1 Death of Insanely Overpowered Fireballs: Wait. The entire crew of a Nazi U-boat just died of a completely non-paradoxical fireball in 1940.
1 Death of Choking On A Giant Frog: What caused it?
2 Death of Insanely Overpowered Fireballs: Er... they were on board a 1650s pirate ship and the pirates fired a torpedo which exploded the powder magazine...
3 Death of Choking On A Giant Frog: True, that's not strictly a paradox.
3 Death of Choking On A Giant Frog: But you're supposed to be investigating paradoxes and avoiding fireballs!
4 Death of Insanely Overpowered Fireballs: Oh yeah. Darn.

The word magazine was originally used to refer to a storehouse of weaponry, in particular artillery ammunition. The etymology is from an Arabic word makhazin, meaning a warehouse.

Nowadays of course, the much more common usage is to refer to a periodical publication. It came to be used for this following the publication of a periodical titled The Gentleman's Magazine in 1731. It was given this title because it was intended to be a "warehouse" of varied and useful information for gentlemen. From this humble beginning, the journal gave its name to an entire form of media publication.

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2025-06-03 Rerun commentary: Since this comic was published, that entire form of media publication has seen a huge decline. According to a Guardian article, the number of print magazines purchased by readers declined by 70% between 2010 (when this comic was originally published) and 2022, from about a billion to around 300 million. Resulting in a decline in sales revenue from £1.4 billion to less than £500 million (less than 70% because the price per issue has gone up).

The obvious cause is the rise of digital media, including both digital equivalents of magazines and also social media. As quoted in the article: “I can get gossip much quicker through social media such as Instagram or TikTok than a magazine.” Extrapolating the graph shown in the linked article, it seems to point to print magazines dying out completely within about five years, although presumably the decline will level off and some specialty magazines will manage to continue for some time. Although how long is uncertain.