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Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Books McSweeney's, the Future of Print, and a Free Book.

Posted by Alison Hallett on Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 4:42 PM

The Mercury's annual charity auction is just around the corner, and one item that's always up for bid is a subscription to the literary journal McSweeney's. If you wait until the auction to pick up a subscription, though, you might miss out on the fall issue, which is unusual even by McSweeneys' quirk-embracing tendencies: It's an homage to print media that simultaneously explores new funding models.

Issue 33 of McSweeney’s Quarterly will be a one-time-only, Sunday-edition sized newspaper—the San Francisco Panorama. It'll have news (actual news, tied to the day it comes out) and sports and arts coverage, and comics (sixteen pages of glorious, full-color comics, from Chris Ware and Dan Clowes and Art Spiegelman and many others besides) and a magazine and a weekend guide, and will basically be an attempt to demonstrate all the great things print journalism can (still) do, with as much first-rate writing and reportage and design (and posters and games and on-location Antarctic travelogues) as we can get in there.

The issue will feature a piece of long-form investigative reporting (as far as I know, the magazine's first): a report on the history and current status of the Oakland Bay Bridge, co-written by Pulitzer Prize-winning Bob Porterfield and "structural-engineer-turned-reporter" Patricia Decker. The piece is being funded through donations to Spot.Us, which allows readers to contribute money to support worthy pitches. I like the concept of the whole issue, and it's available for pre-order here.

And... speaking of McSweeney's, I just so happen to have an extra copy of The Wild Things, Dave Eggers' novelization of Where the Wild Things Are, still in its original shrinkwrap and everything (which is probably for the best, since it's a pretty book and my desk could charitably be described as "totally fucking disgusting"). Email me with Wild Things in the subject line by 3 pm tomorrow for a shot at winning it—I'll pick a winner at random.

 

Comments (4) RSS

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1
This sounds like a great idea. The comics part is especially exciting. There really needs to be a bridge between the gorgeous daily/weekly strips people are making for free on the web and the shitty, zombified tripe that's supposed to sell newspapers.

Although Mutts is cool. I got nothing against Mutts.
Posted by atomic on November 4, 2009 at 5:24 PM · Report
2
So, what you're saying is that this wont fit in my PO box?
Posted by Rusty! on November 4, 2009 at 9:16 PM · Report
3
@atomic Don't you pick up Wednesday Comics?
Posted by kiala on November 5, 2009 at 9:47 AM · Report
4
I really like the idea of Wednesday Comics, and that link has a link of Batman fighting a Nazi skeleton. On the other hand, it seems like they're taking "hey, remember when people used to..." and trying to create an audience for it.

It's like how every decade someone goes "hey, remember when people used to like film serials?"
Posted by atomic on November 5, 2009 at 11:05 AM · Report

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