The 15 most buzzed-about magazine covers of 2013

2013 featured lots of buzzworthy magazine covers. What follows are 15 that caught my eye for various reasons.
Sports Illustrated’s 2013 Swimsuit Issue was notable for a couple of reasons. It featured model Kate Upton on the cover for the second straight year and was shot in Antarctica. Some retailers thought the cleavage-exposing cover was a little too racy and needed to be covered up, as Journoterrorist noted.
That cover is certainly not as racy as that for Playboy’s June 2013 Playmate of the Year issue. It featured Raquel Pomplun showing side boob and butt crack in an innocent, retro-style setting. (See articles by E Online and Fox News.)

In November, Esquire magazine picked actress Scarlett Johansson as its Sexiest Woman Alive. (See article by ABC News.)

That same month, People magazine picked rocker Adam Levine as its Sexiest Man Alive. (See articles by People and Celebrity Bug.)

Actress Alyssa Milano set tongues wagging with her cover shoot for the July-August 2013 issue of Maxim. The 40-year-old beauty went braless and wore an open flannel shirt covering her ta-tas. (See articles by UPI, the Huffington Post and Us Weekly.)

And speaking of age and beauty, actor Brad Pitt was given a commemorative cover of AARP magazine when he turned 50 in December.

The treatment of homosexuals in the U.S. continues to be a hot-button issue. Time magazine featured gay couples kissing for its April 2013 cover story “Gay Marriage Already Won.” (See articles on Mashable and Entertainment Weekly.)

And in July, the New Yorker portrayed Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie as a gay couple on its cover. (See Laughing Squid article.)

Time magazine stoked controversy with its Nov. 18, 2013, issue on N.J. Gov. Chris Christie. The photo and headline “The Elephant in the Room” appeared to make fun of the Republican governor’s weight.
The cover generated stories by the Huffington Post, E Online and Jon Stewart.

In May, Time struck a chord with its cover on self-absorbed young people today. Time called this group “the Me-Me-Me Generation.” The Huffington Post suggested calling the age group the “Selfie Nation.”

The Boston Marathon bombing was the subject of buzzworthy covers by Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone.
Sports Illustrated used a photo of police and a fallen runner taken moments after the blast.

Rolling Stone caught flak for its cover story on surviving bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. His presence in a space usually reserved for rock stars and celebrities seemed to glamorize a domestic terrorist. (See articles by EW, the Wire and the Christian Science Monitor.)

The current pope and his predecessor were featured on many magazine covers last year. Two stood out.
The March 11, 2013, issue of the New Yorker used an illustration of retired Pope Benedict XVI on the beach reading a newspaper. But to some it looked like he was masturbating. (See article on Romenesko.)

In December, his successor, Pope Francis, was named Time’s Person of the Year. The pick was controversial because many felt the magazine should have named NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for the honor. (See articles by Yahoo and the Huffington Post.)

And finally, I loved this cover of Bloomberg Businessweek from Dec. 9 that showed a BlackBerry phone with other ancient relics. It was for the article titled “The Rise and Fall of BlackBerry: An Oral History.”