September Men’s Mags Cover the Bases

NEW YORK — September is not quite the make-or-break month for men’s magazines that it is for women’s fashion books, but it’s a big month all the same — and especially big for brand-new Men’s Vogue, which arrives on newsstands this fall for the first time.

If the cover of a debut issue is always a mission statement of sorts, then the Condé Nast spin-off’s cover, with actor George Clooney, signals a desire to appeal to a slightly older demographic and a commitment to classic elegance rather than pop-culture ephemera.

Details, on the other hand, has no hang-ups about the popular world: hence its September cover featuring Matthew Fox, of ABC’s “Lost.” Meanwhile, GQ, which seems to reinvent itself on a regular basis, uses September to reestablish its manly bona fides in the person of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Cargo also has an athlete, tennis star Andy Roddick, on the title’s first celebrity cover.

Elsewhere, the trio of Josh Lucas, Pharrell Williams and Luke Wilson front Esquire’s annual “Best-Dressed Men” issue, while Maxim, Stuff, FHM and Playboy all feature — what else? — cheesecake. There are curves of a different sort on September Men’s Journal: The cover of the annual Style & Design issue shows a 1958 250 Testarossa designed by Enzo Ferrari.

THE MEN OF SEPTEMBER

Best Life: Mark Ruffalo

Cargo: Andy Roddick

Complex: Kanye West

Details: Matthew Fox

Stuff: Kelly Carlson