Clay Felker, the editor who invented the modern city magazine, died July 1 at his home in Manhattan after a lengthy struggle with cancer. He was 82.

Most of the reverent obituaries mention his seminal work at Esquire, his invention of what came to be known as "the New Journalism'' and his founding, with art director Milton Glaser, of New York magazine in 1968. A good deal less, however, has been written about Felker's time, in the mid-1980s, as editor of Adweek.

Two of Adweek's founders, Jack Thomas and Ken Fadner, had worked with Felker on the business side of New York. They left, as Felker did, after Rupert Murdoch's hostile takeover. Thomas, Fadner and Penn Tudor then bought several regional advertising publications and created Adweek, designed as a hipper, more mainstream take on trade magazines. Walter Bernard and Clay's old partner, Glaser, gave the magazine, with its oversized, iconic red logo, a clean, modern design, and included the work of many of the illustrators regularly seen in New York. When Felker's launch of The Daily News Tonight failed, he moved over to Adweek.

I remember the hush in the newsroom the day Felker strode in wearing the same type of custom-made English suit and striped Turnbull & Asser shirt and tie that had been his uniform since his Esquire days. He was about 60 at the time, but I'd never seen anyone dig in with such vigor. The energy was palpable. No one loved ideas, publishing and generating the kind of buzz that made writers "stars" as much as he did.

For several days, Clay sat in the newsroom poring over old issues. Then he'd go to lunch (or out for an evening cocktail) and come back to the office pulling from pockets the little scraps of paper he'd written his ideas on. He'd then decipher what he'd scribbled and turn those ideas into story assignments.

But what I mainly remember was the sheer exhilaration of watching him make a piece really click. He'd read a story, for example, and a couple of paragraphs in say, "There's your lead.'' His edit made all the difference. It was like time had frozen and the future felt golden.

As an editor, Clay could be volatile. He had a terrible temper and I remember when he boomed across the newsroom that I was being "obtuse.'' (After looking the word up in the dictionary, I went to the ladies' room and cried.)

But really, as Clay would say, I'm burying the lead. This is the story of how he invented modern advertising criticism.

As a young reporter covering rote account changes, I wanted to write instead about women's issues and to take a broader look at pop culture. One day, Clay read a piece in The New York Times about a then-new academic discipline called "semiotics,'' which focuses on the study of signs and symbols. From that moment forward, almost everything he had me write had to include a semiotic bent, whether it was the Charlie Girl's pantsuit to the crazed sex dreams of the Maidenform woman. There was no detail too small to analyze. I loved it.



One day, at a meeting, Clay suggested I use semiotics to "review'' an ad. The Adweek Critique was born.

My first Critique was of a Ralph Lauren print series. (It makes you "want to wear your best $300 sweater while walking your husky,'' I wrote, trying to sound like I knew what I was doing.) Clay gave it the inside cover.

After it appeared, I heard that other magazine editors were snickering about the fact that a piece criticizing an ad's creativity had been given so much space. But before we knew it, they were doing the same thing.

(Much later, Entertainment Weekly began reviewing ads, too. Then with the Internet, everyone became a critic.)

Fadner, who later found Mediapost.com, says that Clay "brought a lot of credibility and a much higher profile to Adweek." But, he adds, sounding like the business-side guy he is, "he tended to go overboard in what he was willing to spend for a writer he really wanted."

Still, "everything I know about publishing I learned from Clay," Fadner continues. "Conventional mythology was that Clay was a great editor and knew nothing about publishing, but that's not true. What Clay taught me was that all publishing comes down to a great editorial product and the rest just falls into line. Anybody who tells you differently doesn't know what he's talking about."

Indeed, with his genuine excitement about the work (and willingness to pay handsomely for it), Clay has inspired generations of media people, many of whom feel they can't thank him enough. I'd love to convey just a tiny piece of my gratitude now. Thank you, Clay. I'll miss you.