• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, February 26, 2016

Soldier of Fortune, the magazine for sinewy men with bushy mustaches and aviator sunglasses — I mean, the magazine for people interested in the global mercenary industry — is closing its print edition after four moderately alarming decades, the publisher announced this week.

The April issue will be its last in print. But like many of its peers, the publication will continue online.

Founded in 1975 by Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown, a former Green Beret, Soldier of Fortune attracted a loyal audience composed of real and armchair warriors, including large numbers of Vietnam veterans, many of them with experience in special operations and counter-guerrilla warfare.

Content included news about mercenary and private security operations around the world, profiles and in-depth reviews of weapons and equipment.

The magazine also attracted a special category of advertisers, including firearms and body-armor manufacturers, military equipment wholesalers and the NRA, as well as a classifieds section offering the services of, yes, soldiers of fortune. Many of these have carried over to the Soldier of Fortune Web site.

Brown tells The Wall Street Journal that he tried to sell the print edition without success, adding, “We want to keep the brand going so we are transitioning entirely to the Internet.” At its height in the 1980s, the magazine sold around 150,000 copies per month, but is no longer publicly audited.

The closure of the print edition comes amid big chances in the global mercenary industry, which has become highly professionalized (at least in part) in recent decades. The growing importance of professional private security forces first received public attention thanks to the participation of Blackwater (now “Academi”) in the 2003 occupation of Iraq.

More recent events have sometimes shown them in a positive light, including the role of South African mercenaries in the fight against Boko Haram in Nigeria, and the success of private maritime security contractors who helped turn the tide against Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa.