In creating Perfect Gentleman, publisher and editor-in-chief Jim Brown identified a demand and set out to supply it.
“I know what my friends and I like to read. And there weren’t any magazines in Denver that had articles relevant to my age group,” the 39-year-old told XBiz.
Brown was dissatisfied with the lack of coverage of greater Denver’s numerous strip clubs, swingers clubs, adult stores, and the like by the local press. So Brown — who graduated from the University of Northern Colorado with a degree in graphic design, and runs an advertising and marketing company — decided to do it himself.
The premier issue of Perfect Gentleman features press release-based stories on Jenna Jameson’s new movie and the Showtime cable television network’s renewal of the Seymore Butts reality TV show “Family Business” for a third season. Brown told XBiz that a Canadian woman contributed a voyeur-themed piece of original erotic fiction.
There are also two layouts of nude female models in the full color glossy.
“The two photo spreads are Playboy-esque,” Brown told XBiz. “There’s full frontal nudity, but no penetration, crotch or open leg shots.”
Brown combined the adult-themed stories and pictures with mainstream articles that appeal to the demographic Perfect Gentleman is targeting. The August issue includes an article on identity theft.
“It’s relevant to my age group. We’ve got credit cards,” Brown said.
Like Hugh Hefner in Playboy before him, Brown also has a column where he expresses his own personal point of view. The first “Final Word,” as the column is called, discusses clergy surfing porn and the extremes of stereotypical Republicans and Democrats, Brown told XBiz.
The publisher said that Perfect Gentleman’s role model is Showtime. The cable network screens softcore porn, as well as “Family Business” and a documentary about adult star Ron Jeremy. However, Showtime also airs politically-themed made-for-TV-movies, such as “The Reagans” biopic and “Deacons for Self Defense,” about an early ’60s black power group of militants in the south.
Perfect Gentleman’s website is scheduled to go online Aug. 20. “The magazine will push readers to the site,” Brown stated. “Each month, the site will feature pictures of the entire photo shoots of our two regular layouts. This will always be free.”
However, the site will eventually have a members’ section offering more content. “We are also building a store, where we will sell DVDs, adult stores, and so on,” Brown told XBiz.
Perfect Gentleman’s ads likewise combine the adult and mainstream, and the offline and online. There are advertisements for Gentlemen’s clubs and adult stores, as well as for a granite countertop company, which covets the magazine’s target market. “Each advertiser also gets a web presence, with a hotlink and rolling banner on our site,” Brown said.
The ambitious Colorado-based publisher said that Perfect Gentleman plans to go beyond the borders of the Rocky Mountain state by 2005. “We absolutely are going to go national,” he said.
