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!

For their ’00s cover, New York held a contest, inviting a group of graphic designers to try their hand at illustrating the double-zeroes. The results, which can be seen in this slideshow, range from hand-drawn to tactile to totally digital — and in the case of my personal favorite, the historical. To the left was the selected newsstand cover, while on the next page is the subscribers’ edition.

Mediaite Grade (B-): For the cover most people will see — and hopefully be drawn to enough to purchase — New York could’ve been more provocative. Though the digi-balloons and black background are sleek, they fail to elicit any decade-specific memories or feelings, rendering the final product a tad dull. Perhaps the cover would be more successful had we heard the artist’s intent or the mag’s decision process.

Time‘s version of the farewell to the decade cover is a surprisingly sardonic take for the newsweekly, as they dub it “The Decade From Hell,” but with a silver lining sub-head: “And why the next one will be better.” Good riddance, they seem to be saying, but here’s our optimism, too. But the crying baby in the party hat is a bit Glenn Beck, no?

Mediaite Grade (B+): The edge they’re showing with the sharp headline is admirable and works when it comes to standing out on the newsstand, but the accompanying graphic feels a little bit chintzy, or not campy enough. It occupies an odd middle ground of gravity and humor that might have been tipped to one side or the other, say, by cutting down on the party decorations or putting the baby in a broken pair of those ’00 glasses…

>>>NEXT: Rolling Stone and New York‘s Take Two!

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/print/cover-wars-end-of-the-decade-brings-aughts-are-over-covers/feed/ 1 http://www.mediaite.com/print/cover-wars-blonde-on-blonde-on-blonde-taylor-swift-cate-blanchett-and-blake-lively-bring-snow/ http://www.mediaite.com/print/cover-wars-blonde-on-blonde-on-blonde-taylor-swift-cate-blanchett-and-blake-lively-bring-snow/#comments Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:25:21 +0000 Joe Coscarelli http://www.mediaite.com/?p=49403 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...]]> 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…

The December issue of InStyle is a special one. Not only does it star America’s Sweetheart Taylor Swift in full holiday mode, but it also features the most recent magazine savior Augmented Reality. That’s right — if you can troubleshoot your way around the technical difficulties, Swift will pop off of the magazine cover, with the help of your computer camera, and welcome you to the future.

Mediaite Grade (B-): Though there’s no denying T.Swift’s unshakable charm — demonstrated through a year’s worth of pop hits, live performances, award wins and even a hosting gig on Saturday Night Live — InStyle sells the teen a bit short with such a glittery cover. Matching her dress to her hair to the banner background to the headline color? It’s gold overload in any number of dimensions.

The latest Marie Claire is certainly the sexiest cover in this battle, featuring Serena of the Upper East Side gone even bustier, clad in hot pink and black. With a slight pout and clenched fist, Lively “grows up” — or so the headline indicates — moving from teen star to woman. In that sense, her Marie Claire appearance makes sense as an appropriate stepping stone.

Mediaite Grade (B): Though it’s not exactly screaming purity, the Lively cover does manage to jump off of the shelf, thanks in part to the sharp color scheme and aggressive headlines. The other part in that equation, of course, is the cover star. In this instance, Lively embraces the bombshell archetype with a young sartorial edge, seductive stare and windblown mane of shiny blonde hair. Growing up and owning it.

>>>NEXT: Cate Blanchett, Sarah Jessica Parker and a special blonde surprise guest!

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.

With this weekend’s release of the latest entry in “The Twilight Saga:” New Moon, it’s safe to say a new publicity blitz is upon us. Until now, stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson have been the face of the group, but upcoming covers have been confirmed including new heartthrob Taylor Lautner (who plays Jacob) on Rolling Stone and a cast photo for Entertainment Weekly, but as you’ll see below, newsstands are already bleeding Twilight blood. Does the cast work best as an ensemble or do they have the star power to go out solo? In this edition of Cover Wars, we remember the classic covers from the Twilight franchise, knowing full well that many more are now in print. We’ll call it The Greatest Twilight Cover So Far. Here are the contenders:

Their debut cover, a July 2008 issue of Entertainment Weekly, was initially met with derision by the Twilight faithful, weary of seeing their favorite book series come to life. “That’s Edward?” they thought. But it might have been the final note of dissent — that, or the haters were drowned out by the screaming droves who quickly fell in love. The photo is cheesy, to be sure, but something about it made certain that it was the first of many.

