Several cartoonists who have appeared often in the pages of Playboy talk about the magazine's revamp, which not only minimizes nudity but cartoons, as well.
I finally received my copy of the first issue in the new format. I happen to have a lifetime subscription to Playboy, a gift from Mr. Hefner back around 1980 when I worked with him. Every so often since then, an issue doesn't arrive and I call up the Playboy subscription line and ask them to send me the missing magazine. They invariably try to get out of doing that by saying, "We can't send you that issue but we'll extend your subscription to make up for it."
I then explain to them that you can't really extend a lifetime subscription. I mean, I guess they could send me some issues after I die but it's kind of understood that when you have a subscription to a magazine, they send it to you when you're still around to read it. Eventually, they accept my logic and send out a copy of the issue I didn't get.
Anyway, I care less about that now that I've seen the new issue…and not because the nude women are gone. (Actually, they aren't. There are some photos of females who have no clothes on. There just aren't as many of them and you don't see much of their bodies. The women also don't look all that magical and I'm not faulting their appearances but the photography and the presentation.)
They did do a nice job though with the new art direction for the text and layout but the editorial content was really unimpressive to me. The only thing of interest I found was the interview with Rachel Maddow and I'd already read that (and linked to it) online.
I get the feeling the big revamp here is not the elimination of nekkid females. The overriding sense of change I got was that Playboy, which once spared no expense to put out the best-possible magazine has now decided to spare every possible expense.