Influx Magazine

Influx Magazine (stylized on the website as 1NFLUX MAGAZINE) is an arts and entertainment publication which originally launched in September 2000.^[1] At the time, it was a freely print magazine distributed throughout the southern California area. In its first run, an estimated 15,000 copies were printed and distributed. Over the next few years, the magazine became a reputable brand in the industry and garnered interviews with several actors, artists, and celebrity figures such as The Black Eyed Peas, Tony Hawk, Nelly Furtado, Matthew Lillard, Paul Frank, Ralph Nader, and many others.

As a print magazine, Influx was published in full-color and freely distributed while its employees worked and wrote mostly on a voluntary basis. After the magazine experienced periods of inactivity and infrequent publishing, it returned exclusively online in 2013 with daily content created by a new band of writers.

Founding and Print Issues

Influx Magazine was founded by publisher Brian Barsuglia, and managing editor Kevin Brent in 2000. Barsuglia, who has also been an editor at Landscape Architect and Specifier News, The Sun, and Coastal Life, approached Brent, a film critic at The Sun, about the idea of starting a publication. Later that year, the first issue was published. Initially, Influx was a bi-monthly publication, before becoming a quarterly publication over time.

In 2003, Barsuglia departed from the magazine and Brent carried on as publisher. By 2004, due to the high cost of printing, Influx was no longer publishing print editions. The magazine was then moved to the web where it published back issues and some previously unpublished interviews, reviews, and articles, but was no longer putting out content on a regular basis.

2006 Revival

In 2006, following Influx Magazine's debuted online in 2004, Barsuglia returned and revived the magazine on the web, making the online magazine more consistent rather than periodic. With a handful of new writers, all volunteer once more, Influx Magazine was once again publishing new content on a regular basis, putting out about one-hundred new articles and reviews over the next two years. This revival had no marketing or promotion, but it kept the magazine alive and current from 2006 before again taking a hiatus in 2008. From 2008 to 2013, new content was added very periodically to the website, but, once more, not on a regular basis. Influx Magazine would remain this way until 2013, when the site was revived once more to record numbers.

2013 Relaunch and Revival

In March 2013, Barsuglia completely re-designed and re-launched Influx Magazine with a new look and a new approach. He enlisted the talents of Paul Booth, an award-winning film writer and director, Nav Qateel, a film editor and critic, and Steve Pulaski, a teenager who published film criticism online for years. The re-launch officially happened on May 7, 2013. In the magazine's first month, it reached 21,000 readers. By July 2013, there were more than 130,000 readers and by November 2013, nearly 600,000 thousand readers. From May to November 2013, Influx Magazine saw nearly 1,000 new articles, reviews, and interviews written and published (significantly more than the entire 13 years prior). Influx Magazine and its content remain freely available and distributed and its team, once again, is mostly volunteer.

A print edition of the magazine is tentatively planned for spring 2014.

Current Staff (as of 2013)

• Brian Barsuglia, Publisher
• Nav Qateel, Managing Editor / Film Critic
• Steve Pulaski, Lead Film Critic
• Paul Booth, Film Historian and Lead Music Critic
• Jason Howard, Film Critic / Influx Lead Writer
• Rob Rector, Film Critic
• Ed Blackadder, Lead Entertainment Writer
• Jim Davis, Contributing Writer
• Daniel Nava, Contributing Writer
• Gordon Shelly, Entertainment Writer
• Armin Callo, Theater Critic

Interviews

To date, Influx Magazine has now published more than one-hundred exclusive interviews. Some of the higher profile subjects include: Peter Bogdanovich, Nelly Furtado, Paul Frank, The Black Eyed Peas, Harry Hamlin, Nikka Costa, Matthew Lillard, Charles Band, Tony Hawk, Keith Coogan, Uwe Boll, D.B. Sweeney, Jon Polito, Alicia Witt, and Paul Sorvino.

References