Mediaite Grade (B-): The pale skin is too white. His sandy blonde hair seems off. An apple insinuates an incorrect fairy tale. The pair looks uncomfortable together, not drawn together by irresistible passion. And yet… maybe only in retrospect, but the B-movie feel of the cover is an apt introduction to the campy film, all glittery torsos and vampire baseball. And for Kirsten and Rob, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship…

Are they the hip young versions of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? Probably — at least in the sense that their tabloid covers seem endless. Every time you step into the checkout line at a grocery store Stewart’s big bored eyes and Pattison’s glare are staring back at you, and in that sense, this OK! cover represents a much larger canon of tabloid Twilight. They’re as interchangeable as they are ubiquitous.

Mediaite Grade (C-): If you’re a fan of the celebrity romance, this is an easy one to buy into. It’s vague enough to be mysterious and picturesque enough to make for enjoyable covers. But that doesn’t mean it’s not dishonest. For instance, this issue of OK! uses a staged award show still with the headline “Yes! They’re in love.” And that’s to say nothing of “Obsessed With Each Other” or “Twilight Fight!” or… “Engaged!” Yikes.

>>>NEXT: Kristen and Rob Go Solo!

But from what we’ve seen so far, we narrowed it down to four: the initial EW cover featuring Edward and Bella, the Kirsten Stewart/Robert Pattinson OK! tabloid fare, Stewart solo on Interview and Pattinson doing GQ alone. For her stellar career year and a sleek cover design, we gave the title to Interview and Stewart, but the poll results had a different take. The winner?

Robert Pattinson on GQ

He captured over 50% of the votes, with Stewart’s Interview coming in second place with 33%, and the other two totaling less than 10% each. A lot of credit goes to the RobPattzNews Twitter feed for getting out the vote. Here’s the breakdown in graph form:

For her appearance in The Piano, Anna Paquin became the second youngest Oscar winner in history. She was 11 — talk about starting off strong. And though she’s never really matched the chops she showed then, her turns as Rogue in X-Men and most recently, as Sookie Stackhouse in the vampire series True Blood have kept her famous. Nylon is the hip style mag made for True Blood fans.

Mediaite Grade (B): As an object of lust for vampires, Paquin plays a fair-skinned southern belle on HBO, but for this cover she’s extra pale. The washed out light reflects off of her glittery top and her pose is not exactly sexy — just full of attitude. The busy text on Nylon‘s covers is standard, as is an it-girl cover star, but it is odd that this one started off so high-brow. It’s not that she sold out – True Blood is wicked fun — but why does she look like a teenager? She’s 27, Nylon — let her act her age.

As the ’90s began, Jennifer Love Hewitt starred in the child-friendly sitcom Kids Incorporated. By age 16, she was becoming a ’90s icon, joining Party of Five. Then came the cementing of her time-specific legend as the scream-happy teen in I Know What You Did Last Summer, on her way to being Maxim‘s Sexiest Woman in 1999. But nothing says “I’ve grown up!” like a weight loss cover.

Mediaite Grade (B): Though she’s been chided in the press for the pounds she gained as her fame plummeted, it’s frustrating to see her stoop to answering body critics. Still, now 30, Jennifer has maintained her girl next door image, inarguably looks great and her show Ghost Whisperer is moderately successful. But this Shape cover — equally heavy on the pink and self-improvement — seems to be pandering a bit. And women looking to get in shape never really were her fan base, were they?

>>>NEXT: Drew Barrymore kissing girls and Natalie Portman!

The Time cover story describes Beck as a man “with his ear uniquely tuned to the precise frequency at which anger, suspicion and the fear that no one’s listening all converge…People are scared.” Scared you say? Why might that be? Beck rightly points out that all the top stories on the cover of Time are also rather fear instilling: flu phobia and how fear goes viral, Mason ardor, why the system is still broke. Beck does not own the patent on media paranoia.

It’s not just Time of course, sharp, sometimes shocking covers are have become a last desperate push to get magazines off of newsstands. One need look no further than this summer’s Newsweeks for evidence of that. Beck is arguably just doing a far better job of getting the public to buy into it.

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.

