'', first published by
IPC in
1994 , is the oldest
British "
Lads' Mag " - "For men who should know better". It was founded by
James Brown , a former deputy editor of the music weekly ''New Musical Express''. In its early days, the magazine's readership was once memorably described as "50% ''
Sun '' readers and 50% ''
Guardian '' readers". Brown has described the irreverent comic ''
Viz '' as an inspiration for ''Loaded'' (and he later bought the comic when he founded the company I Feel Good).
''Loaded'' captured the
Lad Culture of the 1990s like no other magazine; its glorification of British male "rogues" (
Liam Gallagher ,
Oliver Reed ,
Paul Gascoigne etc.) was only outstripped by its fondness for titillating photoshoots with nubile C-, B-, and occasionally A-list celebrities. However, early covers led on male icons for film and TV - Gary Oldman was on the first cover.
The ''Loaded'' style has been cloned numerous times, most successfully by Emap's ''
FHM '', which overtook it in the sales stakes, and ''
Maxim '', which became the biggest-selling men's magazine in the US for Dennis Publishing. An offshoot, ''Eat Soup'', quickly failed however. ''Loaded'' also influenced women's monthlies, with Emap launching ''Minx'', "For girls with a lust for life". In January 2004, IPC launched the weekly ''
Nuts '', announced as the world's first men's weekly, and Emap quickly followed with ''
Zoo ''.
Deputy editor Tim Southwell (Brown's former boss at ''New Musical Express'') wrote about the early years of ''Loaded'' in ''Getting Away With It'' (Ebury Press, 1998).
