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January 15, 2004updated 17 May 2007 11:30am

Sleazenation restyled as ‘young Private Eye’

By Press Gazette

Sleazenation: last in old format Boorman: plan to spread audience

Sleazenation is changing its name to Sleaze as part of a relaunch aimed at turning it into a “style-led Private Eye”.

The current issue, which features the words “Sleazenation RIP” on the cover, will be replaced on 5 February with a new look, including a slightly smaller size, new paper stocks, new layouts and 20 extra pages of editorial.

The cover price will also drop from £3.95 to £2.80.

Neil Boorman, founding editor of the East London fanzine Shoreditch Twat, has taken over from Steve Slocombe as editor.

He said Sleazenationwould continue to be anti-establishment, but would target more readers outside London. “I think the problem with Sleazenation in the past is that it has been wilfully obscure and just wanted to pander to a very small clique. It was very much London-centric and I want to take it away from that as far as possible and try to spread the audience as much as we can in this country,” he told Press Gazette.

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The fashion coverage will be more wearable and take more of an in-depth look at brands, while the listings, music and film reviews have been dropped from the back pages and replaced by a 25-page music section described by Boorman as a “mini X-Ray or NME”.

“That, along with the front section, pretty much creates a young Private Eye – satirical, humorous and newsorientated,” he said. “A lot of it will be laughing at ourselves and the world we inhabit.”

Boorman has also tried to incorporate some of the self-deprecating humour of Shoreditch Twat, which he said he closed after a broadsheet took legal action over a pastiche the fanzine did of one of its Saturday magazines.

The new team at Sleazenation includes Alex Rayner from The Face, deputy editor Chris Haterill from US magazine Vice, Stuart Turnball, exfeatures editor of X-Ray, and fashion director Cynthia Laurence-John.

Richard Hart of advertising agency Mother is on board as art director.

Boorman said he did not want to create an environment that was “sullied” by mainstream magazine culture.

“People who have been immersed in the culture of magazines for a really long time do seem to be devoid of any new ideas and I am not in the business of creating a magazine that is like anything else in its market.”

By Ruth Addicott

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

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