{"id":695252,"date":"2026-06-10T08:34:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T08:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/695252\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T08:34:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T08:34:44","slug":"birdy-magazine-is-in-financial-trouble-heres-how-to-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/695252\/","title":{"rendered":"Birdy magazine is in financial trouble. Here’s how to help"},"content":{"rendered":"

Birdy magazine<\/a> is one of Denver\u2019s cultural treasures \u2014 and it\u2019s struggling for survival.<\/p>\n

The brainchild of Krysti\u00a0Jom\u00e9i and Jonny DeStefano, Birdy hatched more than a dozen years ago and quickly took flight as a free publication dedicated to art, comedy and plenty more in Denver and beyond. At its height, Birdy\u2019s circulation numbered in the tens of thousands per month, with copies available in major cities nationwide.<\/p>\n

Now, however, Birdy\u2019s 150th edition, fortuitously set to debut around the date of Colorado\u2019s 150th birthday, is in limbo. \u201cWe need immediate support to even print issue 150,\u201d Jom\u00e9i says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really urgent to keep this thing alive,\u201d confirms Dan Landes<\/a>, an entrepreneur who\u2019s contributed art, essays, fiction and poetry to Birdy for the past decade-plus and has a vision for a major expansion of its footprint.<\/p>\n

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CLOSE\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Birdy\u2019s current instrument of financial salvation is a GoFundMe page<\/a> with the amusing subtitle \u201cKeep Print Undead.\u201d But to DeStefano, this joke has a serious subtext. \u201cDon\u2019t tell us analog doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d he stresses. \u201cWe feel what we\u2019re doing is really important. We\u2019re fighting to preserve a human connection through an old-school technique.\u201d<\/p>\n

The GoFundMe effort has already provided one notable success: The page bankrolled issue 149, featuring a front image courtesy of Devo mastermind Mark Mothersbaugh<\/a> and a back cover from skateboarding hero Stacy Peralta<\/a>, whose contributions neatly summarize Birdy\u2019s reach and the fondness with which the mag is regarded inside the artistic sector writ large. But Jom\u00e9i hopes that the crowd-sourcing will lead to more long-term sustainability.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s literally not letting us die,\u201d she acknowledges. \u201cBut it\u2019s also something that will let us take a breath and actually build the long-needed infrastructure to help Birdy keep going into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Birdy\u2019s genesis tale is shot through with coincidence and serendipity. Jom\u00e9i, who has a background in radio and magazines, moved to Denver in 2012 and landed a job at City, O\u2019 City<\/a>, the venerable restaurant and coffee shop fonded by Landes at 206 E.13th Ave. DeStefano not only worked at City, O\u2019 City, but also had a place in the same apartment building where she lived. Once they connected \u2014 after DeStefano complemented her white leather platform boots \u2014 she learned that he helped run Deer Pile<\/a>, a now-defunct alternate performance space directly above the eatery; he\u2019d been hired by Landes to promote Deer Pile<\/a>. (DeStefano had been originally hired to promote City, O\u2019 City, which Landes sold in 2018.)<\/p>\n

\"\"The covers of Birdy issue 149, which exists thanks to GoFundMe contributions. The front image was created by Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh, while the back pays tribute to legendary skater Stacy Peralta.<\/p>\n

In conversations that followed, Jom\u00e9i and DeStefano, later joined by Michael David King, the former layout editor of The Onion, began talking about assembling a magazine that would capture the fresh, innovative essence of Deer Pile. \u201cWe had access to all this talent,\u201d DeStefano points out, \u201cand we just thought we would continue the venue in magazine format: art, sci-fi, comedy, cool stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even then, the notion of launching a physical periodical, as opposed to putting everything online, struck many as flat-out cockamamie. But DeStefano, who had once been in the Hate Fuck Trio<\/a>, among the very best Denver bands of the 1990s and early 2000s, stresses that such negativity \u201cactually fueled us. It was like the punk-rock spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first Birdy arrived in December 2013, thanks in part to the assistance of Sexy Pizza entrepreneur Kayvan Khalatbari<\/a>, who bought around $1,500 in advertising \u2014 enough cash to pay for printing. Jom\u00e9i proudly notes that \u201cwe haven\u2019t missed a month since.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another key patron was Mothersbaugh, with whom Jom\u00e9i and DeStefano connected in 2014, when the multi-hyphenate was in town with his blockbuster art show Myopia<\/a>. Adam Lerner, then MCA Denver\u2019s director, allowed Birdy to publish some of Mothersbaugh\u2019s work, a move that instantly established the mag\u2019s credibility on the global stage.<\/p>\n

