The cover of the latest issue in Radar Magazine’s latest late-career Magic Johnson-esque towel-throw has issues. If you are not familiar, Radar aims to be mag porn for the upwardly mobile “obsessed” with magazine-loving, gossip, “politics” and hyper-culture.

This quasi-demographic is one quick to be labeled in press kits as sophisticated circa eight years ago; or maybe 2003, when the mag first shouted its arrival at the percolating blogosphere. These days, theirs is a niche that best equates to people who mumble “Did you see that on Gawker today, where…” Today, Radar is taking its third costly shot at finding a popular and relevant identity—unheard of in the shrinking world of newsstand publishing.

After this, ignore staffer Tiffany Rainey discourses the entire issue. Click here for that. For now, the cover: Did feted Editor-in-Chief Maer Roshan and the loyal staffers in his Venn diagram finally succeed at getting your attention, and nearly as importantly, your $3.99?

If this was The Verdict, they wouldn’t be Paul Newman or Jack Warden. Lindsay Lohan holding a 007 prop communicates only scant intrigue to public minds sans flash or flesh. While not within six degrees of Joel Stein, slipping this cover to 10 high school stair-dwellers or 10 scandalous grandmas and using a stopwatch would offer proof. The cover with Tom Cruise poked by arrows was far more memorable and fitting, and that was, wow, years ago. Keep celebrities on the lethal end, even if they won’t return your calls for a cover shoot. Why Radar still can’t realize how to stand out without the help of the Cruise cover's George Lois, a genius, is a like being stillborn under a bad sign. They should place an offer to A.E. Neuman, stat.

The cover lines are ineffective and sleepy for all targeted parties, and do not add up to a cohesive, original outlook and voice. The first, “Live! From Your Bedroom,” which serves to highlight a late article on the boom of amateur web porn, seems picked from a collegiate-newspaper or Playboy. It attempts to playfully attract readers to a risqué cliché expose with an unsexy boast of self-involving sex and fame wrapped in safety’s heavy whiff of vicarious bullshit. Is the administration watching from above with one of those new handheld cameras?

“Sony’s Spider Bite” is far more lackluster in its bid for newsstand browsing would-be box office experts and inner-fan boys. There is a reason Premiere died and this type of cover line could be it. And to anyone inside Hollywood, this "insider" cover line certainly can’t promise any financial scoops on Spider-Man 3 that L.A. Weekly’s Nikki Finke didn’t post or even paste from this very issue prior to its shelf date on Deadline Hollywood Daily. Besides the obvious reasons, how about, “The $500 Million Weave”? Also, mentioning movie studios on your cover, especially Japanese and non-Harvey ones, is wack. And the number rule aside, spell out million next time. With Lohan (for a paparazzo story?) and this on the cover, it’s difficult to gauge where the mag’s Hollywood coverage lies.

The best, lowest and lowest of the cover lines, “Too Rich, Too Thin,” is practically negated by the subtitle’s follow-through, “The Skinny on Summer Fashion.” That brings the thought, “Oh, so it’s only a summer fashion pictorial?” and all of the reader’s desire for scandal suddenly leaks out before they’re inside. It’s salvageable though, and the actual pictorial with its eerily-familiar chic skeletons gone literal is memorable and tastefully unsympathetic. Why not make the fucker scream with an excerpted photo burst?

The sole cover line for an “exclusive” article is “How U.S. Street Gangs Are Infiltrating the Army in Iraq.” Alright, the mag’s mantra above the nameplate is “Pop*Politics*Scandal*Style,” but this cover line’s placement and purpose is fully ridiculous. Lohan, grab your desert-camo Chanel and head for the Green Zone, or go as is. Whatevs. The cover line sounds like Anderson Cooper mocking himself a la Seacrest in Knocked Up. Moreover, people are numb to the use of “street gangs" and “U.S.” And “Iraq” is almost there. If you’re going to accidentally pique Lloyd Kaufman’s interest, why not go with “Chicago Street Gangs” or, well, granted, this isn’t The Source or F.E.D.S.

It might be an interesting topic for an article, but at this point Radar has exhausted itself by having its readers do zig-zags across the cover in search of the tie that binds. And that’s speaking for the readers who are familiar with Radar. New ones? Maybe they’ll get acquainted at Gawker. And that will probably be enough.

Next: So, what about the actual issue?>>