它们是杂志封面，也是时代标识

    6月1日，《名利场》网站提前发布该杂志2015年7月刊的封面，照片中的人物是前知名运动员布鲁斯·詹纳，而图注为：“叫我凯特琳”。

    此前在接受ABC电视台《20/20》栏目采访时，詹纳便已经透露，他变性为女人了。但此次登上《名利场》封面可以看作是首次正式亮相，网上的火爆反应足以证明。娱乐网站The Wrap刊登了《名利场》出版商康泰纳仕集团的一份内部备忘录，和盘托出了其中种种细节。

    “在24小时内，我们《名利场》杂志的同事们凭借这篇关于凯特琳·詹纳的封面报道打破了不少互联网纪录。我们的视频获得了1310万次单日点击，是集团有史以来最高的一次。另外，《名利场》的官网VanityFair.com创下了有史以来最高的单日访问量，吸引了超过900万名独立用户。这个故事在发布后的10分钟内就开始在Twitter上被疯转，2小时内就在Facebook上火了，而且第二天它依然是Facebook上排名第一、Twitter上排名第三的新闻。”

    有人可能怀疑，仅凭这个封面在网络上的火爆，是否能够真正带动这份杂志的销量？这种怀疑也是情有可原的。毕竟就在不到一年前，《纽约时报》就曾报道过，杂志特别是名人类杂志的销量正在急剧下跌， 2014年上半年美国杂志销售数据着实惨淡：

    “《人物》、《InStyle》和《美国周刊》的销量与2013年同期相比下跌了15%。《每周接触》的销量下跌了23.5%，《明星》杂志下跌了21.8%，《生活与时尚周刊》下跌了21.7%，《人物时尚观察》更是下跌了32.8%。就连格调甚高的名人杂志也遭受了挑战，《名利场》的销量比上年同期下跌了11.8%。”

    不过假若以史为鉴，一个吸引眼球的封面的确能帮助杂志社大幅提高销量。有时候，一个好的封面甚至能够跨越时间，在人们脑海里留下永恒的记忆，哪怕他们早已淡忘了文章甚至杂志本身。

    在本文中，《财富》选取了一些出版史上最令人难忘的杂志封面及其销量数据。其中大多数都登上过美国杂志编辑协会（下文简称ASME）2005年10月发布的“40年40大杂志封面排行榜”。部分未登上该排行榜的杂志封面，要么是在2005年后刊出的，要么就是因为其重要性无法忽略而被选入此文。除非另有说明，文中援引的所有销量数据都来自非盈利组织媒体审计联盟。该组织主要负责核实在线媒体和纸质媒体的发行信息。需要指出的是，《人物》和《时代》均为时代集团所有，时代集团也是《财富》的母公司。

    On June 1, the online edition of Vanity Fair posted a preview of the cover of its July 2015 print edition. It was a photo of the athlete formerly known as Bruce Jenner, with the caption “Call me Caitlyn.”

    Jenner had already come out as a transgender woman in an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC’s “20/20,” but the Vanity Fair cover seemed to make it official, if the overwhelming response it got on the Internet is any indication. The entertainment website The Wrappublished a company-wide memo from Vanity Fairpublisher Condé Nast that laid out all the details.

    “In the last 24 hours, our colleagues at Vanity Fair broke a number of internal records with their Caitlyn Jenner July cover story,” it said. “With 13.1 million organic video views, we had our best video day ever. And, VanityFair.com generated its highest-ever single-day traffic with more than 9 million unique visitors. The story was trending on Twitter within the first 10 minutes of being live and on Facebook within the first 2 hours – and continues on Day 2 to be number 1 on Facebook and number 3 on Twitter”

    People can be forgiven for being skeptical about whether this online frenzy will translate into actual sales of the magazine. After all, it was less than a year ago that The New York Times reported that magazine sales — in particular, celebrity magazine sales — were in a state of sharp decline, and the numbers they cited for the first half of 2014 were grim.

    “Newsstand sales of People, InStyle and US Weeklydropped by nearly 15 percent in that time, compared with the same period in 2013,” the newspaper reported. “In Touch Weekly’s newsstand sales declined by 23.5 percent,Star Magazine by 21.8 percent and Life & Style Weeklyby 21.7 percent. People StyleWatch suffered a 32.8 percent decline. Even highbrow celebrity titles were challenged;Vanity Fair had an 11.8 percent decline.”

    The print edition of July’s Vanity Fair doesn’t hit newsstands until Tuesday, June 9, so until then, any speculation about the effect of the Internet response on sales is a purely academic exercise. But if the past is any indication, an eye-catching cover can sell a lot of magazines, and sometimes the cover itself is remembered long after the article and the rest of the issue are forgotten.

    Fortune takes a look at some of the most unforgettable magazine covers in publishing history and how much they sold. Most appeared on the American Society of Magazine Editors’ October 2005 list, “ASME’s Top 40 Magazine Covers of the Last 40 Years;” those that weren’t were either published after 2005 or simply seemed too important to leave off. Unless otherwise noted, all sales figures were provided by the Alliance for Audited Media, a nonprofit organization that verifies circulation information for online and print publications. (People and Time are owned by Time Inc., which owns Fortune.)

    《生活》（1969年8月15日）

    “经典”这个词早已被用滥，不过用它来形容《生活》杂志1969年8月15日刊的封面却恰如其分。封面中的人物是宇航员巴兹·奥尔德林，摄像者是与他一同登月的尼尔·阿姆斯特朗。这一期杂志共卖出了8,527,600份，但其实这个销量还要低于它上一期的8,666,219份。

    就在一周之后，8月22日刊的《生活》杂志又卖出了8,572,569份。该封面在ASME的榜单上排名第13位。

    LIFE (August 15, 1969)

    The word “iconic” gets thrown around a lot, but it was the right word for the cover of LIFE magazine’s August 15, 1969 issue. The photo depicted astronaut Buzz Aldrin as photographed by fellow traveller Neil Armstrong, and the issue sold 8,527,600 copies, which was actually down from the previous week, when 8,666,219 sold.

    The publication regained some of its mojo with the August 22 issue, which sold 8,572,569 copies. The cover took the number 13 spot on the American Society of Magazine Editors’ October 2005 list.