Outdoor Life lets McManus go....

[Kentuck]

http://www.billingsgazette.net/h/blogs/outdoors/?p=1559

Due to budget cuts.

[headoftheholler]

http://www.billingsgazette.net/h/blogs/outdoors/?p=1559

Due to budget cuts.
I never could get into his silly writing, but I do however love to read anything by Bill Heavey.

[Pugs]

http://www.billingsgazette.net/h/blogs/outdoors/?p=1559

Due to budget cuts.

Love him, have all the books and still laugh over the old stories. He has two detective stories out that are set in ID and worth reading if you like the genre.

[MikeKy]

I've been an OL subscriber for years but the last several just because of McManus and Jim Carmichael. Carmichael retired and McManus is gone so I will probably use that money for something else now.

[GSP]

I've been an OL subscriber for years but the last several just because of McManus and Jim Carmichael. Carmichael retired and McManus is gone so I will probably use that money for something else now.


Ditto.....

A waste of $$$$

[pentail]

now that is a sad state of affairs:( he and Heavey were always my first two reads each month

[Tim T]

That really sucks. Fortunately his books are available and he will wind up somewhere, he is too talented not to. Also, he was/is an english prof at the University of Washington so he should be good.

[trust me]

It's the passing of an era. It happens.

I can remember racing to the mailbox each month to grab my copy of Field and Stream and going straight to McManus. I stole every back copy from the high school library and scavenged old magazines from friends and relatives to make sure I had every article written by him. When he started publishing books, I bought the first 4 and found even more stuff of his I hadn't read. He was at the top of his game when writing for Field and stream in the 70's. When he moved to OL in 81, he was still good, great at times. But as the years wore on, I think he just ran out of funny outdoor material. His work got more introspective, which was great too, but he no longer left me in tears and gasping for breath.

I haven't read an OL or FS in 10 years. A friend told me that in a recent article, McManus wrote about Vern Schulz passing away. Vern was his childhood friend and the model for Retch Sweeney and some of his other popular characters. He and Vern were inseparable from boyhood right up to today, 60 years later. That had to be a blow to him..

We were commuting to college one Sunday evening, 3 guys and a girl. My buddy handed me an old FS that had the McManus article "Mean Cows" and said, "You'll love this." I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe. The others were saying, "What's so funny? Nothing is that funny." I couldn't talk so I just handed it to the other guy. He was as helpless as I was. When he finished, he handed it to the girl, and she never cracked a smile. Never got the first laugh out of it. Outdoor humor is definitely a guy thing.

[gurn]

That old boy just can't be replaced. I loved reading his stories.

[daking]

Sporting mags (Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, etc) have gone straight in the flusher. The greats like McManus, Reiger, Carmichael, Jack O'Connor, Grits Gresham and many more were put out to pasture long before their time in order to modernize the magazines and to cut costs. What Times-Mirror, et.al forgot is that if you don't have sales you don't have revenue and all the cost cutting in the world won't save them. I don't read them much even when they're laying around in the doctor's office. Hell, Ladies Home Journal is more sincere than those two.

[KY_Fried]

Looks like I won't be renewing my subscription to OL. I've been a subscriber for over 20 years and for over half of that the main reason was because of McManus. I think OL has gotten a little better the past few years but still, this is the final straw for me. I have a feeling that letting him go is going to have a much greater negative effect on them then they're planning on.

[MikeKy]

Sporting mags (Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, etc) have gone straight in the flusher. The greats like McManus, Reiger, Carmichael, Jack O'Connor, Grits Gresham and many more were put out to pasture long before their time in order to modernize the magazines and to cut costs. What Times-Mirror, et.al forgot is that if you don't have sales you don't have revenue and all the cost cutting in the world won't save them. I don't read them much even when they're laying around in the doctor's office. Hell, Ladies Home Journal is more sincere than those two.

I remember a few years ago Sports Afield changed overnight and tried to become a Cosmo clone. Had big articles on mountain biking and wine tasting but hardly anything about hunting and fishing. I quit even opening them up when they came in the mail. For some reason, they have been sending me free copies for about the last year and a half. Now everything is about African Safaris. Doubt if I'll ever do that. No whitetails or turkeys there.

[buckfever]

Sporting mags (Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, etc) have gone straight in the flusher. The greats like McManus, Reiger, Carmichael, Jack O'Connor, Grits Gresham and many more were put out to pasture long before their time in order to modernize the magazines and to cut costs. What Times-Mirror, et.al forgot is that if you don't have sales you don't have revenue and all the cost cutting in the world won't save them. I don't read them much even when they're laying around in the doctor's office. Hell, Ladies Home Journal is more sincere than those two.

Ditto that. . .

I still get Outdoor Life, and when I read, it's almost cause to rejoice if I ever read anything related to hunting/fishing that isn't already common knowledge. It's almost like cookie cutter "Hunting for Idiots 101" nowadays. :(

I can't say that I followed McManus or read his books, but his tongue-in-cheek, self-deprecating humor really appealed to me.

As others mentioned, another era passes. :o