WAM! And McSweeney’s.
December 4th, 2009 | Uncategorized
Hey, do you know about Women, Action, and the Media? It’s an organization that puts on an annual conference about gender and media which is apparently pretty awesome. And right now they’re having an online fundraising auction. You can bid on some original DTWOF art (episode 242, “The Pill”) or all kinds of other stuff, like getting to hang backstage with the likes of Cyndi Lauper, Margaret Cho, and Lily Tomlin.
McSweeney’s, the groovy literary journal, is coming out this week with an issue called San Francisco Panorama, which is in newspaper format. Or something like that…I can’t really wrap my mind around it. It’s a very sprawling, ambitious project in celebration of the beauty of the broadsheet, with pull-out sections, and a magazine. But the best part of it, if you ask me, will be the 16 page full color comics section. I have a small piece in it. I guess it’ll be in bookstores, but you can also order it here.
38 Responses to “WAM! And McSweeney’s.”
Thanks, Alison–this looks great and I will be ordering a copy! Or I should probably check with Amazon/True Colors bookstore in Mpls. This is why I check in with your blog; I’d never hear about stuff like this otherwise!
I loved the look at Alison’s signature.YOu sign your name like a psychiatrist! A quick, unreadable squiggle. I always admire people with a signature unlike their handwriting. I have a 27-character name and I painstakingly etch out every single character — I never have to print my name for it to be legible. I know, I’m anal that way.
WAM rocks, great to see it plugged here.
And now a plug for our own brilliant, blogging, opera-singing, teaching French to 3-year-olds, real-food-cooking, family-attending, boyfriend-loving, in-training-to-be-parrot-compamion, rabble-rousing Kat, who turns 28 today. Your birth vastly enriched the planet. Good work, kiddo.
There’s been a bit of this going around lately. DC did the Wednesday Comics series in this format and is planning Wednesday Comics II- a mixed bag from a comics standpoint but ambitious enough to be worth reading.
Also, the local comics group Cartoonist Conspiracy sponsored something called Big Funny, a tabloid dedicated to resurrecting or preserving, I’m not sure which, the original large format comic strip.
Now McSweeney’s.
I don’t know if this is a renaissance or the last hurrah of the golden horde. Either way, I’m for it, and I’m glad you’re part of it, Alsion.
Glad, you hear me? Glad! Glad! GLAD! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!
I thought the Wednesday Comics series was visually spectacular, but not a very interesting read. It was disappointing that no one wanted to do a humor strip. I hope that between them and McSweeny’s, a trend will ensue.
thanks maggie!
So far I’ve celebrated by getting yellow paint on my “nice” jeans and kicking a kid out of the nap room because he wouldn’t stop clapping…
The WAM auction is awesome – all kinds of great stuff to bid on. Aspiring writers out there should take note of the manuscript editing services on offer, most notably from Kate Harding. If you’ve never read the excellent feminism going on over at Shapely Prose http://www.kateharding.net, you should.
Happy b’day Kat!
Hey, I was just kidding about size commentary in my all-clear mammogram letter! 🙂 I’d have said this sooner, but I can no longer access DTWOF The WebSite from my state university server. And that’s no joke. I’m in the city library at a public computer right now. I’d stay longer and congratulate Maggie on her very good news, but I’ve got a 54-pound harrier hound at home who is about to burst if I don’t walk her before the sun goes down here in the U.S. central time zone!
McSweeny’s looks like a very compelling read. Glad to hear of it coming together. That one landscape photo has me sold, so great cartooning is just a feather in the cap or cherry on the sundae or some other corny metaphor.
Texts for the tender-eyed? Was D2WO4 run in an expurgated version by some media, for which AB supplied, ready for paste-in, alternative, matching-lettered, less **cough** inflammatory words?
Now even the NEW YORKER (yes, the NEW YORKER) bespatters its pages with fuckity fuck fuck fuck. Oh, my.
And they say there’s no progress…
Wait, Kat is all of 28? Gadszooks – you go, Kat! 🙂
Am enjoying remembering Bridget Loves Birney, Bewitched, Bionic Woman — all those women of 1970s TV who raised me. And yes, embarrassingly, I found Barbara Eden of I Dream of Jeannie hot (embarrassing bc she played such a ditzy femme…)
How’s recovery going, MJochild?
On a more somber note, RIP LA Times trans sportswriter Mike Penner/Christine Daniels: http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-mike-penner29-2009nov29,0,3898738.story Penner’s/Daniels’ story is heartwrenching.
But to add a more cheerful note, see “What do Cats Do?
