Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've been a GQ subscriber for over 20 years but recently dropped my subscription. This is no longer the great men's magazine it once was. The features have dwindled in substance in favor of pictures and been overwhelmed by exploding ad content, making the "meat" minimal and very difficult to find. Space which used to be devoted to interesting fashion, travel, "mixology" and dining has been diverted to titillating "skin" shots and silly lists of things which are uninteresting, useless and often offensive. What little fashion remains will be useless to those who inhabit even a semi-traditional world, though if your taste runs to 4 day beards, long uncombed hair and leather, you'll love it. Also permeating the "new" magazine is a very heavy handed political agenda. The old GQ profiled politicians on occasion but with a focus on their personal side and without political "spin" to the story. Every issue of the new GQ trashes conservatives and Republicans from cover to cover. Examples---the current issue somehow finds a way to take a swipe at President Bush under the pretext of answering a reader question about loafers; a profile of singer Toby Keith is sneeringly derisive of his pro-U.S. songs; a recent review of several new British mystery writers found a way to spend much of its space trashing Margaret Thatcher, etc., etc. So, the old GQ wasn't political and did a great job focusing on a broad range of fashion and other items of interest to guys with an emphasis on the traditional. It was interesting, entertaining and informative. The new GQ seems to me to have minimal use for anyone, even big city "hipsters" on whom the publishers have decided to focus. If you want liberal politics, or "skin" photos, you have far better magazine choices. There's precious little else left in GQ except for the scruffy guys in page after page of ads.