Goodbye, print version of Arthur magazine. Your insightful music coverage and effortless ability to help us look cool by reading you at late-night vegan greasy spoon hangouts will be sorely missed. Computer screens are much more difficult to help broadcast one's innate coolness and "cred." As a new day dawns, the "transgenerational global counterculture" music rag is saddling up the horse of financial difficulty and riding off into the sunset of online publication.
Earlier this week, Arthur editor/publisher Jay Babcock announced via an online memo that the print edition of the magazine will be taking a breather until someone special steps in to help run and finance publication. The one-man publishing machine had been editing, publishing, and managing the daily affairs of the magazine since 2007. (The free bi-monthly was launched in 2002.) Then summer 2008 happened. Babcock told readers that Arthur needed a serious cash infusion of $20,000 or the magazine would be unable to continue. Donations poured in, but well, you're reading this article, so I'm assuming you get the gist. On the upside, Babcock promises to "upgrade and expand greatly" Arthur's online content.
