Since I live 90 miles away from the nearest newsstand that carries The Drake, I've been telling myself I need to just bite the bullet and get a subscription (that's what I eventually did with Gray's and what I still need to do with Flyfish Journal, too).

That way I won't take the chance of missing any issues, especially issues that might be sporting awesome cover art like this (via Buster Wants To Fish)


Now that one is a keeper. And if you're interested, here's the artist website.

And it brings up a question: Why the hell don't sporting mags put real art on their covers any more? Outside of Gray's and Sporting Classics I don't think any hook-and-bullet mags still routinely use original artwork.

Which is a shame, really. Honestly, do we really need an endless barrage of covers featuring underwear models, game-farm bucks, barnyard turkeys, trained megafauna and the latest in tactical cutlery? What's wrong with every now and then using a real artist? Maybe something created from an individual vision rather than a marketing decision.?

It's the damndest thing: the production values on modern magazine covers have never been higher. The photography has never been more technically perfect. The design and art direction has never been more slick and refined. And the end product we see on the newsstand has never been more soulless, antiseptic, inorganic and utterly forgettable.

I glance through a lot of magazines because most of them aren't worth reading (and oftentimes the cluttered, manic, counter-intuitive and generally goofy-ass design and layout actually inhibits reading them...), much less admiring as a piece of pop or commercial art. Happily, this issue of The Drake is both. Now I just need to go find a copy.
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