As the decade we've dubbed The Aughts winds to a close, many magazines are celebrating with giant interactive features that attempt to encapsulate ten years of tragedy, victory, controversy and beyond. Newsweek, for example, has dedicated an entire website to The Decade In Rewind and endless content flows, from videos to think-pieces. Mediaite, too, has a section designated for The Aughts. It's an exciting time, and the nostalgia washes over us all.

But to praise (or denounce, right Time?) the end of the decade with a magazine cover is truly a special sort of honor -- and oddly enough, it's rare. So far, not too many titles have given the early 2000s the newsstand treatment, so we figured for the final edition of Cover Wars this year (and this decade!), we would celebrate those commemorating The Aughts. That means New York vs. Time vs. Rolling Stone vs. New York. See below for the winner, and as for Cover Wars, see you next year! (more...)

We know they have more fun, but do they make better cover stars? That's the impression you'd get from a cursory glance at the magazine rack this month, where nearly all of the premiere women's titles are represented by becoming tow-headed ladies. Sure, it sounds like a common enough occurrence, but the visual homogeneity this month is almost disorienting! There's blonde of the year Taylor Swift on InStyle, Gossip Girl's Blake Lively showing skin on Marie Claire, a refined Cate Blanchett in a gown for Vogue and Sarah Jessica Parker gone lighter, front and center for Elle. But only one can be the best blonde! This is Cover Wars...

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With this weekend's release of New Moon -- and Bella, Jacob and Edward again invading the magazine racks -- we invite you to look back on the Twilight magazine covers of months past. Now, the field is much more crowded. Feel free to recommend your new favorite Twilight covers in the comments.You won't believe this: it has only been one year since the live action stars of teen vampire sensation Twilight infiltrated popular culture. And part of the reason they seem like such fixtures of celebrity already -- apart from their impossible good looks, effortless cool and high-powered marketing machine -- is their presence in print and command of their image. Flattering pictures may not be hard to come by when you're young and playing magical characters, but from this charming Vanity Fair spread to the endless tabloid fabrications, the kids always come out looking all right. (more...)

Yesterday, we got extremely excited for the next entry in The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and to celebrate we took a look back at the all-time greatest Twilight magazine covers so far. The "so far" was important because the second wave publicity storm is just beginning, as we all anxiously await forthcoming issues of Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly and doubtlessly many more. (more...)

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We've all witnessed the rise, fall and rebirth (repeat) of those special creatures who have been famous since childhood. Classically, there's Judy Garland and Michael Jackson, and more recently Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. Each have their misfires, quirks, and claims to fame, and occasionally the train wreck aspects of their careers overshadow the good times. This fall, a few glossy magazines have reserved their cover spot for women who came of age under the spotlight, but with new projects (and new bodies!) they seem to be doing all right. But which cover most successfully documents the embattled maturation of a child star? Cover Wars decides. (more...)

video Glenn Beck took a moment on last night's show to critique the cover of the this week's "fringe media" Time featuring him, the 'Mad Man.' And to give credit where credit is due he makes a fair observation about the media world: he is not the only media type out there peddling paranoia! (more...)

POLL The media loves one-year anniversaries, hundred-day anniversaries — any excuse to zoom in on the thing they've been covering all along. This week's one-year anniversary of the financial crisis -- a gold mine for business magazines! Or a call for gold spray paint, if you're BusinessWeek. Mary Louise Parker -- the maintstream, not to mention sterile, face of rampant marijuana use, after her five-season success on Showtime's Weeds. With her help, and some magic leaf, this cover could actually grab a few non-Fortune-reading stoners. And "Wall Street: One Year Later" up top is a nifty hard-news peg. Mediaite Grade (B+): Hey, an issue of Fortune about pot -- that's pretty cool. Oh wait, Sage, the color, what are you doing here? You're not very cool. If this cover was trying to make marijuana seem staid (which it probably is), then it's a wild success. We wonder how their pot story stacks up to New York mag's.
Before we snub The Economist, we want to get one thing straight: We know the cover isn't what sells the magazine (it's the incisive content, dummy). That said, we have to ask if these Economist covers are a nose-in-the-air smirk at the rest of the magazine industry, or just the product of uninspired designers who hate sharing an office with neurotic econ-types? Mediaite Grade (D): We don't need to beat a dead horse, or a series of plastic horses revolving in a circle, but this cover is bush league. Tucking the dollar sign ornament at the top of the carousel into the deck? It's not cute. It's not imaginative. We worry that a bunch of professionals actually sat down together and brainstormed this cover, or spent any time thinking about it at all. We've seen you do your best work before, Economist design team, now keep it up. If for no other reason, to set a good example for Newsweek (their cover this week -- yikes).
Magazines are at their best when they jump on the next hot thing, rather than just distilling a week or month's worth of news. The latest edition of Forbes does both, highlighting the story of high-speed computer trading, which has been percolating all summer —  a smart and timely take on the one-year anniversary of the financial collapse. Mediaite Grade (A-): Visually, the cover's play with font and depth is sharp; the psuedo-pyramid of faces at the bottom, illuminated by the chilling glow of computer screens, is electric. Pick up Forbes for a smart, forward-looking take on the financial world, one year after the collapse.
It's a scary time for BusinessWeek. People are talking about buying the magazine for $1 . We wanted this cover to be a ray of light for the floundering title. Though cheap, spray-painting a gun gold and pasting it on the cover, wasn't exactly the sizzle or pop we were hoping for. Mediaite Grade (C+): We wonder, is there a BusinessWeek intern walking around somewhere with gold spray paint on his hands? We like the idea of putting a gun on the cover, but this one looks too fake, too gold. And the yellow at the top of the cover doesn't exactly complement the gold below (not even yellow could make the "America's Manufacturing Crisis" banner exciting). Add BusinessWeek's big, red, blocky masthead to the mix and watch the colors clash. Let's see some hustle, BusinessWeek. COVER WARS WINNER: Forbes nailed the one-year anniversary with a cover that subtly acknowledged the bench mark, but took the story in a new direction -- the future of finance. And they had fun with the cover -- not too conservative, not too boring, not too tacky. Take notes, BW, before you're liquidated. Which business mag cover is your favorite?(polls)

