one of the things that jop and i don’t like is this concept of lifestyle. from the beginning, we’ve tried to do the opposite and be mesmerized by people, not by things. —gert jonkers
Cover of The Gentlewoman, issue 13, spring & winter 2016.
no muscles. no tattoos
At the beginning of the 2001, the duo started to make BUTT, a pocket-sized gay zine. Their aim was to sweep aside the mainstream clichés with something more authentic and raw. None of the feature portraits was a studio shot; the pictures showed real people in their own environments. By bringing a sense of real life to their work, BUTT shook up the world of queer publishing and became a must-read for indie-minded gay men. Though BUTT’s iconic pink pages are no longer in print‚ it is living quite the afterlife in books and online.
Cover of Butt magazine, issue 22, spring 2006.
Cover of Butt magazine, issue 25, summer 2008–2009.
Cover of Butt magazine, issue 21, autumn & winter 2007.
Cover of Butt magazine, issue 26, summer 2009.
Cover of Butt magazine, issue 10, summer 2004.
Cover of Butt 2014 XXL daily calendar.
Butt 2014 XXL daily calendar. January 4 page.
Butt 2014 XXL daily calendar. July page.
Butt 2014 XXL daily calendar. January 26 page.
we thought, let’s redefine a men’s magazine and make a contemporary magazine for us 30-plus guys who don’t want to wear sportswear anymore but also maybe don’t wanna wear suits yet—something in between. —van bennekom and gert jonkers to interview magazine
Cover of Fantastic Man, issue 25, spring & summer 2017.
fantastic man
As soon as BUTT was starting to make money, Jonkers and van Bennekom decided to invest it in a new magazine for style-conscious men in their mid-thirties. From the outset, their publication began to present men in thoughtful lengthy profiles and positioned itself above the commercial fray with a singular tone and elegant design. With its formal layout and bookish Engravers Gothic font, Fantastic Man looks more like a foreign policy review than a glossy fashion publication. The fact that Fantastic Man has a worldwide circulation of 85,000 only reinforces its influence.
Cover of Fantastic Man, issue 24, autumn & winter 2016.
Cover of Fantastic Man, issue 29, spring & summer 2019.
Cover of Fantastic Man, autumn & winter 2013.
Cover of Fantastic Man, spring & summer 2010.
Fantastic Man, issue 26, autumn & winter 2017. Pages 170–171. Image via compendiumstore.com.
in the beginning we had this box, where we put everything, which seemed to make a clear reference to what we were doing. there were some odd examples, like a food magazine from thailand. then after a while we stopped doing that, because it got pretty boring. —gert jonkers