Rolling Stone, January 2005: This cover is classic Gwen Stefani — we’d recognize that midriff anywhere. On the heels of her first solo album L.A.M.B. (2004), Gwen was coming into her own. So what if she’s been polished within an inch of her life.

Mediaite Grade (B+): The bra-and-hoodie look screams ‘post-’90s grunge, angsty funk’ louder than “Rock Goddess with Major Issues.” But let it be known that she was ahead of the curve on busy sweaters. Safe to say, then is when some of us fell in love with Gwen.

V, March 2008: Couture magazine V, decidedly more artsy than mainstream, breaks step with the drumbeat of Gwen Stefani covers. Instead of her body, Gwen’s face is featured prominently though veiled; there is interesting play between the light and her skin, which looks real in some places and pale and plastic in others; and her hair is … orange?

Mediaite Grade (B-): We like all of the visual play on the cover, but Gwen’s face cradled in the V is overtly sexual, in kind of an uncomfortable way. Maybe it’s just us, but the V over her face is inherently vaginal, and the nearly overhead perspective makes it seem like she’s going into our crotch. But maybe we’re projecting.

Elle, July 2009: In hindsight it has been a pretty nutty summer of Elle covers. Megan Fox in June was fine, but then things got weird. This Gwen Stefani cover set off an avalanche of weird, sending up a black plume of rubbery covers with Miley Cyrus in August and Jennifer Aniston in September.

Mediaite Grade (C+): We’re going to stick with our guns on this one: If we may say so, Gwen’s whole look is a little strange, and she appears even paler between the white background and rich tones of her clothing. For whatever reason her shoulders look enormous, yet we still feel her flaunting that midriff through horizontal stripes. File this under edgy gone wrong.

Glamour, October 2009: We’ve picked on Glamour for indulging in funky trompe l’oeil before, but we really dig it this time around. Somehow Gwen really pops off the page (and not in the weird cunnilingus way).

Mediaite Grade (A-): If Gwen’s palette of pale and blonde tones is poisonous, Glamour has found the antidote with pink. Her skin doesn’t look too pale, nor does her hair look too orange. Gwen comes alive on the page as her loose doo and fingertip run over the margins.

COVER WARS WINNER: Magazines are always trying to make the subject of the cover pop off the page: Ted Kennedy on the cover of Newsweek; Kristen Bell on this month’s Allure; Audrina Partridge on the cover of Maxim. When the pop goes off without a hitch, you forget that you’re looking a magazine because you’ve already been sucked into the vortex. There’s no hitch in the latest Glamour‘s pop. (But we’re still waiting on our plus-sized triples cover).

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.

Though People‘s cover this week features Jaycee Dugard nationally, a special Massachusetts edition gives cover honors to “Camelot’s last brother.” In blue and yellow tones, the gossip rag promises “His Life in Pictures” and for its cover, picks a strange mid-life picture with an inlay of a family candid. Consistent with the magazine’s style, the cover attempts to show Kennedy away from politics and as a standard civilian.

Mediaite Grade (C+): A strange selection of cover photographs leaves it feeling outdated, but not vintage, and finds Kennedy looking casual, but not comfortable. For a man whose entire life was documented by the press, the pool of photos is doubtlessly deep, and yet, in an attempt to appear unique, People went with shots that were neither representative nor interesting.

Newsweek‘s cover this week opted for a handsome headshot of glory days Ted, looking classy and almost Jack-esque. The eclipsing way in which his head obscures the magazine’s name does well to highlight the commemoration of the man and the issue sports an “Understanding Teddy” headline, promising words from the likes of Jon Meacham and interestingly, Bob Dole.

Mediaite Grade (A-): The newsweekly appears to know its reader-base, choosing showcase the late Senator at his most strapping — how many in older generations will likely remember the man — instead of displaying the gruffer, timeworn elder he eventually became. The longing in his eyes says something both spiritual and symbolic, and the issue seems to be a celebration, with no mention of Kennedy’s death. The only mishaps are the miscellaneous headlines in the lower corner, which distract from the sound focus of the cover.

In a second Kennedy cover, Newsweek goes the route of an entire tribute issue, with a “special commemorative edition,” its cover set in black and white and featuring the three Kennedy boys, pearly whites on display, under the headline “The Last Brother Edward M. Kennedy, 1932-2009.”

