They’re coming out

L.A. has always been a hostile market for magazines, but somehow their parties always seem to wrangle a healthy Hollywood guest list -- and the launch at Skybar for the L.A.-based glossy Ingenue proved no exception. The pub features actors-on-the-verge whose upcoming roles are to be their breakouts. “A sampling of the new Hollywood generation,” is how editor and publisher Dane Lee describes it, and that pretty much characterized who showed up.

“I’m one of the ingenues, and I’m very proud to be one,” said Emmanuelle Vaugier, who leaped from “Smallville” to the big screen in “Secondhand Lions” with Michael Caine and Robert Duvall. She’s one of the many it-girls-in-training who gathered Oct. 21 to sip cocktails poolside and show support after being featured in the inaugural issue.

“Of course I came out for the party,” said the cover girl and evening’s co-host, Ali Larter, who flew from her home in New York for this coming-out event. “What impresses me the most is that [Lee] actually brought it to fruition, and that doesn’t happen very often.” Still, having her mug plastered at strategic points around the premises, she said, was not “something I’m comfortable with.”

Among the dudes, there was the almost-famous Jason Lee (no relation to Dane). “There’s a little article in the magazine and so they asked me to co-host, but I haven’t really done much other than just kind of show up,” he said. “I didn’t make any cupcakes or anything, so I don’t really feel like it’s my party.” (Too bad about the cupcakes, as they would have provided something to soak up the free-flowing libations in the absence of any hors d’oeuvres.)

Even nonfeatured up-and-comers such as “The O.C.’s” Samaire Armstrong showed up “to have fun and to mingle and support the magazine,” while Michelle Rodriguez (“Girlfight,” “S.W.A.T.”) offered that “I would love to be an ingenue.” Who wouldn’t? The fete also attracted the likes of Crispin Glover, Lizzie Grubman and Kevin “Silent Bob” Smith, who wore the name of his daughter, Haley Quinn, on his jersey, possibly signaling the arrival of another ingenue, albeit in the more distant future.

Even those well past the debutante stage, such as bona fide celeb Christian Slater, made the scene, although he apparently didn’t know what kind of affair he had strutted into. “Is that what it is?” he said. “A friend of mine called me and invited me here. I didn’t even know what ingenue meant.”