Maxim has poached Sam Delaney from men’s weekly Nuts to be editor at large.
He has worked on Nuts since the early stages of its launch but was lured to Maxim following the appointment of new editor Greg Gutfeld.
Delaney said: “I really like Nuts and think it’s a great success and will go on to become an even bigger success, but I saw the first issue of Maxim under Greg and thought it was the first original idea in men’s magazine for years.
“It had a fresh tone of voice and a new joke. Basically, men’s magazine journalists and editors have had about three jokes which have been rehashed since 1995. What Greg Gutfeld has done with just one issue of Maxim has genuinely changed the entire idea of what men’s magazines are going to be doing next and, crucially, it’s worth reading because it’s funny.”
Delaney played a key role at Nuts and was sent to Portugal in June in his capacity of editor at large to cover the Euro 2004 football championships.
He also writes for The Guardian Guide and the NME, hosts Channel Five’s The Chart and will be appearing on the new Channel Four panel show Flipside from next week. He was Five News’s anti-war correspondent.
His brief at Maxim is to write features and oversee the development of ‘Maxim Uncovered’ – content from the magazine which is put on DVD as a cover mount.
Gutfeld was brought in from the United States to drive up sales of Maxim.
He described Delaney as a “bright beacon of editorial talent, shining alone in a sea of magazine mediocrity”.
“Sam will come aboard as our editor at large, which means he gets to ‘work at home’ a lot, probably wearing pyjamas and surfing the net for midget porn,” he added.
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