Introducing Desert Living Today’s newest column: This Month In Magazines. A redux of 5 Valley glossies, we’ll take you from cover to cover (and then some).

First off, we’d like to apologize. We totally skipped This Month In Magazines: November. As we’re on our knees begging for forgiveness, we promise it won’t happen again. With that being said, here is the December edition. This months contestants? Please welcome, 944 Phoenix, Arizona Foothills Magazine, AZ Magazine and Phoenix Magazine.

We’ve got a lot to cover (this pun will never get old), so let’s get started!

944 Phoenix: Smart Luxury: The Green Gift Guide (try saying that 5x fast)
First Impression: Want, need, have to have that dress. Although Sessilee Lopez‘s eyes are a little vampire like.
Total Pages: 112*
Total Ad Pages: 27
Total Editorial Pages: 83
Edit/Ad ratio: 75:25 (Eek, on the low side!)

Highlights: Although our copy of 944 was water logged and wrinkly by the time we got it, (thanks rain) it’s still a great read. Although a majority of the December issue was composed of the normal columns (fashion spread with vampiress Sessilee Lopez, What’s New etc.) the best feature falls to the editors. Congratulations 944, although you’ve managed to allow your editors to stroke their own egos, somehow it works. Give, Get, Green: Our Editor’s Guide to Eco Luxury (pgs. 37-48) showcases every city’s 944 editor wearing, posing or inappropriately gazing (cough San Francisco’s Managing Editor Erica Henderson getting dressed after a romp in the sheets with Andy, the Anybot) with their fav luxe products. Our personal fav? Katie Pegler, Orange County Managing Editor who is vacumning her yard (as in grass) with a $400 Dyson Vacumn while simultaneously holidng an LCD HDTV and hanging expensive laungerie from clotheslines. All while managing to look perfectly pristine. Wow. Although Phoenix Managing Editor/Executive Editor D.B Mitchell, your Lanvin sneakers were pretty snazzy as well. Check out the full magazine online in crazy cool flip-book format here.

Arizona Foothills Magazine: Season’s Greetings
First Impression:What’s black and white and read all over?
Total Pages: 88*
Total Ad Pages: 36.33
Total Editorial Pages: 53.67
Edit/Ad Ratio: 60:40 (A little on the high size, but what else is new?)
Highlights: On our mere journalist salary, we cannot afford to live in one of the luxury zip codes to which Arizona Foothills Magazine sends their publications (for free). And seeing as DLT operates on a shoestring budget, we’ve resorted to looking up this pub online. Only problem is, the images are as small as the image to the right. Which results in the inability to read the magazine. Awesome. So, through squinty eyes, here’s what we can decipher from AFM’s December issue. There is a photo of a really cool menorah and a huge gummy bear on a stick. A health article about shots, and a travel feature on Albuquerque, NM. Some gift guides (featuring Neiman Marcus’s $35,000 gingerbread playhouse we jokingly made fun of a few weeks back) and a fashion shoot featuring a model wearing lingerie. Hey, Mike Dee, throw us a bone and send us a copy of your magazine? We’ll happily provide our address.

AZ Magazine: Inspiring Women
First Impression: This is the December issue, right?
Total Pages: 80
Total Ad Pages: 32.25
Total Editorial Pages: 49.75* 2 of these pages+ a booklet of inserted recipes are “sponsored content” or “advertorial.” For simplicity’s sake we’ve added these pages to editorial although they just as rightfully belong in the Ad pages count.
Edit/Ad Ratio: 60:40 (this is not counting the 20 page “sponsored content” insert)
Highlights: In case you were unaware, AZ Magazine is owned, operated and printed by the Arizona Republic. Which is probably why it feels like sort of a “half” magazine. Still searching for identity, AZ Magazine is an easy lighthearted lifestyle read for the first half, with the remainder focusing on trying-to-be-serious in depth features of inspiring women and Beth McDonald’s first Christmas without Bill (which is really, really sad). The best articles are those written by the food, lifestyle and fashion writers of the Arizona Repulic: Karen Fernau, Jaimee Rose, Ginger Murphy respectively. Stories such as Hot Tips For Decor, Yummy, Yule-Free Food and Great Gift Ideas From 10 Stores Off the Beaten Path are right on target. Skip the rest.

Phoenix Magazine: In the 1920′s
First Impression: Loving the outfits gentleman.
Total Pages: 168
Total Ad Pages: 72.33
Total Editorial Pages: 97.67
Edit/Ad Ratio: 57:43 (tsk tsk, on the very high side)
Highlights: Dear Phoenix Magazine, we love you. We really really do. But your special advertising sections (20+ pages of senior living and dentists, yuck) are terrible. However, no one does history quite like you. With that said, the gold star of this December issue falls to (surprise, surprise) Phoenix In the 1920′s. With a 10 year breakdown on the city’s growth and development (apparently cotton was once big here) to the rise of “sunshine tourism” the mag also takes you through the development of local Phoenix radio stations. 3 articles chock full of Phoenix history spanning over 45+ pages of editorial makes this issue definitely worth a read. Only thing missing, where is the obligatory holiday gift guide? Just kidding.

Well, that’s all folks. See you next month!

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