The American Society of Magazine Editors revealed the finalists of their second annual Best Cover Contest today. We find out the winners next week! Oh boy! 9/11 covers from The New Yorker and New York, the day Time decided to just run a huge picture of an elephant's ass (it's a metaphor!), and a cover from Skiing with the headline "secret powder" that is apparently actually about skiing and not coke are just some of the highlights of this year gone by. Overall, as this sampling of the nominees suggests, you had a winner on your hands if you featured the inescapable Stephen Colbert, a lady on a roof somewhere, or a disembodied sphere of lady-part on the right half. Also we're glad to see that New York's coverline question "What If 9/11 Never Happened?" just still refuses to resonate.

2007 Best Cover Contest [ASME]