HERO burst onto the scene this year with a fresh idea: a magazine for gay men more interested in healthy relationships than sex and partying. HERO's print edition premiered in August after a successful launch as an Internet magazine in February. Founders Sam Francis and Paul Horne told the New York Blade that HERO distinguishes itself from the competition by addressing popular culture from a gay perspective rather than focusing exclusively on gay culture.

As Francis and Horne told the San Francisco Chronicle, gay men's image as sex-driven and narcissistic is often fueled by gay publications themselves. "The sex-driven community the press writes about seems to exist more in the parades and magazines than in our everyday lives," said Horne. HERO provides an alternative. Sporting "The Magazine for the Rest of Us" as a motto, HERO's regular departments include health and fitness, money and the law, music and travel as well as dating, marriage and family.

The Blade identified HERO as part of a "blossoming trend in gay media, where editors decide to forego sexually explicit content and make their PG-rated content a central selling point" to attract both readers and advertisers. HERO does not accept advertisements from the traditional patrons of gay and lesbian publicationsads for tobacco, phone sex or viatical settlement companiesor run any overtly sexual advertisements.

HERO's strategy must be working. Advertisers are drawn to the magazine's typical reader, who is affluent and highly educated.

It's no wonder The Wall Street Journal recently called gay men the "dream market of the 90s." As the Chronicle said, "If you want to know where the gay and lesbian civil rights movement is headed, take a look at HERO." With magazines like HERO, mainstream advertisers are more likely to reach that market and more gay men will see their lives reflected in a magazine.