The May/June 2008 issue of HAWAII Magazine features a story on cartoonist Robert Ripley’s fascination with our Islands. Ripley created Ripley’s Believe It or Not! —the strange-but-true trivia-filled newspaper cartoon series. And, reports writer Greg Daugherty, he visited Hawaii four or five times during his brief, illustrious life.

The “believe it or not” Ripley nuggets you’ll find in our story include:

• How the amateur anthropologist—portrayed as a hardy world adventurer—actually preferred to travel in the lap of luxury.

• How most of his “Believe or Not” items were actually uncovered by an associate combing the shelves at the New York Public Library.

• How he saw water falling “uphill” in Oahu’s Nuuanu Valley.

• How he discovered the “House of Everlasting Fire”— better known to most of us as Kilauea volcano’s Halemaumau crater.

You’ll find the full text of Daugherty’s story—along with vintage cartoons and photos from Ripley’s Hawaii sojourns—in the current issue. Here's an excerpt:

When Robert Ripley arrived in Hawaii for the first time in 1922, the young “Believe It or Not!” cartoonist recorded a couple of surprises in his dispatches home. First was the genuine friendliness of the Hawaiians who greeted his ship. Second, the hula turned out to be less risqué than he had expected—or maybe hoped.

From his first trip to the Islands, Ripley was amazed by their natural wonders, which would figure in his cartoons for decades to come. Many he sketched at the actual sites, later transforming the sketches into finished artwork at his drawing board in New York.

Ripley's interest in all things Hawaiian went so far that he hired a well-known Chinese-Hawaiian author, actress and lecturer named Li Ling Ai and gave her the fancy title: director of the "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" Far Eastern Department.

You'll find HAWAII Magazine in most bookstores nationwide. In addition to print subscriptions, we now offer digital subscriptions and single copies as well.
 
 

And now, today’s moment of zen.

24 actress Elisha Cuthbert was snapped frolicking in the waters off of Maui’s Wailea resort area on Monday with her boyfriend Dion Phaneuf.

Phaneuf—whose bare-chested-ness we’ve included here, you know, for gender balance—is a defenseman for the National Hockey League's Calgary Flames. Cuthbert was taking a perhaps much-needed break following a no doubt taxing photo session for the cover of this month’s Maxim Magazine.

There were slightly saucier photos than these—if you’re curious, either let your imagination run wild or visit our friends at Google search.

But while we're on the subject of photos … Ever take a photo of a celebrity hanging out in Hawaii? How about a Hawaii shot perfect for our HawaiiMagazine.com Photo of the Week contest?

Send either to us along with a story of your photo. We’ll post the best ones on our site, and give you all the credit for it.

 
   

Wish you were in Hawaii? It’s a snap.

Send us your best photo or photos by Aug. 8, 2008. You might be our next photo contest winner—of a free trip to Hawaii.

Enter your photos in one of the following four categories: Oahu, Maui, Big Island and Kauai. The photos can be of anything—people, places, things—but, of course, they need to shot on the island in question.

Grand Prize is airfare for two to Honolulu from your nearest Hawaiian Airlines gateway city.

Plus a six-day, five-night stay at the newly remodeled Outrigger Reef on the Beach Hotel in Waikiki.

There are more prizes. Four first place winners will receive $100, a gift basket of from Lanikai Bath and Body and a book prize package from Watermark Publishing.

Four second place winners will receive $75 and a book prize package from Watermark Publishing.

Winners will be published in the January/February 2009 issue of HAWAII Magazine.

Click here for more details, the contest rules and the official entry form.

Good luck!

  

If HAWAII Magazine took your photo at the Arizona Aloha Festival, the pictures are now posted in our photo gallery.

If you had your photo taken at the HAWAII Magazine booth on Saturday, click here. For Sunday photos, click here.

The HAWAII Magazine team traveled more than a 1,000 miles to the Grand Canyon state. They complained it was cold for them (53 degrees in the morning), but the chilly weather did not stop them from participating in the festival and spreading their aloha.

“We chatted with long-time HAWAII Magazine subscribers, new subscribers, other vendors and people who wanted to get to know us a little better,” says associate publisher Helen McNeil.

The two-day festival, held annually on the third weekend of March, draws more than 100,000 festival goers to Phoenix.

Were you “featured” on the cover of HAWAII Magazine this past weekend? Your pix is just a click away.
 

If you’re in Phoenix, Ariz., this weekend, look for HAWAII Magazine at the Arizona Aloha Festival.

Stop by our booth (near the marketplace stage) between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Our folks will sporting their brand-new “We’ve Got Issues” HAWAII Magazine T-shirts. They’ll be giving away freebies, and holding a drawing for a $500 gift certificate for Hawaiian jewelry from Philip Rickard Honolulu.

You can also be our “cover model” for the day. The irrepressible Jessica Ranches will take your Pretend-you’re-on-the-cover-of-HAWAII-Magazine photo and post it in our photo gallery.

If you see Jessica, Helen, Chuck or Shaun, say, “Aloha!” 

If you haven’t subscribed to our magazine yet, subscribe at the festival and receive 500 HawaiianMiles from Hawaiian Airlines.


  

Do you have an awesome shot of Hawaii?

If you’ve been to our islands before, we know you took some pictures. Maybe even some great pictures. E-mail one or two of those to us and it could be selected as our HawaiiMagazine.com Photo of the Week.

Check out the right-hand corner of our home page. See the pic? It could be yours if we think it’s the coolest of the week.

We’re looking for any shot that, with one glance, says “Hawaii.” Our sunsets, scenery and beaches are always nice. But we’d love it if you got creative, too, with our food, our people, our architecture, our way of life.

Send along you name, where you live and a little background on the photo. Please send it all to photo@hawaiimagazine.com.

Winners get their photo posted on our home page for a week, and posted large-size (along with their story) in our Photo of the Week archive forever. (Just click on the home page Photo of the Week to check out the archive).

And in case you are wondering, you can still enter those photos in our annual Photo Contest. Details on this year's contest will be in the May/June issue of HAWAII Magazine.

 

Where are the HAWAII Magazine photo contest winners for 2008?

If you're checking back into this site after a week or so away, you may be wondering: Where's the print magazine?

Yes, we used to put up a few articles each issue on our web site.  Now, the whole magazine is here, every page, even every advertisement.

Just click the current cover, and you will get what's called a Digimag reader.  Just flip through the pages electronically and you can see the whole magazine.  If you are looking for the Photo Contest winners, start on page 40.

A note: The web version of the magazine cannot really have the same impact as the print magazine, in which these photos look fabulous.

We want to bring you a web site that does things a print magazine can't—up-to-the-minute posts, videos, news, travel tips.

But the magazine does other things well--beautiful photos, in-depth stories, portability. Magazines are appealing physical objects, easy to read, easy to carry.

We love having you come to our web site, and we'd encourage you to subscribe to the print edition as well.  It's one way of bringing Hawaii--its scenery, people, culture, food, music--into your home on a regular basis.  To subscribe, click here.