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/12/03/what_do_cats_do_home_alone_cat_cams_have_answers/
Wow, I’m gonna have to rush out to Bailey Coy and get a copy of that McSweeney’s. Oh, wait, I can’t. Well, maybe some other bookstore in town will have them.
Why does this project remind me of National Lampoon’s newspaper parody? I loved their comics section. And we still quote the Bruce McCall ad inserts. “Dad & Lad Peda-Jetsters!”
Cheers, Ian!
I had a twinge of DTWOF loss when I read today’s xkcd:
http://xkcd.com/671/
AB used to spoof the nameplate of Toni and Clarice’s Volvo as Vulva.
Does anyone remember “Not the New York Times”?
It was a brilliant one-issue parody of the NYT
from sometime in the late 1970’s – early 1980’s.
In a freeing-up-space frenzy a number of years ago, I threw it out, sad to say. (I live in a
pretty small apartment…)
@freyakat (#15)
Yes, I remember it. It was published during a strike at the NY Times. It was brilliant, and hilarious. I might even still have my copy. Have no idea where, however.
@freyakat (#15)
Wikipedia to the rescue… “Not The New York Times” was published during the 1978 strike.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times
Quoting from the article:
—
Due to strikes, the regular edition of The New York Times was not printed during the following periods:[30]
* December 9, 1962 to March 31, 1963. Only a western edition was printed.
* September 17, 1965 to October 10, 1965. An international edition was printed, and a weekend edition replaced the Saturday and Sunday papers.
* August 10, 1978 to November 5, 1978. A multi-union strike shut down the three major New York City newspapers. No editions of the Times were printed. Two months into the strike, a parody of the Times called “Not The New York Times” was given out in New York, with contributors such as Carl Bernstein, Christopher Cerf, Tony Hendra and George Plimpton.
—
Boy, that sure seems like a lifetime ago. When was the last time you heard of a labor strike in the US? And one supported by leading literary figures?
Newspaper memories (and a bit of NY newspaper history)…
The 1965 newspaper strike is the first one I remember (I wasn’t reading newspapers in 1962-63). It killed off several newspapers, including The Herald Tribune, The Journal-American, and The World-Telegram. I read the first two, along with the NY Times, NY Post, and the NY Daily News. My family subscribed to these four newspapers, my father picked up the Daily News en route to work and brought it home at night.
That was the era of morning newspapers and afternoon newspapers. Sometimes I also read Newsday and the Long Island Press, it depended on which newspaper routes my brother had at the time. Only Newsday survives as a Long Island paper. They had a NY edition for a while, which was quite good, but the Chandler family (which owned Newsday and the LA Times) killed it off.
The Herald Tribune, Journal-American, and World-Telegram entered into an ill-fated and short-lived chimera called The World Journal Tribune after the 1965 strike. I hated it. After this monster died, I primarily read the NY Times and NY Post. The Post was a liberal paper in those days (now it’s owned by Murdoch, it’s a right-wing rag). The Daily News was a conservative paper favored by hardhats and those who supported the Vietnam War, à la the fictional Archie Bunker in “All In The Family.”
These days, the remaining papers in NY are all conservative and/or right-wing to one extent or another. Don’t let the NY Times’ history (e.g. Pentagon Papers) fool you, they are/were a tool of Reagan, the Bushes, and every dictator who ever paid them off for good press (e.g., see the 1980s-era series on the Philipines during the reign of Ferdinand Marcos as a textbook example). The Sulzbergers (family that owns/controls the Times) are also a bunch of scumbag slumlords, and their real estate coverage reflects that bias.
The NY Post is a typical Murdoch rag. Like Fox News (also owned by Murdoch) in print.
The Daily News tries to position itself as a populist paper these days, with attention to immigrant communities (which by-and-large are usually politically conservative).
I read my news online these days. I finally gave up the hardcopy version of the Wall Street Journal earlier this year. It was too expensive to read yesterday’s news over my morning coffee. Now I read it online while having coffee and listening to the early morning conference call at work (sometimes I read it the night before, it comes out online around 9PM Eastern time). And unlike the deadwood edition, it’s TODAY’S news.
Oh McSweeney’s, the Times parody … this all reminds me of the Daily Distress, that was so much fun! With everybody writing in their bits.
Hoh, thanks for the link to xlcd – omg I miss the dtwof so much!
In global warming news, the US Environmental Protection Agency declared carbon dioxide a health hazard. This gives political cover to Obama when he shows up in Copenhagen next week for the global warming talks.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a6zu2IwpzrZs&pos=9
Quoting from the article:
—
The first regulations under a finding that carbon dioxide is dangerous will be made final on March 10, and will cover emissions from cars and trucks beginning with model year 2012, said David Doniger, policy director for the climate center of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group based in New York. Automakers signed on to that plan, announced in May.
