On the cover: action heroes

Faces

The 20 Greatest Athletes Now

Outside Bookazine Classics: 160 pp., $9.99

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READERS of outdoors magazines might have noticed an uptick in self-help content lately. Editors, one presumes, no longer find it sufficient to paint pictures of the dream: stories and photos of people who have actually managed to chuck the cubicle and sail, say, to Ushuaia. Such an escape must now be supported by an agenda, an action plan beyond fantastical schemes and grounded in the simplest of core values: fresh air and fun.

A recent cover blurb for Outside magazine reflects this recurring message. “20 Dream Jobs -- How to Make Work, Life & Play Your Greatest Adventure + Jack Johnson (Rock Star, Surfer, Environmentalist -- on Staying in Balance),” the editors write.

The magazine, which embraces the role of guide and mentor, leaves no button unpushed in challenging its audience to either get out and pursue “the stoke” -- as the multiplatinum Johnson does while crooning about the imperiled planet -- or drown in regret, wishing they had.

Outside is now putting a new motivational tool into what it must imagine are the outstretched hands of the same readers -- those who would love to be in Johnson’s sandals.

Faces is a special-interest publication -- industry parlance for a spinoff of an established brand -- and it differs from the monthlies in its weightier paper stock, steeper price and longer expected stay on store racks. To the glee of advertisers, such publications often wind up on book shelves rather than in the recycling bin.

Cynics might view Faces as part of the ongoing media plot to demonize inertia, and it looks harmless enough on the newsstand. The cover is a mosaic of black-and-white head shots, a series of informal and sometimes smart-alecky poses that together approximate the giddy vibe of the outtakes in a high school yearbook. Who are all these smiling young people in T-shirts and baseball caps trying to catch our eye?

They are the subjects of the glowing personality profiles within Faces and according to the bold subtitle, “The 20 Greatest Athletes Now.” More precisely, they are surfers, climbers, BASE jumpers, snowboarders and so on who belong to a growing sports clique known as -- in the words of Outside’s press release -- “adventure luminaries.” No wonder they’re grinning.

The criteria for qualifying as an adventure luminary are conveniently unclear. In the foreword to Faces, editor Grayson Schaffer explains the screening process by saying that icon status requires a strong record of exploration, not just a stroll up Mt. Kilimanjaro either, but a feat with some degree of fear factor. A kayak run down Yarlung Tsangpo -- a cleft of whitewater in Tibet that until 2002 had disgorged every paddler who dared to attempt it -- is just right.

And athletes who emulate the “grizzled anthropologist hacking through the jungle to plumb the mystery of the uncontacted tribe” warrant special recognition, he writes. If hat-matted hair, chapped lips and blisters come with the territory, all the better.

Adventure luminaries need not keep up appearances. They do, however, need a rugged paparazzo to ensure that their every mind-blowing exploit is captured on film. An expedition photographer, such as Jimmy Chin, can act as a de facto publicist by supplying these images to magazines, websites and other media.

Once luminaries do enough stunts in front of a camera to attract major corporate sponsors, they go nowhere without logos blazing and a shooter(s) in tow to feed the marketing machine. That’s why the Red Bull name pops up no fewer than three dozen times in Faces on hats, helmets, helicopters and parachutes.

The scorching of a brand into a reader’s psyche through logos embedded in editorial space, a trend that some observers call the “branded world order,” doesn’t explain the juxtaposition of soft-glam studio portraits with action photos in the layouts of kayaker Nikki Kelly, freestyle skier Kristi Leskinen and freeskier Ingrid Backstrom. But wait a second. Who chugs Red Bull? Young men who make up Outside’s target demographic. Now we get it.

Not long ago, the New Yorker magazine agreed to a business deal in which the low-end department store chain Target became its exclusive advertiser for one issue. Target ads masquerading as sophisticated illustrations and cartoons infuriated critics because the artwork failed to include the label “advertising” in fine print.

But at least the New Yorker’s publisher came clean with his audience and took the heat. With Faces, Outside tries to sneak an advertising supplement past readers who might not connect the dots.

Sacrificing integrity to covertly pad the bottom line seems awfully Enron-like for an enterprise that routinely touts the importance of balancing work and play, of saving the Earth from unscrupulous profiteers.

Let’s rethink that cover blurb in the September issue: “Dream Jobs -- How to Make Money Your Greatest Adventure While Fooling Customers + Stimulate a Craving for Energy Drinks.”