In 1986 when I started this guide, it was an act of passion. Fifteen editions later, having survived the Y2K bug and countless "millennium" issues, putting together this book is still a labor of love.

Of course, it's always been a very personal product, which is why this is Samir Husni's Guide to New Magazines, not "A Guide to New Magazines".

I have always taken the full responsibility to locate the new titles, and that search usually requires a 160-mile trip to Memphis, TN, at least once a week. I find it amazing to see what titles are available, and with 15 years of searching the newsstands, I've seen some amazing launches, a few of which are detailed here.

As this is one man's book, there is the rare occasion when I don't catch a title on its first issue. Some of them don't make it to the newsstand for a year, or don't gather any press attention, so I never get wind of them. Try as I may to grab every premiere issue, with more than 10,000 magazines launched since I started counting, I'm sure that I've missed one or two. To solve this problem, I include an addendum and I also ask publishers to contact me about upcoming launches. It's a lot easier to spot Teen People than it is to spot BearfootI did, however, notice both.

It's personal in another way. I take some pride in the fact that magazines which I chronicled in my guide a decade-and-a-half ago are still surviving and thriving today. With that personal angle, I decided to commemorate the last 15 years with a look at 15 magazines that have been the epitome of what a notable launch is all about.

I can assure you that there weren't any easy choices. With 10,171 magazines launched since 1985, the task was altogether daunting. But obviously, there were magazines that stuck out in my mind as notable launches. How do I define "notable"? First and foremost, the magazine must still be published today. That immediately eliminated roughly 85 percent of the magazines launched in the 1980s.

After boiling down the list of magazines still being published, I came up with 57 magazines that really stood out. From there, the real difficulty beganInStyle and PC Computing are as similar as "apples" and "oranges" and about as easy to compare.

My solution was to come up with some criteria upon which these 57 magazines could be compared. The first thing I looked at was how the magazine was started. I looked at the significance of the launch technique, and I didn't simply judge on budget alone. After all, The Source and Martha Stewart Living are both on the list, but a woman with numerous books already published and then launches a magazine is a bit different than a disc jockey with a photocopying machine.

Next, I looked at the impact the magazine's launch had on the industry. Was the magazine more like a dinghy tossed in the waves or was it the iceberg that sank the Titanic? This also examined whether or not the magazine was an innovator or a duplicator. I don't discount duplicators because an unoriginal idea, if done well, can sell a lot of magazines.

Last but not least, I looked at the magazine today. Is it still making waves and is it the top or near the top of its category? A lot of the magazines on this top 15 list have created spin-offs of themselves. When the publishers of Maxim knew their readers wanted more, the answer was Stuffnow a staple of the newsstand. The ability to market a name and a style into a pervasive brand ("who would be a better example than Martha Stewart?") was of definite "note" as I looked at these magazines.

In the end, I did come up with a tally of my 15 most notable launches since 1985. I'm sure this list will irritate some editors and publishers, but I will simply add this anecdote: Time's Person of the Century was not Elvis Presley, as online respondents voted, but the magazine instead selected Albert Einstein. Again, this is Samir Husni's Guide to New Consumer Magazines. On these pages and on my websiteMrMagazine.com I convey my opinions and thoughts on an industry that I have loved, cherished and studied since my youth. I would have loved to write a bit about each magazine whose launch I remember, but as we all know, printers and paper don't come free. Enjoy.