Issue 12 promised something more than standard lesbian magazine fare as Diana Cage, a former editor of radical lesbian sex magazine On Our Backs takes over the reigns (so to speak). Velvetpark bought out both On Our Backs and Girlfriends magazine last year.

As managed editor, Cage starts of both defensive and defended, declaring in her first editoral that “Ok, Velvetpark isn’t On Our Backs but we do spend a lot of time on our backs, and we’re just as revolutionary only with less fisting”. A letter to the editor in this issue accuses Velvetpark of pushing “an assimilationist buourgeois mentality”, a claim that Cage dismisses offhand (and perhaps a little too prematurely). Others defend the magazine’s right not to hold the same radical goals as On Our Backs.

The very first article is a strangely non-committal review of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival which epitomises the main problem with Velvetpark. Staceyann Chin interviews the festival founder, Lisa Vogel, and, while she (cautiously and briefly) broaches the issue of Vogel’s ongoing insistence on a ‘womyn born womyn only’ entry policy, Vogel’s justification is simply glossed over.. not challenged, not questioned. just ..mentioned.

The music reviews still tend to lean heavily to the folk music side of the spectrum (given a next gen touch by the Pandora project’s role in the selection process).

The highlight of issue 12 is the conversation between Diane DiMassa, creator of Hothead Paison comics, and Daphne Gottlieb, a poet who recently collaborated with DiMassa on a graphic novel called Jokes and the Unconscious. There is also an interesting article about trans-inclusivity, though it confusingly starts out as an article about genderqueer porn and ends as a discussion of sexual health services and the trans community. Other features included an interview with musician Lisa Jackson and an extract from ..umm… Diana Cage’s new book.

Velvetpark remains seated awkwardly on the fence between mainstream lesbian and queer media. The difference may seem arbitrary to some, but it is a total shame when a magazine which at least aimed for more is sacrificed in the process and the dyke media remains just as homogeneous as before.