Blog | Print Magazine

Nov 26, 2018
3 min

When Marvel’s Stan Lee Helped Instigate Art Spiegelman’s “Maus”

The Art Spiegelman Maus Instigator Among his numerous contributions to the comic book medium, Stan Lee played a part in the evolution of Art Spiegelman’s Maus. Yes, that’s Stan the Spider-Man, Iron Man, and X-Men man. Okay, so many of his self-styled claims to fame are hyperbolic at best and only credible to his delusional True Believers. But in 1974 Stan provided national mainstream exposure to the original three-page “Maus,” Art’s short, self-contained strip – which had fir

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Sep 27, 2018
3 min

When the U.S. Army Banned a Comic Book About War

It was 1966, in the midst of the Vietnam War. President Johnson was escalating his lies to Congress and the public that prolonged this horrific and unwinnable South Asian conflict. And in that year, America suffered 6,350 fatal military casualties, well over triple the number of deaths in 1965. And a war comic titled Blazing Combat was banned by the armed forces. No Glorious Enterprise Blazing Combat, along with Creepy and Eerie, two other black-and-white, magazine-sized pulp

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Jun 1, 2018
5 min

Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine Finally Shuts Up

Author’s NEW Note, September 11, 2018: Interview resumes publication this very week! Author’s Note, June 1, 2018: So Interview has just ceased publication, not quite a half-century after it began. With years of financial struggles and a recent string of lawsuits, as well as a creative director standing accused of sexual misconduct, it finally filed for bankruptcy. I certainly won’t miss the magazine. Truth is, I was surprised to hear it was still around. Especially in these d

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Dec 10, 2016
11 min

Paul Krassner’s Fake News and the Power of Positive Hoaxing

“The truth is vastly overrated.” That’s how I began my feature for the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design’s “Truth” issue back in the year 2000. And now post-truth, fake news and other euphemisms for lies have become accepted standard operating procedure in our current cultural and political climate. But hey, don’t blame me. On the contrary, my piece was in praise of the hoaxes perpetrated by The Realist, a pioneering publication of “freethought criticism and satire.” Honestly. S

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Feb 29, 2016
2 min

Duke Magazine: The First “Playboy” for Black Americans

The good news for those who read Playboy for its articles is that those pesky porn pics are now gone. The bad news, of course, is: no more cartoons! A 62-year heritage that saw the likes of Jack Cole, Shel Silverstein, Harvey Kurtzman, and Gahan Wilson is no more, as the ranks of mass magazine feature illustrations continue to dissipate. Still, thanks the numerous imitators, Hef’s bunny did leave a litter of literary and graphic sophistication from back in its heyday. Take th

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Apr 10, 2015
2 min

Janine Vangool: Fit to Print

Vangool established her design business fresh out of art college. Working with freelance clients offered her an unexpected education in marketing, time management and business development. After 12 years of freelancing in the arts, culture and publishing sectors, she “retired” from client work to reignite her creativity by launching UPPERCASE, a quarterly print magazine. Six years later, UPPERCASE magazine is still going strong, and the company is also publishing books that p

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Nov 26, 2014
4 min

Andy Warhol’s Magazine Career, from Raggedy to Riches

Alexey Brodovitch had the eye. Beginning in the 1930s Harper’s Bazaar’s art director became famous for his ability to look through contact sheets and know precisely what images to choose, where to crop, and arrange to produce highly elegant and refined pages and spreads. And he’s since come to be considered American publication design’s most innovative and skilled practitioner. One of his freelancers in the 1950s was a struggling, unkempt graphic artist nicknamed Raggedy Andy

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Aug 5, 2014
2 min

A Mag For Goodfellas

My C.V. makes no bones about it. I was the co-publisher and art director of Mobster Times. The magazine started as a vendetta against the former art directors of Screw, Brill and Waldstein, who left in a huff and founded and published Monster Times, a sci-fi tabloid, and grew into its own entity. There was just one letter difference between monster and mobster, but the magazines were far apart (although there were quite a few monsters in the crime families). I’ve written abou

