Frank -- the gossip rag that brought such important new terms as "fartcatcher" to the Canadian lexicon -- has died. I'm glad someone told me. How else would I have known?

Personally, I stopped reading it about two months ago (I've posted on this before).

CBC.ca's Ahhts section did a story on it (thanks to Dale Bass for posting a note about this to CAJ-L). Here's an excerpt:

One of the main audiences for Frank was journalists, who eagerly devoured the Remedial Media section in the hopes of finding out what was really going on in the nation's newsrooms.

To be "Franked" came in some circles to mean that one had been the subject of an unflattering story in the magazine's newsprint pages.

I believe the above claim to be true.

Back when I worked for Globe Interactive, the deal announcing the formation of a new company -- Bell Globemedia, part of a deal between BCE, Thomson and the Thomson's family holding company -- was made public. It was announced that CTV would be setting up a downtown bureau in the Globe's building. "This doesn't mean they'll be able to see all our scoops," said the e-mail distributed memo (or something close to that).

One wag replied: "Does anyone have Frank's fax number?"

Another time, some bubbly blond woman said perkily: "I'm a Frank mole!", before giggling: "Just kidding!"

However, her more taciturn companion drily said: "Aren't we all?"

Some senior editors there were Frank addicts and others professed never to look at it.

I once embarrassed Peter Mansbridge at a Wordstock event by asking him: There was an early 1990s story in Frank magazine that said when Alzheimer's was being discussed as a story idea, someone asked, "What's the first sign of dementia?" Mansbridge's purported reply? "Moving the the news to nine (p.m., a major floperoo for the Corpse).

Mansbridge's sputtering reply was that he didn't read Frank -- a bit of a non-answer, if you ask me.

Too bad he didn't want to take credit for the line. I thought it was pretty damned funny!

In many cases, those who were getting Franked deserved it, but to its discredit, some people were trashed not because they were putzes who deserved it, but because they were the object of hatred by some venomous people who wanted to stab them in the back anonymously. Frank, needing to fill space, played along.

That's not admirable.

Here's another CBC.ca excerpt:

In an e-mail interview with the Canadian Press, Bate said that because of his business agreement with Taylor, the Frank trademark now reverts back to him.

"I believe there's still value in the name and I'm going to spend the next couple of months trying to figure out where the future lies," he said.

Bate also hinted that Frank may come back as a web-only publication, saying that "these are good times to be in the satire business."

I think the magazine could rebound under Bate's command.

Methinks Taylor was too much of a journalist to make Frank work.