’s Whitewater Magazine,” is for sale. Publisher Dick Birchall, whose Rancher Publications in Fallbrook also owns California Grower, says River Runner has gotten too big. The 17,000-copy, seven-times-a-year journal is “successful and healthy and the industry and sport are booming,” but “someone bigger than us is needed to finance further growth” of the magazine.