Well, it has been some time between Friendly Societies. Apologies to those Friendly People who felt empty without our gamely semi-competent presence in their inboxes each month. There's a reason for this, however. After three-and-a-half years of livening up Melbourne's (and Sydney's, and your living room or workplace) walls, we have decided to stop producing Is Not Magazine.

We walked innocently into the poster-magazine business, which is probably why Is Not Magazine has lasted this long. Let's face it - seasoned publishers would never have taken on a project so difficult to explain, let alone distribute, and whose lack of advertising revenue necessitated a cruel apprenticeship in events management. We're chuffed that so many people across Australia and the world have got excited about what we thought was a small, uniquely Melburnian publication.

However surprisingly successful our brand of unpaid foolishness might have been, it's kind of an insane way to publish a magazine. We have put vast quantities of love, time and effort into this wonderful publication, but now that all five of us are working on exciting new projects, it's time to wind up Is Not Magazine in the well-meaning but shambolic way we've always run it. Read on to find out how.

It's not you, it's us,

We just need some space, some time to find ourselves, y'know?

We'll still be friends,

The Magazine.

THIS MONTH:

Is Not Magazine Diary - All the key Is Not Magazine dates you need to write down

Last Chance To Buy Is Not Magazine - Seriously, we are shutting up shop soon

Contribute To Our Final Issue - Your last chance to have your golden work included in the magazine

Greatest Hits Exhibition - See our entire oeuvre, and party with us one last time

IS NOT MAGAZINE DIARY

20 June
Is Not Web Store Shuts Down For Good!

If you live outside Melbourne, this is your last chance to buy our back issues, T-shirts and Take-Aways, and to pre-order the forthcoming Issue 11: All That Glitters Is/Not Gold. We are dead serious. Read below for more information.

20 June
Pitch Deadline - Issue 11

It's been a while since we've worked on this issue, and we've drunk lots of alcohol since then, so help us out! If you previously agreed to contribute something to Issue 11, email us telling us where we were at with your idea. And if you've ever wanted to contribute to Is Not Magazine, this is your last chance! Read below for more information.

4 July
Final Copy Deadline - Issue 11

While the Americans celebrate being American with their mystical Liberty Bells, sloppy joes and sea to shining sea, our commissioned writers will be handing in their final copy for the final ever Is Not Magazine!

8 July
YouTube Tuesday - Julyke To Watch

Julyke to watch funny internet videos, right? Then jubetter get jurass to YouTube Tuesday. Entry by $5 donation to Is Not Magazine. Loop, 23 Meyers Place, Melbourne. Rock up from 6pm; screening starts 6:30pm or whenever Jeremy rocks up, so closer to 7pm really.

20-26 July
Is Not Magazine Retrospective Exhibition

As part of 2008's State Of Design festival, come and see the collected works of a bunch of friends who once sat down over a fateful lasagne and decided to make a high-concept magazine. Every issue of Is Not Magazine will be on display in a warehouse space that, curiously enough, used to house a printing press.

25 July
Last Ever Is Not Magazine Party

If you have never been to an Is Not Magazine party, or haven't been to one in a while, you should damn well go to this one. Details are sketchy for now, but it will be held in the city and will feature the ridiculous antics we have made famous over the last three-and-a-half years.

12 August
YouTube Tuesday - Second Birthday Edition

Can you believe we have been running YouTube Tuesday for two years? That is mental. In celebration, we will screen some especially mental videos off the internet and perhaps there will be a cake. Entry by $5 donation to Is Not Magazine. Loop, 23 Meyers Place, Melbourne. Rock up from 6pm; screening starts 6:30pm or whenever Jeremy rocks up, so closer to 7pm really.

LAST CHANCE TO BUY IS NOT MAGAZINE

We are dissolving the incorporated non-profit association Is Not Magazine Inc. at the end of this financial year, 30 June. This means no more bank account and hence no more online or retail sales! In order to give Tash plenty of time to finalise our accounts (factoring in sympathetic shoulder rubs and the consumption of tea), we are closing the Is Not Magazine Online Store on 20 June, 2008 at midnight, Melbourne time. All our retail outlets will also cease stocking Is Not Magazine from 20 June. If you'd like to order any Is Not Magazine back issues or merchandise online, now's the time to do it.

Of course, we'd also like to give our interstate and overseas customers a chance to purchase the forthcoming bumper final issue, All That Glitters Is/Not Gold, so until 20 June, the store will allow a limited number of 'pre-sale' orders of this issue. These will be preferentially allocated to customers outside the Melbourne metropolitan area. That's because Melburnians will be rather well placed to buy the issue once we've produced it. Between 20-26 July, visitors to our retrospective exhibition in Melbourne will be able to purchase the issue for $30, for cash only.

We are also planning a fire sale in August at our Melbourne CBD office, at which you'll be able to pay cash for the entire range of Is Not Magazine merchandise (depending on availability - some issues are completely sold out), plus sundry office fittings and other random stuff we are trying to offload. It'll be like the good old days of Welcome To The Jumble or the Cake Stall Corps! Or as Mel rather tragically offers, "like in Terminator 2 when the T-1000 falls in the molten steel and it flashes through the forms of the various people it has killed and impersonated." Yep. Just like that.

CONTRIBUTE TO OUR FINAL ISSUE

Okay people, "All That Glitters Is/Not Gold" is definitely going to be our final issue. And it'll be a big old one, with three sheets rather than two. We think it's a rather fitting note to end on, really. This issue asks us to come clean about our true desires. Do we find excitement in promises or in results? Why do we feel so hollow when we achieve a major goal? Can real people ever meet our expectations, or do we prefer to turn them into idols? And do we need to reassess the superficial as an honest delight? We're encouraged to seek the profound in life - but perhaps there's something honourable in instant gratification after all.

If you've ever wanted to write or illustrate for Is Not Magazine, now is the time to pitch us fiction and non-fiction feature ideas, columns and reviews, quirky short pieces, one-frame illustrations, feature comics, and other things that will blow our tiny minds. More detailed information on the sort of stuff we publish is available on the contributors' page of our website.

To pitch a story, or if you have already had a piece commissioned for this issue and want to let us know where you're at, please contact Mel, who will be coordinating content. Her email address is mel at isnotmagazine dot org. Come on people; we're just sitting in front of our computers twiddling our thumbs and whistling "Spanish Flea" here.

Deadlines

20 June - Pitch deadline
4 July - Final copy/artwork deadline

GREATEST HITS EXHIBITION

Rather than going out with a whimper, we have decided to end Is Not Magazine with a grand exhibition of every single issue of the magazine. Fittingly, this will take place from 20-26 July, during the 2008 State Of Design festival, and in a warehouse that once contained a printing press. It's the perfect storm.

In this cavernous space you can admire what years of pub dinners has wrought. We will also be having a party on July 25 in the space. If you went to our unexpectedly riotous Issue #4 launch exhibition, "A-Zero", then you will have some idea of what to expect. But in the spirit of all Is Not Magazine events, be assured that while just about every detail of this party is yet "to be confirmed", it will all come together on the night. Somehow.

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