Industry eyes are on launch of indie 'Radar'.

This article focuses on Radar, a magazine project led by Talk Editorial Director Maer Roshan. Radar, aimed at hip cosmopolitan types in their twenties and thirties, resembles a literate high-low hybrid of Vanity Fair, Spy and Us Weekly. It needs to navigate the extraordinarily tricky path of being smart, hip and perhaps above all, independent--and succeed. Readers can decide when the debut issue hits newsstand on April 15, 2003. May, June and special Summer issues will follow, and current plans have the title launching on its 18-times-a-year frequency in September 2003. The magazine will distribute between 100,000 and 125,000 copies of its first issues. Early moves at the title have drawn outsized press attention, which reflects a still-tough magazine environment lean on launches as well as curiosity over what the well-regarded and well-connected Roshan's next move would be. Among those signed to contribute are Bret Easton Ellis, Tina Brown, humorist Mark Leyner and sharp, next-generation political writer Jake Tapper. George Lois, who designed Esquire's iconic '60s covers, is consulting on the title as well. Roshan stressed that independence from a major magazine company, talks with American Media fell apart just before Christmas of 2002, and Time Inc. passed--is a virtue, but it comes at a price. The title must make it in the traditionally tough general interest space without deep pockets to sustain.