Mediaite Grade (A):In terms of sheer aesthetics, this special edition cover is far and away the most pleasing, with its vintage cover shot capturing the style and grace of a bygone era. Teddy — the youngest of nine Kennedy children — is bookended by his overachieving older brothers, but stands tall and handsome among them, gazing into the distance. It’s a photo ripe for analysis, but also has a standalone quality about it — a summation of American royalty and one ragtag boy’s place in it.

COVER WARS WINNER: The choice of a cover shot following the death of an icon is always a complex decision: do you find the portrait that captures the person at their peak or their end? Will the cover be about documentation, spectacle or celebration? Most important, though, is that the picture of choice captures the essence and the spirit of its subject. With this criteria, Newsweek commemorative issue, featuring the three Kennedy brothers sparkling in their primes, is the only truly fitting tribute for the last of a legacy.

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.

Though The Economist often relies on less than stellar graphics for their covers, this spare design comes complete with an impossibly vague headline. Hasn’t The Economist been pointing out “where it went wrong” for months — or even years — now? Though it’s good to see the mag sticking to its strengths, even without a real news peg, this late July issue couldn’t seem more snooze-worthy.

Mediaite Grade (D-): The colossal textbook front and center, “Modern Economic Theory,” sounds straight out of undergrad, but the graphic looks straight out of Microsoft’s 1999 clip art. And the melting effect should not have taken more than five minutes on Photoshop. The only thing that might motivate one to crack open this issue is “Summer camp for athiests.”

Time, too, managed to drum up a news-less angle for a summer cover, but at least it looks delicious! Anyone who saw their spring-time dream of a perfect beach body fade into a guilty “I should be at the gym” admission is dying to know “The Myth About Exercise.”

Mediaite Grade (B): The kind-looking woman on the treadmill flashing her pearly whites seems pleasant enough until you realize she’s shooting a red laser beam from her right eye! Maybe the lo-fi dotted line is actually more akin to a thought bubble, but the point is, the cupcake of her desires appears both well-made and due to some well-placed sprinkles, extra-sugary. Maybe we’re just hungry but for a cover that could run at any old time, the story sounds pretty intriguing.

Margaritas and daiquiris are widespread summer favorites, but leave it to The Weekly Standard to inform us that cocktails needed a renaissance. With this reader base we’re not talking frozen drinks, and there are few things classier than a martini glass, but a painting of a martini glass? Now that’s high-brow.

Mediaite Grade (B-):The blues and grays of this cover contrast nicely with the citrusy drink, and the details add a familiar 21st century feel. But the writerly glasses, laptop and smartphone might be presented a little too neatly, giving the whole thing an air of artifice and upward posturing. Plus, for a lone prominent headline, this one’s a hard sell.

COVER WARS WINNER: Even if all of these newsweekly stories seem undercooked or slightly irrelevant in one way or another, Time‘s exercise vs. cupcakes cover hits on the right summer mood: it’s fluffy, but fun. While we might pass on Newsweek‘s aliens to our little brother, and The Economist‘s umpteenth crisis cover to our grandpa, Time is the only one we might actually thumb through — if only to find more baked goods.

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.

Mediaite Grade (C): The graffiti aesthetic usually works as a background for whomever is on the cover, but as soon as the grafitti becomes the cover itself and we have to ask questions like “why is Sam Worthington holding a can of spray-paint?” then a line has been crossed. The cover should never trump the cover boy or girl (a ‘nose to spite face’ cliché comes to mind). Not that we minded the Bar Refaeli–Stephen King cover … that was ‘artsy.’

Wait, haven’t we seen Eric Bana, arms folded, facing slightly to his right, on the cover of Men’s Health before. Yeah, yeah we have, in 2006. But forget that. How many times have we seen the deck “Lose Your Gut!” on the cover … We’ve lost count.

Mediaite Grade (C-): We really shouldn’t be so tough on Men’s Health because it is, at the end of the day, a magazine for guys who are looking to get in shape, who are looking to ‘lose their gut’ — not guys who are looking to be ravishingly cool or hip. But would it kill them to shake it up every once in a while?

