The Maine Edge -- on the edge

Do you see anything odd about this recent cover for The Maine Edge? Perhaps the girl looks a little young to be straddling whipped cream? And is that a thong bikini bottom she's wearing?


I have to admit that I was a little stunned at this cover when I saw it last week. I mean -- it's skimpy! The Edge used it as their Facebook photo last week and censored out the bottom half of that pre-pubescent girl. I thought it was odd to censor it online and not censor it in print -- but clearly the peeps at The Edge had no idea they would get so many comments and complaints about it. They got so many, in fact, that editor Mike Fern wrote an editor's letter about it...something he hasn't done since the first issue of The Maine Edge came out in 2006.

As a media outlet that is part of the community and its social fabric, we have a responsibility to inform our readers in a manner that represents both our personality and taste, and a duty to do so in a fashion that is not only acceptable to us but also to the community we serve.

For some, last week's cover art did not satisfy that level of responsibility and generated a reaction that was unintended, yet warranted when take from the perspective of our readership. - Mike Fern

Fern goes on to address the age of the model and strange shadow across the young woman's nether-regions.

While the cover art was an illustrative attempt to convey a simple "hot summer/cool drinks" type of message, unfortunately its interpretation was much different and not up to our usual standard of clearly defining art. - Mike Fern

Anytime you put a teenager in a bikini and whipped cream and a cherry my dirty mind starts "interpreting."

Good call by Mike Fern for the letter. It was a very good idea and well written.