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Jan 29, 2013
3 min

Andy Warhol's Attraction to Herbert Bayer's Lips

When Alexey Brodovitch was art directing Harper’s Bazaar, he ran a striking cover by Herbert Bayer for its 1940 “College Fashions” issue. A three-quarter view photo of a woman’s face is duplicated in two rows of four: a clear newsstand eye-catcher. In his formative years as a commercial artist, Warhol would regularly produce drawings by tracing photos. Although the article doesn’t mention Bazaar, it does remark that the sketch “reflects his obsession with repetition.” And now

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Apr 27, 2012
3 min

Bare Bodies, Mud Baths, and Beyond: Wet in Retrospect

In the late 1970s, bohemian hipsters on L.A.’s west side were getting Wet. Despite its small circulation, it became highly influential among local artists, designers, and architects. And now, “Making Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing,” provides a sampling of its spirit. Poster illustration and design: John Van Hamersveld. Leonard Koren admits in his book that when he launched Wet in Venice Beach in 1976 he had “no skills in writing, editing, designing, art directing, adver

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Nov 11, 2010
2 min

Today's Obsession: Martha on the iPad

If you’re paying attention to digital publishing for iOS, you know that Adobe’s recently released the Digital Publishing Suite in beta for InDesign. I spoke about this briefly last week. When I reviewed CS5 a million years ago, I was confused as to why inDesign seemed to have interactive capabilities (and remember, this was before Apple released either the iPad or iPhone 4, so digital publishing still seemed relegated to the web). Now it makes sense. Digital publishing is m

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Nov 3, 2010
2 min

Today's Obsession: Publishing for the iPad

Last week, Adobe released beta versions of a very interesting set of tools for InDesign—a Digital Publishing Suite for designers developing for the iPad. It’s available now at Adobe Labs. (One caveat: It’s in beta, so go into it understanding that beta means things may be a little buggy here and there.) I’m stoked. I’ve been waiting for 1) Apple to stop forcing its own agenda and restricting the marketplace and 2) a solution to happen for designers (not necessarily developers

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Aug 16, 2010
3 min

Roger Black Discusses Future Potential for Type Design

Sample spreads, with type palette listings, for Ready-Media's "Trumbull" and "Lochmoor" magazine template designs. Roger Black is currently embroiled in design disputes … again! At New York’s Type 1987, Roger went head-to-head with Paula Scher over ITC’s version of Garamond. At AIGA’s Miami conference in 1993, during his stint at Esquire, it was him against David “Raygun” Carson, fighting about publication design. But hey, that was way back when just about every designer was

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Jul 21, 2010
1 min

Print Ain't Dead Yet (Continued)

What happens if you cross the paper-technology of Esopus with the typographic quirkiness of the now defunct Nest? The offspring might be the bi-annual Vintage Magazine. Inspired by Fleur Cowles’ Flair (1950-51), the second issue of Vintage (out now) is an eclectic mix of graphic, printing and written elements. The cover is embossed (letterpress style) with an open spine bound with a ribbon and the interior is filled with an array of special paper effects (pop-ups, booklets,

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Jul 17, 2010
2 min

Magazine Making 101

A few weeks back I was asked to speak to a class of NYU students who were creating something interesting: print magazines. Yes, you might be surprised to learn that one of the most respected learning institutions in the country is teaching the art and craft of producing the printed magazine. You might be even more surprised to know that it’s quite popular. Called “Magazine Dreams: Conceiving, Designing, and Producing a Twenty-first Century Publication,” the class has been aro

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When Marvel’s Stan Lee Helped Instigate Art Spiegelman’s “Maus”

When the U.S. Army Banned a Comic Book About War

Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine Finally Shuts Up

Paul Krassner’s Fake News and the Power of Positive Hoaxing

Duke Magazine: The First “Playboy” for Black Americans

Janine Vangool: Fit to Print

Andy Warhol’s Magazine Career, from Raggedy to Riches

A Mag For Goodfellas

Image of the Day, June 14, 2013

Andy Warhol's Attraction to Herbert Bayer's Lips

Bare Bodies, Mud Baths, and Beyond: Wet in Retrospect

Today's Obsession: Martha on the iPad

Today's Obsession: Publishing for the iPad

Roger Black Discusses Future Potential for Type Design

Print Ain't Dead Yet (Continued)

Magazine Making 101

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