Good to know that British GQ isn’t afraid to use a little bit of sex to sell magazines. In fact, British GQ readers are accustomed to seeing babes on the cover (July was Megan Fox), unlike the readers of the staid American version,which is perennially stocked with skinny-tie clad men, usually of the Hollywood variety. To be fair, the American Jennifer Aniston and Gisele covers were great — but not this good.

Mediaite Grade (B+): We tip our hat once again to the Brits for doing such a swell job pulling off ‘sophisticate sexy’ so well. If only American men’s mags had enough control to put beautiful women on the cover without taking a total nose-dive into the pseudo-porn dumpster (hi Maxim!).

Bloodshot eyes. Dirty wife-beater. Scratched and scarred shoulder. Unkempt facial hair. Tom Brady looks like he just got off a serious bender. It’s like he needs our help: He needs us to buy a six pack and the September issue of Details and listen to him vent. And maybe in the process we’ll learn how to look as good hungover as he does.

Mediaite Grade (A-): The last time that Details was in Cover Wars, we ragged on them for being “less than edgy“; Jason Bateman was on the cover that month, and there just wasn’t any spark. But we’ve put that all behind us this month — Tom  Brady looks gritty as hell. Details is back! Did somebody say Mandingo Sex Party?

COVER WARS WINNER: Damn you, Details. You’ve tricked us again. You took some pretty-boy celeb/athlete and made us think he was just like us. Oh well, we’ll have to settle for reading about “Fatherhood, football and marriage.”

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?

Mediaite Grade (B): We’re not sure if Obama is (a) staring off into space, (b) gazing optimistically, (c) watching anxiously or (d) listening to somebody talk about something really boring — Hey, maybe they’re talking about health care.

All in all: Too much white space. Strange palate of blues. And we would have known it was Time‘s “Health Care Special Report,” even if they didn’t tell us so in block caps twice on the cover. But seriously: Now is the time to talk about health care, a topic that tends to get really boring really fast. If Time wanted to make this health care report really special, they would have jazzed up the cover.

The Economist pans-out from the health care debate to draw attention to the greater pressures on Obama right now; economic downturn, economic recovery, Afghanistan, Iraq, Bud light, Blue Moon — health care is just one of many pressures threatening to make or break his reputation these days. Sounds kind of like First 100 Days redux. Maybe international readers didn’t have to suffer through all that legacy talk the first time around?

Mediaite Grade (A): We can’t blame The Economist for replaying 100-day coverage because, the American news media was a little premature and extravagant back in the spring. Plus The Economist’s cover is playful, and handsome to boot. The stars and stripes scheme beautifully balances the foreground and background, playing off Obama’s shirt and tie to keep him looking crisp — not at all a cardboard cutout (as we’ve seen so many times before). And we especially love the baby blue, because nothing says ‘crunch time’ like baby blue.

What’s a beauty queen doing on the cover of the National Review. Not just any beauty queen, but ex-Miss California Carrie Prejean! Oh, silly us — we forgot that beauty pageants are where all the substantive marriage debate is going on. And don’t worry, health care makes an appearance on the top right: A doctor gets swept away by a mysterious tentacle, labeled “Obamacare’s Threat.” The tracking here is way too loose. Just one of many problems…

Mediaite Grade (D): Regardless of each of our own political predilections, surely we can all come together and shudder at the double negative on the cover of the National Review: “Why gay marriage isn’t inevitable.”  William F. Buckley, Jr. would mess his pants if he saw that sort of writing on the cover; “[W]e are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather than “newness”) and of honest intellectual combat (rather than conformity),” no more.  Although, for what it’s worth, we’re pretty sure that WFB II would have really dug that sensual text-wrap around Carrie’s leg.

Remember that New Repubic cover shot of Obama and Hillary’s would-be she-man-child, HillarAck? Well, Hillary and Barack are on the cover again, joined this time by Biden, Rahm, Richard Holbrooke, Tom Donilon and Jim Jones. But somehow the fun police at TNR found a way to make the Happy-Fun crew look like demon spawn.

Mediaite Grade (B-): Dear, The New Republic, please send more androgynous freak children because your foreign policy cover is terrifying. The photographs at the bottom look like stills from Apocalypse Now. And we’ve never seen Obama look so evil.

We have to say that we don’t mind the absence of health coverage on the cover, especially when we’re getting “Who Runs U.S. Foreign Policy?” Or as the National Review would say, ‘Who’s Not Uninvolved in U.S. Foreign Policy?’

