Gert Jonkers on making magazines that matter

Editor-in-Chief and founder Gert Jonkers has been immersed in the world of print media with sharp wit and measured cultural insight since his early days as a music and fashion critic for De Volkskrant around the turn of the century. While many pass fleetingly through today’s media landscape, Jonkers has built a career defined by intention—using magazines as a way to observe, question, and gently shape the culture around him.

In 2001, he co-founded BUTT with Jop van Bennekom—an unapologetically queer magazine that rejected artifice in favour of candour, humour, and community, quickly earning a cult following. Four years later came Fantastic Man, a biannual exploration of modern masculinity, followed by The Gentlewoman in 2010 and The Happy Reader, created in partnership with Penguin. Each project extended Jonkers’ editorial philosophy while responding to a shifting media landscape that has grown louder, faster, and increasingly driven by spectacle.

Across these decades, Jonkers has remained committed to clarity over noise and authenticity over gloss, favouring depth, conversation, and human connection. His work stands as a quiet counterpoint to constant acceleration and the pressures of contemporary publishing.

Jonkers sits down with hube’s Editor-in-Chief, Sasha Kovaleva, to discuss his journey and the return of BUTT to print after more than a decade-long hiatus.

Sasha Kovaleva: So many wander through the media landscape, yet few navigate it with the intentionality and passion you have. Could you reflect on your journey and what has anchored you in this world?

Gert Jonkers: It’s a hard question to answer. Jop and I started BUTT 25 years ago, and have since launched a few more magazines (Fantastic Man, The Gentlewoman, The Happy Reader), and done other fun and often sprawling projects on top of that. It’s a lot, and it feels like a lot, and also difficult to reflect upon if you’re still in it. But journalism and reporting are something we enjoy, and surely it’s our way to digest the world around us and the way we look at what’s going on.

SK: Were there particular mentors, publications, or cultural moments that shaped your approach to storytelling and editorial vision?

GJ: I did read magazines as a teenager. I used to subscribe to KIJK, a nerdy Dutch magazine for kids about technology and science, and funnily enough, there was one page of advertising from that magazine that always stuck in my memory, just because I thought it was so hot; it was for Durex, the condom brand. I guess, as a 14 or 15 year old, the notion of handsome guys promoting condoms was totally arousing. Anyway, just to say that the magazines you grow up with do have an effect. I was a big fan of The Face in the 1990s; that definitely formed my love for pop cultural reportage. Chris Heath’s cover stories for The Face (on Elastica, or Kylie Minogue, or Take That, from what I remember) and his books on Pet Shop Boys really informed me what kind of writer I wanted to be. Needless to say, I’m thrilled that Chris writes for Fantastic Man these days. We’ve always loved The New Yorker. There was a time when I devoured Vanity Fair, around the time when Obama was running against McCain/Palin and the magazine was delightfully biased. Newspapers, in general, were and are a favourite source of favourite inspiration. And then, some vintage mentors: Andy Warhol’s Interview, and the raunchy and very funny gay zine Straight To Hell––pure inspiration.