POLL On the cover of Glamour's October issue, Gwen Stefani is positively in your face. Feeling her pink fuzzy grip, we've pulled some of Gwen's best cover work from the last five years — there can be only one best Gwen Stefani cover! (more...)

With the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy, Time's commemorative issue chose to focus on Ted as the Liberal Lion, in a bright cover photograph that prominently features sage signifiers like his wrinkles and silver hair. This vision of the senator as a wizened relic will be familiar to anyone who remembers Kennedy's last chapter, reigning as the grandfather of the Senate, the last of a dying breed. Mediaite Grade (B): The recent shot of Kennedy shows an honest weariness in a man who experienced more than his share of tragedy and scandal but managed to wrangle out of it the respect and adoration of millions. Still, the hagiographic portrait, with its halo of light and stylized tones, comes off as the slightest bit removed. The man's grim expression and the photo's harsh light leaves the whole thing looking a little, well, cadaverous. (more...)

In the midst of a summer news drought, Newsweek resorted to a cover about the timeless story of NASA's search for extraterrestrials that could have worked equally well in 1969, 1999 or 2009. As a daily website, we know better than anyone how barren the late summer's news landscape has been, but this is what we "need to know" now? Mediaite Grade (C): The generic earth-from-space photo and peripheral explosion remind us a little bit more of Bruce Willis and Armageddon than Sigourney Weaver and Aliens, but considering the dearth of timely stories, the visual is at least eye-catching. A closer look at the glowing mass in the corner reveals that Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds also made the cover, and for Newsweek, that seems a little desperate. (more...)

POLL We've said this before: Esquire covers have their own thing going on — part bathroom stall, part scribbled-on cocktail napkin — and it usually works just fine. But Sam Worthington, spray-paint in hand, leaves us scratching our head. This month Esquire tried to hard. (more...)

POLL Judd Apatow was going to be on the cover of Time this week (and he's still in the issue for his latest film Funny People), but health care is on the tip of everyone's tongue so the funnyman got subbed out for President Obama in a lab coat. It's entirely possible that if we picked up this issue of Time we'd learn nearly everything we need to know, or could stand to know, about the ongoing health care debate. But where's the pop? (more...)

Part bathroom stall graffiti, part scribbled-on cocktail napkin wadded up in our pants: We wouldn't say that Esquire covers are in a league of their own, but they certainly do their own thing. The design is playfully masculine and the text demands careful examination (even if we're just sitting on the can or digging things out of our pockets on laundry day).   (more...)

Women's fashion magazine covers typically fall somewhere between sexy and sophisticated. But finding a spot on that continuum for your cover girl is a little bit trickier when she is still counting the days until her 20th birthday. This month, women's fashion mags across the globe dipped into the young, supple crop of up-and-comers. Will putting tarted-up teens on the cover help attract younger readers? (Any readers at all?) Or will this month's covers just fall flat and lose their way? (more...)

Who has the stomach for a tribute right now? Apparently, the folks over at Spin magazine who dedicated their July issue to Prince's Purple Rain. To be fair, production for the July issue was probably finished before the wall-to-wall MJ commemorationstock began. But still, the Prince tribute feels a little desperate. (more...)

Even though money's tight in 2009, the editors at Condé Nast Traveler have continued to produce content for their lux-loving readers without being woefully oblivious to the recession (Vogue, too: Everything under $500!). The July cover presents yet another sweepingly grand view of some distant paradise — exactly what we've come to expect from CNT. So what if these "14 Greatest Deals Ever" aren't actually with the times. (more...)

Anything you can do, GQ can do meta. A coquettish Sascha Baron Cohen -- posing as a nude Bruno -- is visually appealing, funny, and self-mocking all at the same time. Don't you see dear reader - they're in on the joke! And that's a good thing too - because this is just happens to be their (annual?) Comedy Issue -- a topic that's not necessarily in the GQ wheelhouse. Mediate Grade (A-) - The truth is this cover looks great. And putting the current comedy IT boy on the cover lets us know that the editorial staff has the right- sense of humor. (more...)

On the cover of Glamour 44-year-old Sandra Bullock -- the eternal girl next door -- throws caution, age and hair to the wind. Inside she ‘busts up’ about the word ‘vagina’ with pal-slash-interviewer Anne Fletcher. (more...)