Cheetah (magazine)

Cheetah was an American rock music and counterculture magazine launched in October 1967.[3][4] Although influential, its run was short-lived,[5] closing in May 1968.[4] The magazine's name was the result of a licensing deal with the popular Cheetah chain of nightclubs, which in 1967 had outlets in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Montreal.[2]

Cheetah aimed to fill "a vital gap that exist[ed] between teen- and teeny-bopper publications and such magazines as Playboy and Esquire."[6] Published by Matty Simmons,[2] a founder of Diners Club,[1] and his partner Leonard Mogel, Cheetah was the first project of their Twenty First Century Communications, Inc. (later known as the publisher of National Lampoon).[7]

Acting as Cheetah's first editor was novelist-journalist Jules Siegel (briefly an associate of Beach Boys songwriter Brian Wilson),[8] although he was soon replaced by Lawrence Dietz, assisted by Ellen Willis.[9] At the time, a girlfriend of fellow Cheetah writer and music critic Robert Christgau, Willis went on to become the first rock critic for The New Yorker[10] and later wrote for Rolling Stone, Village Voice, and other papers.[11]