From the beginning, Birdy\u2019s vision extended beyond Colorado. Artists from China, Chile, Uganda and other far-flung countries have been showcased in its pages over the years, alongside lots of local talent, including contributors such as Josiah Hesse, an author and onetime editor of Suspect Press (another Landes project). Birdy also established significant beachheads in Los Angeles and Brooklyn, as well as Chicago, Seattle, New Orleans and Asheville, North Carolina.<\/p>\n

Jom\u00e9i thinks one reason for Birdy\u2019s widespread appeal is its brand of feisty open-mindedness. \u201cOne of our main mottos is inspired by Trent Reznor, my favorite artist of all-time: art is resistance,\u201d she notes. \u201cBut Birdy is an oasis, which is crucial for us. In this day and age where you\u2019re bombarded by terrible news all the time, you need something that\u2019s positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s more important now than ever, with your phone hijacking your amygdala and the billionaire narrative trying to control everything,\u201d adds DeStefano. \u201cGrabbing your phone is stressful every morning \u2014 like, how are you going to be traumatized today? But there\u2019s something about holding a magazine that\u2019s inviting. We\u2019re inclusive, we care about the world, the planet, animals, and yet we\u2019re having fun. We\u2019re a safe space for ideas and creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, producing this platform has never been cheap, and in the wake of the 2020 pandemic shutdown, costs, particularly involving paper, have continued to rise. Trump-era tariffs further exacerbated the situation, as did the departure of a major Birdy supporter who essentially underwrote printing costs. (The 2024 arrival of\u00a0Denverse<\/a>, a new quarterly arts magazine that recently made headlines after\u00a0thousands of copies were stolen<\/a>, didn\u2019t complicate things for Birdy,\u00a0Jom\u00e9i\u00a0and DeStefano stress. They express solidarity with Denverse and all local publications.)<\/p>\n

As a result, the size of the workload on the shoulders of Jom\u00e9i and DeStefano has grown heavier and heavier. Despite assistance from a small cadre of volunteers, the couple are near collapse.<\/p>\n

Their sacrifice has been substantial, Landes emphasizes: \u201cJonny and Krysti have endured a lot for this moment, and now this moment is calling for an infusion of cash to keep it going.\u201d But he also thinks Birdy has tremendous potential to make a mark beyond the Mile High City. \u201cWe\u2019d basically like to use Birdy as an analog print-media format where local advertisers in different cities around the country can put their local advertising into Birdy, but the content stays the same,\u201d he says. \u201cIt could be specifically for Nashville, Austin, Lawrence, Kansas, wherever we\u2019d like to expand. And we can also start to attract national brands that want to market to these new cities.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his view, \u201cwe\u2019ve amassed a pretty great team\u201d to make this happen,\u201d Landes says. \u201cJonny and Krysti are spectacular artists and visionaries, and I\u2019m also working with the former CCO (Didi Bethurum) of Meow Wolf<\/a>. Right now, we\u2019re raising enough money to keep the print version of Birdy going, and once we have that, we\u2019ll do a friends-and-family fundraise to begin to develop and execute the national expansion plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Landes is another believer in the value of print in the 21st century. \u201cI think what we\u2019re really experiencing is the power of the algorithm, and what the algorithm is doing is creating a biased influence on what we see and consume,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it\u2019s different with print media. We like to say is that Birdy is novelty in the hand and every page is a new experience that\u2019s not brought to you by an algorithm. It\u2019s brought to you by artists and your own experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, Jom\u00e9i admits that the decision to reach out for assistance via GoFundMe wasn\u2019t easy. \u201cIt\u2019s like swallowing your pride and asking for help \u2014 or maybe not pride, but just that we need to put on our oxygen mask first,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s such a weird flux of emotions. But as horrifying and scary as it is, I do really feel this unshakable hope. Our community is so passionate, and I feel so lucky to live in Denver. I say this in a gentle, loving way, but Denver is kind of a city with training wheels on. It\u2019s not this huge sea you get lost in. It still has this cowtown niche, and I feel the hunger from people about coming together to make spaces for art. It\u2019s just a matter of putting the word out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Birdy magazine is one of Denver\u2019s cultural treasures \u2014 and it\u2019s struggling for survival. The brainchild of Krysti\u00a0Jom\u00e9i…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,1036,10815,147,530],"class_list":["post-695252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-comedy","tag-media","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}