A good magazine needs to be always a bit subversive, to come across as honest.
A good magazine has a lot of good pictures. Before photoshop it was hard to lie with pictures so they still hold some of that truth feeling about them. If a picture is worth a 1000 words you dont need that many articles in a magazine.
A good magazine needs to address tensions, things that do not work well and call them out. Its an exercise in catarsis, its a way to find out that you are not alone in thinking the way you do.
A good magazine has a lot of sex. If there is anything that looks a lot better in pictures than reality, is sex. Any magazine will cover sex one way or the other but the good ones are edgy.
A good magazine contains art. Art is the only thing that saves us from ourselves when we go nuts. Art does not replace truth but it makes it bearable.
At last, a good magazine contains fashion. One reason is to make money, the other is because people really like shopping for clothes. Fashion shopping is a shortcut to reinvent oneself, to affirm its individuality and its social fitness. Its also a way to say you are not too old to care about apeareances. Its like saying KEEP CALM and LOOK GOOD.
So when your reader closes the magazine, he should feel like after a good shower. Refreshed, a bit pensive, but ready to live another day.