COVER WARS WINNER: Say what you want, but The Economist cover is thoughtfully designed, simply put and, on the whole, flawlessly executed. Obama appears to understand the gravity of his own situation more than anybody else; none of the flat, non-living Time Obama, or the glaring, hellfire New Republic Obama. Plus, baby blue takes guts.

Quick postscript for the National Review: Get a design director. Fast.

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).  

Mediaite Grade (B): The August cover with Gerard Butler, of King Leonidas 300 fame, might not be an eye-catcher, but it is certainly classic Esquire. For one the shallow depth of field, his soft knee in the foreground, is something fresh, but the scrawl around his left arm and fingers goes to far. Photoshop has its limits, and here Butler’s arm looks like it’s been stapled on. Everything in moderation, Esquire.

Wired might not be a men’s mag per se, although the staff might like to think they can steal readers — smarter, dorkier readers — away from the likes of GQ and Esquire. And when was the last time we saw a male celeb’s portrait on the cover? Not since Steve Carell last May, unless you’d call Microsoft’s Roy Ozzie a celeb. But then again, if you’re reading Wired you probably would.

Mediaite Grade (A): Wired beats the men’s mag pack at its own game this week. Something about Brad Pitt sweating bullets with a Bluetooth headset is hilarious (very Chad Feldheimer meets Rusty Ryan). Better yet we might actually want to read “The New Rules for Digital Gentleman and other Highly Evolved Humans” because, you know, we’ve always wondered if it’s cool to text while we’re using the urinal.

We feel the same way about Jason Bateman as we feel about Details magazine. We love some of their past works, but at times they can be a bit — how should we say — less than edgy? Arrested Developement was genius, as was Details feature on Mandingo Swinger Parties from 2007.  That said,  Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Hancock (2008) and even Juno (2007) were a little ho-hum. And Details’ last couple of covers — Bradley Cooper, Eric Bana and A-Rod — have been, well, flat. More like Eric Banal and A-Nod — AM I RIGHT?!

Mediaite Grade (B+): The August cover could have been a big boring disaster, but the deck “Not All Former Child Stars are Felons” takes care of that. Plus, we want his tie. So maybe the Jason Bateman cover story is no Mandingo Swinger Party, but we might pick it up instead of GQ.

We don’t mean to hate, but when did GQ get so fratty? We’re not sure we want to read about “The Greatest Violent Movies Ever Made”;  or “The Greatest Sandwich Known to Man”; and definitely not “Every Girl’s Crazy ‘Bout A Sharp Dressed Man.” Not to mention that Channing Tatum — Mr. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) himself — isn’t exactly helping GQ‘s case.

Mediaite Grade (C+): If we wanted to read about shoot ‘em ups and sandwiches we would have reached for Maxim. And putting a former Abercrombie model on the cover make is not enough to be a men’s fashion magazine. Never fear, GQ, you’ll get us next time.

COVER WARS WINNER: Ever the dark horse in the world of men’s magazines — or should we say ‘magazines that men might like to read’ — Wired won us over this month with its brains and good looks. We’re always looking for something a little smarter to read, especially if photos of Brad Pitt eating donuts over his keyboard are involved. But maybe we’ll just keep that our little secret…

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?

Maybe Emma Watson looks like she’s getting ready to audition for the part of kinky tinman in some indie Wiz remake on the cover of UK Elle. But underneath all that eye-liner lurks outspoken, bookish Hermione. Actually it took us a double-take to recognize her. Maybe that’s the idea?

Mediaite Grade (B+): We’re a little uneasy about seeing 19-year-old Emma wearing something called silk and metal trousers, and the wool corset can’t be conformable. Somehow her get-up remains modest (at least as far as visible flesh is concerned); there’s a tinge of elegance somewhere on this cover. We’ll try to overlook the glimmering leather stool underscoring her widespread legs.

Hayden Panettiere, 19, weighs in on the dress she’s wearing on the cover of Lucky: “The shape is conservative, but the shade is totally fun.” OMG, totally.

Mediaite Grade (C-): Inside this issue, Lucky touts Hayden’s “Playfully sophisticated, totally age-appropriate look.” Props to Hayden for keeping it classy on the cover, but the result is pretty boring. Nothing against her, but so far Ben & Jerry’s is the only company that has figured out how to sell vanilla.

