Back in January, as word began to spread about PiQ, someone did us a solid and shared our early mockup cover with the public. While we weren’t thrilled about that part, we did watch the reaction to it and took note. And just to show that we aren’t resting on our laurels, we made sure that our final cover would indeed look a bit different so we can start this magazine off with a bang.

Here’s a quick look at the cover of our first issue, coming March 14th.

Yep, that’s all we can share for now. Stay tuned for more!

And welcome to piqmag.com — the official site of PiQ, an exciting new magazine devoted to TV, anime, movies, DVDs, video games, comics, and anything else that strikes our fancy. (”Entertainment for the rest of us,” as our marketing guy likes to remind me every couple hours.) My name’s Kevin Gifford, and I am one of the people running this little thing. If you’d like, you can email me — just take my first name, add an at-sign and piqmag.com after it, and Bob’s your uncle.

Why are we launching something like PiQ, in 2008, and having the gall to charge cash money for it, even? I’ll ignore the real answer for a moment — that writing a magazine beats frying up mac-and-cheese at T.G.I. Fri’s all night — and shift the question over to you instead. What do you want out of a mag…and out of what you watch, play, listen to, whatever every day?

You know who you are by now. The sight of your parents sitting there every night, disinterestedly watching CSI or Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, is a bit scary to you. You’re more likely to spend a Sunday afternoon bumping around YouTube, reading about old computers, or acting like an idiot on Team Fortress 2. You also like the road less traveled, the more hidden bits of modern life. It’s not that you hate popular things (South Park is still good, sorry guys), but you get a thrill out of discovering amazing things in the unlikeliest of places—the one Mushishi foundering in a sea of Love Hinas.

To you, leisure is something you define — the time, the place, what it runs on. You’re the future of consumerism, really…but in the eyes of most companies, you still aren’t “normal.” That’s why PiQ is entertainment for the rest of us (man, our marketing guy can’t get out of my head). Video games, movies, TV, anime, comics, tantric sex—whatever it is you have fun doing, we’ll cover it, except that last one unless I can find someone to demonstrate it for me at the office).

And “you” is the operative term here. We’re dying to hear what you think and what you want, so let us know, either via your blog comments or by mailing us at feedback@piqmag.com. You’ll be seeing more from all of us on the PiQ staff shortly, so stick around.