A lifestyle magazine for lads aged 11 to 16 featuring fashion tips, sex advice, sports and music is being launched by a Brighton-based team.

Sorted, aimed at teenage boys, will be launched in January by a team setting up base in North Street, Brighton.

The editor will be 24-year-old Martin Klipp, a former Loaded journalist hoping to achieve the right blend of fashion, sex advice, music, sport and computer games.

Lads' mags were one of the publishing success stories of the Nineties.

Market leaders Loaded and FHM won acclaim and notoriety for their mix of cult heroes, sexy sirens and controversial features.

However, sales have slipped in recent years and the Sorted team believes the era of the lads' mag is about to give way to that of the little lads' mag.

Mr Klipp said the magazine would offer "big brother advice", features on music, sport, fashion and travel, as well as serious stories about drugs, homelessness and under-age sex.

The sort of celebrities likely to feature could include the likes of footballer Michael Owen and Mercury music prize winner Dizzee Rascal.

Mr Klipp said: "I don't know why nobody has done anything like this before.

"This is a long-neglected gap in the market and our research has shown an overwhelming level of support from this group.

"Sorted will be sharp and smart, entertaining and educational, aspirational and argumentative, funny and irreverent."

Hot topics covered will include "How to impress a girl in the classroom" and "What to wear on the sports pitch".

The publishers insist Sorted will be very different from the traditional boys' magazines of the Fifties and Sixties, such as Valiant, Eagle and Tiger.

Advice offered by these publications tended to be targeted more at aspiring Scouts than streetwise boys about town.

Mr Klipp's deputy editor will be Piers Townley, a former section editor at Loaded, while the publisher is Russell Church.

David Rigg, whose firm Project Associates is helping prepare for the launch, said: "A lot of research has gone into this and we feel we can provide what the teenage boys' market wants to see.

"Brighton has a lot of very talented media people who have escaped from the big smoke so being based here will be a breath of fresh air. It's a great, buzzing city to be in too."

An initial print run of 200,000 is planned, to be distributed nationally.

No cover price has yet been set, though the magazine will be glossy and have about 100 pages.

Leading pro-life charity Life is "appalled" yet another magazine "loaded" with sex tips was to be aimed at young children.

A spokesman said: "This magazine will disgust most normal parents. It will further corrupt young minds and rob boys of their childhood innocence. We need publications for children that will encourage them to value their childhoods."

Thursday October 23, 2003