The new Kraven Magazine 2.0
Kraven Magazine 2.0 will feature articles from up to 30 individuals and businesses per issue, allowing them to reach our community at no cost. In addition, each issue will provide ad placements free of charge to LGBTQ+ small businesses through these sections:
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Entrepreneurship
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Art and Entertainment
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Fitness & Wellness
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Cuisine
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Travel
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Queer Social Justice
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Photography Editorials
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Extraordinary People
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Wellbeing/Coaching
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Not-for-profits
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Drag
While Kraven Magazine 1.0 focused on gay men; Kraven Magazine 2.0 will focus on everyone in our community and will showcase the diversity of our community with each new release. We welcome and encourage any feedback that can help us improve the overall experience for our readers.
The cover will be 130# satin with matte lamination, while the inside pages will be 70# matte. Kraven Magazine 2.0 will be shipped in a branded envelope to protect this high-quality publication.
While many things will change in Kraven 2.0, we will retain our legacy commitment to excellence - it’s in our DNA!
Applications
Kraven Magazine 2.0 is more than a publication; It celebrates the many minds and individuals of our diverse and inclusive community.
#TeamKraven wants everyone to have an opportunity and a platform to share their ideas, skills, services, and stories. Kraven Magazine 2.0 has many ambitious goals to stimulate the community within different Kraven projects.
Presales Second Volume
History of the original Kraven Magazine
In 2011, then 23-year-old Fernando Velez was a server at a restaurant in The Palm Hotel in Miami Beach. When covering breaks for the gift shop attendant, he would read O - Oprah's magazine. He was amazed how the publication empowered and celebrated women, yet with articles one could relate to O content provided tools that anyone could apply to improve their lives. Fernando quickly thought that our LGBTQ+ community could benefit from something so powerful and positive – and just as quickly that too often, our publications were far below that standard.
Every day he thought about ideas for an LGBTQ+ publication that could impact our community; one that could provide bold, engaging content that would be meaningful and empowering. Fernando started to hide at work while making notes on what he would need to create such a magazine. His boss often told him, “Go back to the floor – you’re not opening a magazine.” Those words only made him more determined to make his vision come true.
After going door-to-door with his friend Nery and just a one-page sheet of paper that was the “Media Kit” of his vision for Kraven, he launched Kraven Magazine 1.0. Two months later, he quit his server job and returned to his former boss to leave some magazines for the restaurant. After a few issues in Miami, Fernando decided to expand to the large San Francisco gay market, where again he faced challenges that he quickly overcame. Using platforms like Grindr and adam4adam, he found contributors for his first issue of Kraven Magazine in San Francisco, including S.M. Brennan, whose work Fernando fell for right away. Neither of them could have predicted the future they had in store would be far more than just one travel article: Fernando’s eloquence was often cramped by standard written English, and in Brennan, he found a trusted partner who became the editor and later an investor in Kraven. After a year, the magazine went nationwide, where it caught the attention of Charlie Pflaumer, a New York City-based graphic designer, who reached out to Fernando with interest in becoming part of the team. Fernando loved his style of design and creativity, and Charlie joined Brennan to make Kraven Magazine’s first team.
In the summer of 2014, one of Kraven’s contributors, Raad Starr, wrote an article about the misrepresentation of our community in the comic book industry. This again set Fernando’s creativity and ambition ablaze and led to the creation of Kraven Comics. This new endeavor was the reason that Kraven Magazine went on hiatus, but Fernando never forgot the high quality of its content and never wavered in his commitment to his vision.
When Fernando reached out to LGBTQ+ publications for help in spreading the word about Kraven Comics, he found that they all asked for a fee – from $750 to $5,000 - for one article about the comic. And yet when Marvel or DC Comics or another large imprint, none of whom are committed to the gay community, turn a character LGBTQ+ for marketing purposes, those same queer publications gave columns and columns of press for free.
When Kraven Comics needed it the most during the first few months of the pandemic, it was two publications – the South Florida Gay News and Peach Atlanta – whose features and exposure helped Kraven Comic’s successful Kickstarter campaign that paved the way to what Kraven Comics is today.
This got Fernando’s creative synapses firing again, and he wondered if there couldn’t be a publication that could sustain itself while providing a voice to members of our community – a publication committed to excellence and to diversity in all its forms, and in which our community members could find the support they needed to thrive in difficult times.
So at the start of 2022, now that Kraven Comics has two series with a total of 10 books in the franchise and is being pitched to studios, Fernando knew: “It’s time to bring Kraven Magazine back.” Kraven Magazine 2.0 would have this new concept inspired by his experience with Kraven Comics.
Fernando reached out to his original team, Brennan and Charlie, to ask them to join as part-owners. Brennan, who has wistfully mentioned the old Kraven in conversation over the years, quickly agreed to assume the role of Executive Editor. Charlie, who similarly felt that this chapter of Kraven wasn’t over and that the magazine was destined to return, happily assumed the position of Art Director.
Together they form #TeamKraven, working hard to bring visibility to many content creators, thinkers, and business owners. Looking for people with extraordinary stories who can motivate and inspire our community. Challenging the norm to engage topics that may be hard to talk about. But most importantly: giving chances.
