Monday morning magazine round-up

Cute Easter illustration on The New Yorker's cover, with the bunny wearing the bonnet and the lady wearing bunny ears. The gatefold wonders if the biggest North American oil strike in decades, in North Dakota, can safely relieve the energy crisis. Timely features include “Obama and the Budget War” and editor David Remnick’s essay on Malcolm X, now the subject of a much heralded biography by the late Manning Marable.

New York’s overlapping airplanes illustration suggests its “Around the World in 156 Pages” cover story, entailing the “urbanist”’s guide to Paris, Moscow, London, Los Angeles, Bangkok, Rio and Cairo.

Time has an infernal image from Oxford Science Archive corresponding with its “What If There’s No Hell?” cover story concerning rogue Pastor Rob Bell’s case against eternal damnation. As managing editor Richard Stengel notes, it comes 45 years after the mag’s historic “Is God Dead?” cover. Of interest inside is “Trump’s political reality show,” and one story that no one will read, let alone heed: “How to cut a trillion from defense.”

Newsweek goes clever with “The Beached White Male” on the cover, all wet and washed up on the shore without the "big job, big office and big bonus," and, to once again show off the magazine’s new, hip (read: vulgar) Daily Beast edge, without “a freakin’ prayer.” Sticking with sensationalism, it also highlights “Arnold [Schwarzenegger]’s wild road trip,” “The killer stalking Long Island” and “The smoking rage of Italian women.” On a sober note, editor-in-chief Tina Brown, who merged her Daily Beast site with Newsweek in taking on the top role of both, eulogizes Sidney Harman, the remarkable audio pioneer who bought the magazine last year, who died last week.

Entertainment Weekly offers its “Summer Movie Preview” double issue covering 101 films and describing the set of the final Harry Potter. The Hollywood Reporter also weighs in with its summer movie special, and groups Thor stars Kenneth Branagh, Chris Hemsworth and Anthony Hopkins on the cover to go with its “Marvel’s $150 Million Gamble” feature. The great director Sidney Lumet is memorialized inside by luminaries including Al Pacino and Candice Bergen. Our favorite Lumet film? The Verdict (1982, starring Paul Newman).

Billboard fronts “The Accidental Rise & Inevitable Success of Glee’s Darren Criss.” We hesitate to use “inevitable” in noting that the Glee cast has now landed 131 singles on the Hot 100—collectively surpassing Elvis Presley in becoming the biggest charting collective act ever. But inevitable definitely works in reporting that radio is now jumping on the bandwagon after resisting to play Glee’s cover songs for two years. And we’ll also make note of the inside “Impulse’s First 50 Years” story, which celebrates the legendary jazz label’s half-century anniversary, and the “A Monumental Talent” special feature on the 75th anniversary of the birth of Roy Orbison, which is also being observed with a new set of his classic Monument label singles.

And speaking of inevitable, Legacy Magazines in England has issued in the U.S. The Royal Wedding--Exclusive Collectors' Edition, Part 1. Finally, we draw attention, not so much to the "[Christine] Quinn's Dilemma" cover story of this week's Crain's New York Business, but to the "Magazine's stage a comeback" story below it. Apparently, states the lead, "the obituary for the magazine industry was written too soon." Magazine advertising is up, it says, thanks to digital and print options.

--jim bessman