In Touch Weekly Is Fun To Read!

Want a magazine that is fun to read and that has minimum advertisement interruptions? “In Touch” Weekly is the magazine that meets both criteria. Its format is similar to People magazine but the stars featured (it IS a Celebrity magazine) are mainly the new and young actors and actresses. What makes this magazine fun is that they find various ways to present the same old information normally featured in celebrity magazines. For example, in one copy I have, they put together certain facial features to then show a composite. It was called, “Celebrity Math” and if you mix Melanie Griffith + Queen Elizabeth it equals Camilla Parker Bowles. And, my goodness, but it truly does look like her! What makes this magazine meet the minimum advertisement criteria is that in most copies there are 10 (that’s right, ten!) or less pages of advertisements. Some of those advertisements aren’t even full page ones. It makes you wonder how they stay in business and have so few advertisers.

THE MAGAZINE FORMAT

The magazine averages about 50 pages front and back for a finished product of 100 pages to read.

Most copies cost $1.99 on the newsstand (although I recently bought one for 25 cents because it was a “thank you” for buying issue. If you subscribe, it costs $1.49 an issue and you can subscribe through their website www.intouchweekly.com. I personally found their website to be way too “fluffy” cute for my tastes but teens will enjoy it.

It pages are filled with great colored photography of the celebrities. Some are posed but most are candid shots and they are clear and the photos are well done. For such an inexpensive magazine, it is amazing how colorful and well done they are. The cover is average quality but a bit thicker than the pages.

INSIDE “IN TOUCH WEEKLY”

In each issue they present: THE STARS ABOVE which is a horoscope feature for the reader and the stars. TIME TO RELAX is a puzzle page with a large crossword puzzle and other word games. BEST OF THE WEEK features brief summaries of current Movies and Television programs. And, LAST WORDS are quotes by the stars. This issue has about five pictures and quotes, one being, “I was a sad child on the playground who never got chosen,” by Ben Stiller.
The rest of the magazine is divided up into main topics. These include:

Celebrities

“Celebrities” is by far the thickest part of the magazine. In a recent issue this section (which is also punctuated with really short picture and snapshots of information about others along the sides of a wee bit longer main articles) included “Antonio Banderas is a big tipper” and Christina Applegate takes a first honeymoon after 2 years of marriage.
There is an Investigation: “Stars most wanted features” that shows a composite using Sarah Jessica Parker’s hair, Julianna Moore’s chin, Jennifer Lopez’s cheeks, Courteney Cox’s eyes, Angelina Jolie’s lips and Nicole Kidman’s nose. It was fun to see the results!

Since the whole magazine is about celebrities (the only political enhancement showed in the recent issue was a comparison of the Bush daughters and the Kerry daughters) you won’t run out of news about your favorite stars, they are found on every page.

News

News is about People in the News. The “people” being movie and television stars. Breaking news in a recent issue, for example, is the speculation (complete with pictures) “Is Britney (Spears) Headed for her Next Marriage?” You get the picture.

Lifestyle

An example of their Lifestyle articles would be “Recipes for the Coolest Cocktails” (2 pages of recipes) and “Home Design Awards” which had layouts of various star’s homes.

Style

Style is a pretty comprehensive section of the magazine. They have a lot of articles about current fashions that look great and they always include some fashion “problems.” All of the Style section uses real photos of celebrities wearing things that looked great on them and things that looked awful. The full page layouts include items such as “Handbags Make a Statement” “Who Overdid the Makeup?” “Showing Cleavage” right and wrong cleavage looks; “Hair Trauma” and new fashions being worn by the stars, such as Empire Waist lines. All of this is done in a light fun style with many more pictures than words.

Cover Stories

Each story that you see advertised on the magazine cover is covered in depth inside each issue. In depth, in this case, means longer than one-paragraph articles.

Recently they did “Oh Baby!” which was comprised of about six pages of pictures and an article about whether or not Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt were expecting a baby. They also speculated about the possibility that J. Lo (yep, they think I knew that J.Lo is Jennifer Lopez) was expecting. They then decided to compare the home each baby would live in, the car each baby would ride in, and the support group each baby would have as babysitters. Then they drew it all together with the burning question, “Which woman will be the best mother?”

The End

My conclusion is that if you are looking for something light (really light) to read (or maybe look at the pictures and read the accompanying blurps) then this magazine is perfect. More directed at the younger set (or those of you that keep up with the movies and music of the times) it is a fun way to get the information about these celebrities. It is written for pure enjoyment and not meant to impart information to help live your life better. It is written to be enjoyed and I did!