Get on the Grid

Philly's new urban sustainability magazine is building a base.

by Brian Howard

Michael T. Regan GREEN LIGHT: Alex Mulcahy's Red Flag Media also publishes metal magazine Decibel.

Launching a new publication may seem like a fool's errand right now. As any blogger will eagerly tell you: Print is dead. Lately, more than a few newspaper publishers will tell you the same.

The industry's struggles notwithstanding, lifestyle mags occupy a special little niche in the publishing world. With their amalgam of features, product reviews, how-to's and what-for's, they're chock-full of information that works best on paper. Latch onto the right lifestyle or position yourself in a cozy niche, and treasure will be yours.

Living sustainably has been a buzzed-about notion for years, but given the economic uncertainty we're all steeping in at present, the idea's become trendy for an entirely new reason.

Into the breach comes Grid, a fledgling magazine pointing "Towards a Sustainable Philadelphia." Its prototype issue, which went out in the mail in October, is devoted to bicycling, but is otherwise packed with features on food (canning tomatoes, DIY popcorn), energy conservation (green renting, smart power strips), policy (dredging, energy co-ops) and beyond.

It's a new production from Philly's indie Red Flag Media, and its publisher couldn't be more bullish about it.

"It's always been about doing magazines about things we love and feel passionate about," explains Alex Mulcahy, Red Flag's president and the driving mind behind Grid. Till now the media company's portfolio included Decibel (a magazine devoted to extreme metal that just celebrated its 50th issue), a handful of custom and in-store music magazines (think Pulse but for small chains), along with providing design, production and pre-press services to other publishers.

"In my early 20s, I was passionate about indie rock," says Mulcahy, a Wilkes-Barre native and a 1992 graduate of King's College. Recently, after devouring books such as Bill McKibben's Deep Economy, Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, Mulcahy was moved to branch out.

"I had an idea for a baseball magazine," explains Mulcahy, a rabid Phillies fan. "I wanted to do a Baseball Prospectus-type magazine because I think that Prospectus is probably just a little bit too elevated for some people. ... But I felt like I needed to do this one first."

Like a lot of astute twenty/thirtysomethings during the long denoument of the Bush administration, Mulcahy's begun to act on what his gut's always told him.

"I think that I've always had this latent activist in me and I've always been suspicious of, I guess, the way some things are done," he says. "There is this zeitgeist that's happening right now where people's vague notions are turning into concrete thoughts and actions."

While noting that he feels Grid "shouldn't be overly political," the self-described conflicted capitalist figures there is "great possibility for a mag that could synthesize some of these issues on a local level. One of the cornerstones of sustainability, in my estimation, is living local. While there are great national resources, I thought a local one would be of some value."

The magazine's 32-page pilot issue includes Mulcahy's endearing story of learning to can tomatoes with his fiancée ("We eat what we can, and what we can't, we can"), Grid staffers/CP contributors Will Dean and Dana Henry's paeans to cycling, and sustainability godhead Paul Glover's blueprint for the city's surviving the impending energy crisis, which includes plans to convert vacant lots into orchards, adopting an inflation-proof local currency and creating media outlets that do not dwell on sensationalism and death.

That first issue also outlines a production schedule for a bimonthly newsstand publication devoting the next six issues to energy, food, culture, ecology, shelter and recycling. The first proper issue was tabbed for March.

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

That ambitious plan, however, has been scrapped — for one of even higher aspiration.

The initial response has been so overwhelmingly positive, the new plan is to publish monthly and to give the magazine away for free starting with the first issue slated to hit stands on Jan. 9.

Mulcahy and company have met with city Sustainability Director Mark Alan Hughes and the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, and done a "whirlwind tour of all of the acronymed groups in Philadelphia." Organizations like Whole Foods, Weaver's Way Co-op and coffee shops — "hotbeds of progressive thinkers, progressive consumers, progressive people" — have shown interest.

"We plan to look at some nontraditional means of distribution. Farmers markets, faith-based possibilities, block captains," says Mulcahy. In fact, Grid has inked a deal with the Pedal Co-op to do the magazine's distribution entirely by bike. Add that the magazine is printed on 100 percent recycled paper — 80 percent of which is post-consumer recycled — and that Red Flag covers its employees' public transit costs and Grid is a publication that walks the walk.

"There are a number of things that we can do to make our business better," says Mulcahy. "It's the same sort of tension that a lot of people feel, that they want to do the right thing but have finite resources and budgets. We want to give people an idea of low-level things and if they do that, they have more and they can do more." 

The content is such to have inspired fan mail and acts of devotion. "So many e-mails [we've received] start with 'I love your magazine'," says Mulcahy. "People want to volunteer. ... We're thinking of having a party for volunteers."

So while Grid is a huge leap away from the music industry, for Mulcahy, it's still all about passion. And that passion appears to be infectious.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)

Visit Grid online at gridphilly.com.