June Magazine Illustrations

If you are anything like me, you're probably not satisfied with restricting your reading and viewing material to either yaoi or slash. Perhaps you also browse the fiction shelves for slashy novels, go through obscure videos to find that movie with the perfect m/m subtext. June is the magazine for people like us. I picked up these two back issues from the early ninties while browsing idly in Mandarake last fall. Beside the usual assortment of manga and novel serialization, each issue also contained wonderful reviews of lush artbooks, obscure movies with beautiful male actors, the obligatory David Bowie centerfolds, and some rather spooky photographs that are undoubtedly considered aesthetic by the editors. A few examples are reproduced below for your benefit.

To give you an idea of the range of the material covered, here are a few examples. In the two issues I have, there are half page spreads on Kyle McLaughlin, Keanu Reeve, Jeremy Irons. There is a preview of an extremely obscure movie featuring John Lone named Shanhai 1920 that in fact looks quite tempting. Also there is a review of a S/M photobook, m/f, alas; a review of Where Angels Fear to Tread and Bengal Night. And on the cultural front, there is a note on the Youth Peking Opera Troupe, featuring a dozen of adorable little boys from China. (Get your mind out of the gutter.)

So if you're a bit sated by the surfeit of doujinshi and fan fiction, pick up an issue of June Magazine next, and search out something new. After all, in the phrase of one slash writer, slash is everywhere.