Between the trippy black and white stripes on Taylor Swift’s shirt and trompe l’oeil play between her arm and the banner, we’re too dizzy to read the August cover of Glamour.

Mediaite Grade (C+): There’s something to be said for having a mesmerizing (albeit stomach-churning) cover: Readers will want to get inside the magazine as fast as possible. Or in the case of this month’s Glamour — “40 Little Ways to Connect With a Guy (Besides Sex, Duh!),” “Plus, Your Breasts: An Intimate Q&A on What’s Normal, What’s Not”  — they’ll just put their head between their legs until the spinning stops.

On the cover of Elle at 16, Miley Cyrus is the youngest of the August flock of teeny covergirls. She also takes the cake for most seductive gaze and the deepest cleavage (notice the cross necklace… JC would be so proud). Believe it or not, Subscribers saw something even bawdier. Or was it artsier?

Mediaite Grade (C): We’ve been over this before (hi, Rolling Stone!): Writing decks like ”On Dad, Boyfriends, and Why She’s Not a Kid Anymore” won’t fool anybody that your covergirl (or boy) is old enough to be taken seriously, and in this case it just draws attention to how ridiculous Miley looks. (And to be fair, Elle is also guilty of the same nauseating banner play).

COVER WARS WINNER: We hate to let the Cover Wars crown leave the country, but we have to give this one to UK Elle. C’mon, the other covers were sooo bad. And, after all, the British are just better than us at pulling off the whole prim-sexy-sophisticated-steamy look — exactly the sensibility you need when you’re talking about dressing up girls in women’s clothes and making them sexy enough to sell.

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.

Mediaite Grade (B-): Don’t get us wrong, we have a special place in our heart for Prince just like the next guy. That said, Spin’s cover looks like it’s ripping off Esquire, and the photo-illustration isn’t doing it for us. “Rare photos” — why not put one of them on the cover?

Rolling Stone seems to be having an identity crisis on behalf of the Jonas Brothers. Last August they were darling boy rockers — “God! Girls! Guitars!”  — and they couldn’t help but tear each other’s shirt. This time around they’re a bit more subdued. But the headline “Boys to Men” fails to convince that they’re ready to be taken seriously as musicians. 

Mediaite Grade (C-): Watching the Jonas Brothers butch it up on the cover of Rolling Stone this week is certainly good for a laugh (leather hat: priceless). But between the boyish good looks, the prim swagger and the booming yellow type, this cover looks like it was cribbed from Tiger Beat. Is this cover really going to draw the sort of eyes that will want to read Matt Taibbi’s piece — “The Bailout: How Goldman Sachs Runs Washington”?  Maybe Rolling Stone is having a little identity crisis of its own.

Fader might not go for the same eye-grabbing pop as the other music mags, but the July/August cover featuring French rockers Phoenix is pure cool. Peter Macia says it best in the cover story:

“This benevolent seduction is the whole plot behind Phoenix’s music: It is so undeniably cool but so effortlessly engaging that, once you drop your preconceived notions of what is French and what is rock & roll and what is acceptable as a responsible journalist, you kind of just want to forget everything else.”

Mediaite Grade (A): Who knew making an engaging cover could be this easy: a decent photograph of relatively normal-looking people and an understated, provactive deck. Weird.

COVER WARS WINNER: Fader takes the cake this time for keeping it simple and reporting on, you know, new music. We’ll save our decline-of-the-music-mag tears for another time, but we’d all do well to return to our roots — and, no, that doesn’t mean another tribute cover. 

Mediaite Grade (A-) – Breathtaking covers are CNT’s bread and butter — so much so that will forgive them for having a seriously vintage design inside.

Budget Travel faces the exact opposite challenge as its peers at CNT: Readers want to feel thrifty and smart instead of broke. And ostensibly BT‘s editors have the most practice at packaging spendthrift content for readers who want to travel at any price. The July/August 2008 cover, however, cannot have been their best effort. Is filling a third of the cover with washed-out grass the best way to make us believe we can travel to Italy on the cheap? Probably not.

