Yet another slick-looking Chinese gay magazine — Manse (男色) or ‘the color of man’ — has launched in China, although it is only available in electronic format.
Apparently based in Beijing, Manse’s website has feature stories, bulletin boards and photo galleries, and also offers the option to download an 80 MB file containing an entire issue of the magazine, which is designed to look like a print magazine.
The contents are mostly slightly homoerotic fashion photos. There are some advertisements. One of them is a spoof iPod ad, no doubt downloaded from the Internet, that says: ‘If you don’t have an iPod, you’re a loser’, so it is unclear whether any of the other ads are from paying clients. Chasing after the pink dollar in China is probably going to be more difficult than the quest for “white collars’ that most glossy magazines claim as their mission.
- Manse Home Page (Chinese)
- Manse (Chinese): Manse photo album
- Manse (Chinese): BBS
- Manse (Chinese): 80 MB magazine download