Q•Voice magazine was created by Jorge L. Cabal and William Attewell. Attewell ran Wells Ink, an ad agency which specialized in the gay and lesbian market. He was also the elusive W.W. Wells III, author of the "Juicy Bits" column in In Step magazine. His partner in life and business, Jorge Cabal, was a noted portrait photographer. Together, their new Q•Voice publication quickly became the go-to arts and photography magazine in Wisconsin's LGBT community, with articles and interviews about artists and performers (local and national), and photo spreads (often called "Coming Out") in the center four pages (those pages printed on white paper to provide the best black-and-white photo quality prints to stand out from the less expensive newsprint paper used for most of each issue).

In April 1996, just prior to Q-Voice's one-year anniversary, Attewell and Cabal bought the long-running In-Step magazine (then in its 13th year). They began to direct some of their efforts to redesigning that publication to make it more reader-friendly, but promised to retain its most popular features to ensure continuity. They thanked advertisers, subscribers and readers for keeping faith, and added: "We'd like to express our commitment to Wisconsin’s LesBiGay Community. In Step Magazine will remain your comprehensive news, information and entertainment resource."

But they kept Q-Voice running. As stated in the Editor's letter at the news-magazine's one year anniversary issue:

"Q•Voice has reinvigorated our gay press, Wisconsin now boasts four thriving gay and lesbian publications. That is a claim usually reserved for large gay meccas like New York, Chicago or Los Angeles and is truly something to be proud of."

"In my first editorial for Q•Voice, I pledged to cover Milwaukee and Wisconsin 'in depth and with style'. I believe we have followed through on that mission and then some. Even Milwaukee's non-gay media has given kudos to our work, Milwaukee Magazine recently called Q•Voice 'a promising new voice... sassy, readable and easily the best-designed free publication in town'."

"Q•Voice remains a unique publication in the country with our special blend of interviews, features, art, photography and humor. We have featured interviews with Gloria Estefan, Martina Navratilova, Congressman Steve Gunderson, artist Patrick Farrell to name a few. We've brought readers timely interviews with the movers and shakers in Wisconsin's LesBiGay community and asked the tough questions. We have gone beyond the press releases with special features on aging issues and gay youth."

"In addition to our editorial efforts, Q•Voice Magazine became the only gay and lesbian publication in the state of Wisconsin to refuse 1-900 phone sex advertising. And with this issue, Q•Voice expands its print run to 12,000 issues (we started at 8,000) giving it the second largest print run of any gay and lesbian publication in Wisconsin (behind our sister publication In Step Newsmagazine.)"

After running the two publications separately for over 2 years, Q•Voice was merged into In Step newspaper in August 1998, becoming the "Q" entertainment section of that publication starting with In Step's August 20, 1998 (vol. 15-no. 17) issue.