Mediaite Grade (C+) –  A disappointing and lazy effort from Budget Travel, repackaging last summer’s Italy cover. Plus, last year Italy was ‘Authentic and Romantic.’ But this year it’s just authentic! Now we feel really poor.

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.

Esquire also features a (nearly) naked subject on its cover, but chose instead to go in the opposite direction as GQ. Bar Refaeli wears merely a white bikini bottom and some body paint cleverly painted outlining the contents of the July issue – a Stephen King cover.

Mediate Grade (B-) – We love the way this looks – and kudos for the creative minds at Esquire for doing something cool — but  it’s been done. More to the point — something doesn’t quite feel right with this cover. Nobody is going to complain about the beautiful shot of Ms. Refaeli, vut what does she – or this concept — have to do with Stephen King? Or the rest of the contents of this issue for that matter? Color us confused.

Maxim features Olivia Wilde wearing a shear covering (with naughty bits smoothed over by Photoshop). Who is Olivia Wilde you might ask? Well she’s plays a Doctor on House – though something tells me that the editors didn’t book her on the cover because of her acting career (ed. – which is a shame – House is awesome)

Mediaite Grade (C-):Coverlines of “Recession Sex!” and “United States of Awesome!” reveal more about the target audience – and the shamelessness of its editors.

Bradley Cooper graces the cover of the July Details issue timed to promote blockbuster hit The Hangover. And if that won’t get you to pluck the issue from the news stands – then how about an article on how President Obama can make you better in bed? Excuse me while I run to the local magazine retailer right now, if only to figure out what they’ll say! Wait. Nevermind.

Mediaite Grade (B-): An interesting choice of cover lines – announcing the beaming movie star’s mug as “That Guy from Wedding Crashers.”  When the talent you book for the cover has to be explained as that guy, well that’s not ideal. All is not lost – the cover at least looks great.

COVER WARS WINNER: Call us suckers for shameless publicity stunts, but we’re all very excited about the upcoming Bruno movie. GQ won this round with the booking alone (though as usual, Creative Director Fred Woodward delivered the goods.)

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.

Mediate Grade (B): ‘Sandy’ could stand to act her age, or at least act more like the wife of a tatted-up motorcycle mogul. The girl-next-door routine is growing old.

Marie Claire goes red, white and blue this month to talk about Cameron Diaz’s involvement in the Green movement: “Not to crash anybody’s party, but to actually make the party better… Really, that’s what it’s about — that’s my participation in it.”

Mediaite Grade (B+): Kudos to Marie Claire for not going overboard with the story of Diaz’s  fun-loving Hollywood altruism of convenience. The Al Gore’s of the world are glad to see that a spade is still a spade, even when ad pages are down.

Harper’s Bazaar goes tabloid this week, running a quotation and reporting-free profile of Angelina Jolie and lifting the newsstand cover off the wire (subscribers saw a model instead). Inquiring minds want to know, and desperate editors want to sell.

Mediaite Grade (C-): We admire Harper’s Bazaar for its sell-at-any-cost ferocity, but once magazines stop producing original (not to mention high-quality and well-reported) content they won’t have anything to sell.  Plus, Wolff’s profile is insultingly bad: “Consider how patriarchal civilization has managed to keep women in hand for all these millennia.” If we wanted to read a St. Joan of Arc wikipedia bio, we wouldn’t have reached for the glossy with a paparazzi photo on the cover.

Sienna Miller finds this month’s Vogue slimmer than before in her first cover appearance since the September 2007 issue, the fattestVogue ever – 840 pages.

Mediaite Grade (A-): Miller looks great straddling the high-brow/low-brow divide: high-fashion cover to promote forthcoming “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.”

Even with no new album in site, fully clothed, 39-year-old mother of two Gwen Stefani beats out the likes of Taylor Swift, Katie Perry, Fergie, Lady Gaga and Missy Elliot for the cover of Elle’s music issue. Kate Hudson’s profile spread hides at the bottom.

Mediaite Grade (C+) :The ‘Women in Music’ cover feints interest in Stefani’s music (what music?), but we can’t help but notice that the decks are built around her look (“The Red Lipstick Anyone Can Wear,” “How to Make Short Hair Sexy”).

Cover Wars Winner: Vogue wins the week on looks alone, but not because Sienna Miller is almost a full decade younger than the field. Nooo, nothing to do with age. By all means rock on, cover moms.