Has Men’s Magazine Gone Horizontal?

Whispers hears Vertical Arkansas magazine, the bimonthly niche publication aimed at well-heeled men in Northwest Arkansas, has ceased publication after a two-year run.

The last issue, Vertical’s Semi-Annual MANual, was published in October, and we hear its owners, Ryan and Tara Hughes of Bella Vista, decided at the first of the year to stop publishing the magazine.

Ryan Hughes didn’t return a phone call from Whispers.

The couple owned the magazine through their company The McRealin Group. Its office in the Coca-Cola building in Rogers’ Pinnacle area closed in November.

In January 2012, The McRealin Group and Nate Olson, who was then the owner and publisher of the VYPE High School Sports Magazine edition in Northwest and central Arkansas, announced they had merged and planned a statewide expansion of both magazines.

Under the merger, Olson served as editor-in-chief and publisher of the magazines, while The McRealin Group handled their operations. Olson didn’t respond to an emailed request to talk with Whispers.

An employee at Tulsa-based VYPE, who asked that his name not be used, said he sold the license for the Arkansas edition to Ryan Hughes last year, but didn’t know whether Hughes would continue to publish it.