Life is back to life again. On October 1, Life debuts as a weekend magazine in more than 70 newspapers nationwide. The iconic red and white logo and the magazine’s reliance on photography remains, but this version of Life will be delivered to readers on Fridays as a supplement to such papers as the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and the Baltimore Sun.

The October 1 cover, reminiscent of Life in its heyday, features an ebullient, grinning Sarah Jessica Parker with the coversine “She’s Back! (And so are we),” though one might wonder if Ms. Parker, with her ubiquitous Gap advertising campaign and her regular red-carpet appearances, was ever really away.

The first issue includes, besides a discussion with the Emmy-winner on marriage, motherhood, and her four new movies, features on immigrant families arriving at JFK written by Pulitzer-Prize winner Frank McCourt and a first-person account by surfer Bethany Hamilton of her shark attack and her return to the waves.

There is also the kind of practical advice that is a staple of Life’s competitor Sunday supplements, Parade and USA Weekend. Life includes tips on money matters from columnist Jean Chatzky and a recipe each week for Sunday dinner.

Editor Bill Shapiro says the current version is really being built on the DNA of the original Life. “We wanted to create a magazine that people would feel as well as read … to help people connect from the images that capture a world of emotions to ideas to help people make the time they spend with friends and family more special.” As expected, photos will be especially important, and even though there are no photographers on the current staff of 23, Mr. Shapiro says he hopes to discover this generation’s Carl Mydans and Henri Cartier-Bresson. “I think still images are becoming increasingly important. No, we cannot give people the first pictures they may see of an event, but we hope we can find the image that they will remember.”

Life has had many lives. The original much-loved weekly, founded in 1936, collapsed under the weight of circulation and delivery costs and the competition for advertising from television in 1972. Since then it has come back as monthly, then as a weekly during the Persian Gulf War, a series of books, and a newsstand-only publication of special issues.

The new Life will go immediately to 12 million readers, making it the largest rollout in Time Inc.’s history. It does that without incurring the massive circulation costs of a start-up. But that means it relies on advertising for all revenues. The newspaper supplement business is tough and competitive, with low margins and high production costs. Life is also printing on super calendar paper, which allows for better photo reproduction and is higher quality than the paper used by its competitors, but which will add millions of dollars each year to the printing bill. Said an insider at one those competitors, “We have run the numbers, and we just don’t see how they are going to make it work.”

The first issue is 38 pages and includes 18 pages of advertising. “Advertising support for this debut issue was tremendous, “says Publisher Peter Bauer, who previously was at People. It includes ads for automobiles and from network and cable television. But the same expert insider notes, “Time Inc. has a good relationship with automotive advertisers because of their other magazines and with the entertainment industry because of People and Entertainment Weekly. They sold Life to newspapers saying it would help boost newspaper circulation on Friday and even Saturday and maybe it will. But if they divert any of the movie ads out of the Friday newspapers that could be trouble.”

In the New York area, Life will be in Newsday on Friday and in the Daily News – but in its Sunday edition.

How are people reacting to Life? Well, Richard Stolley, a famed correspondent for the original Life, who secured the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination for the magazine, is impressed. “I think what they are doing looks very good,” he says. Mr. Stolley still works as a consultant for the company.

Clearly Time Inc has never accepted the end of Life. Now with a very different circulation strategy, a small staff, and a new business plan, the company’s executives are betting that the magazine can, once again, enjoy a renewed and prosperous Life.

* * *

According to University of Mississippi professor Sami Husni, known as “Mr. Magazine,” who keeps track of every new magazine published in America, there are at least 75 new magazines launched each month. This week’s lead entry is Breathe, an elegant, oversized publication, which has actress Lili Taylor strolling on a Cape Cod beach on its cover.

Started by Deanna Brown and Lisa Haines, who worked together previously on the short-lived Web siteInside.com, the magazine, say its founders, celebrates “the yoga lifestyle.” But it is far less granola than Yoga Journal, the 29-year-old San Francisco-based publication, which currently has a circulation of 310,000 and more than a million readers among yoga aficionados.

Besides features on “Tantric Sex Decoded” and “Cosmic Weaver,” about a Peruvian “shaman who uses songs to heal the soul,” Breathe also has attractively photographed stories on a Bel Air “earth friendly” house that could have been featured in Architectural Digest, as well as designer fall fashion modeled by a slim, blonde “eco-activist.” It also has ads from Chopard, the Jamaica Tourist Board, and a two-page spread designer Cynthia Rowley created exclusively for the magazine.

Deanna Brown, the magazine’s publisher, says Breathe is launching with a circulation of 135,000 and hopes to get to 500,000 in five years. When I said that someone described the magazine as perfect for a woman who gets stressed when she can’t find a parking place for her Mercedes in front of the yoga studio, she nodded in agreement. “Yes, exactly! It’s for someone who wants to make the most of everything – spiritually and materially.”