After that, the EPA is expected to begin writing emissions rules for factories, power plants and other stationary pollution sources, Doniger said. The agency has said it would regulate only facilities that produce 25,000 tons of CO2 a year or more.
—
Now I’m wondering about all the CO2 stationary sources that might be affected. How much CO2 does a large brewery output? A large bakery?
While it’s not likely going to be a financial issue for a megabrewer such as Anheuser-Busch (maker of Budweiser), or a megabaker such as Hostess Brands (maker of Wonder Bread), I’m wondering if local breweries and regional bakeries will suddenly find themselves in a financial hole and unable to comply with the new CO2 emission regulations.
It won’t affect local Mom-and-Pop (Mom-and-Mom? Pop-and-Pop?) bakeries where you get your dose of yeasty goodness, but maybe it would hit the small artisanal and specialty bakers (in NY area, I’m thinking of Eli’s, Schenk’s, Amy’s, etc.).
It’s probably more likely to hit specialty and micro brewers, such as Sam Addams. In NY area, I’m thinking of Brooklyn Brewery, Chelsea Brewing, Greenpoint Beer Works (they are contract brewers for many local microbrews such as Heartland, etc.).
There could be some interesting unintended consequences of this ruling. Stay tuned.
(… goes back to thinking about the wonderful date nut bread from Buffalo’s own Yeast West Bakery …)
@freyakat (16): I still have my yellowed copy of “Not the New York Times.” It’s still funny. At least, I think so. Not a lot of other people are real impressed.
@Jan, freyakat
I keep hoping I’ll find a copy of Not The New York Times on the web (although I suppose not many would want to scan in a broadsheet, especially in its original 14″ incarnation, unlike today’s shrunken 12″ broadsheet).
Nonetheless, I did find an article in the real NY Times, circa 2008, which poo-poohed a lame parody which hit the streets in post-Obama euphoria. It described some of the content of NTNYT, and just the descriptions alone made me giggle. I’d forgotten about the graph with the noses indicating increased cocaine usage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/nyregion/15about.html
Quoting from the article:
—
By way of completely unfair comparison, it should be noted that the modern standard for fake news was set in October 1978, with the publication of the one and only issue of Not The New York Times. It was a pitch-perfect replica, spiritually and physically. At that point, the actual newspaper had not been published for two months because of a strike, and the Internet did not yet exist.
After so long without the real thing, the public embraced Not The New York Times —from the first page to the last, packed with articles that were vaguely familiar. For instance, while there was no Living section with features on home decorating, there was The Having Section, which had handy how-to stories like “Insulating With Pâté: Winter Warmth With Good Taste.”
—
Getting closer… here’s a 1978 Time magazine article about NTNYT…
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946112-1,00.html
Here’s a photo of the NTNYT front page, from someone who wants to sell it for $50:
http://www.treasuredcollectables.com/i/MISCELLANEOUS/PARODY_MAGAZINES-NOT_THE_NEW_YORK_TIMES.jpg
The scary thing about the front page is how realistic one of the articles sounds, after years of governments selling off public assets (so-called “privatizing”):
“Administration Announces Plans To Offer Public Shares In GSA”
A better photo from someone who tried to sell it on eBay (no bids):
http://i.ebayimg.com/20/!BdNlzmw!2k~$(KGrHqMH-CsErfYrdLC+BK34MoY2Qg~~_3.JPG
Hmmm… dunno why the URL link in #25 got munged. You can copy/paste the full URL into your browser address bar to see the image.
From the “Chock Full O’ Nuts” department comes news that men who drink lots of coffee have a lower risk of developing advanced prostate cancer.
The catch? The largest risk reduction was found in men who drank six or more cups of coffee a day. Talk about being wired…
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=aByVY6luZPTI
Quoting from the article:
—
In research involving 50,000 men over 20 years, scientists led by Kathryn Wilson at Harvard’s Channing Laboratory found that the 5 percent of men who drank 6 or more cups a day had a 60 percent lower risk of developing the advanced form of the disease than those who didn’t consume any. The risk was about 20 percent lower for the men who drank 1 to 3 cups a day, and 25 percent lower for those consuming 4 or 5 cups.
—
What is it about those Oberlin women?
Our art history class visited a local gallery to see an exhibition entitled “The Rise of Women Artists”. I remember the artwork that caught my eye the most was a marble bust of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by Edmonia Lewis.
More on the exhibition, which is made up entirely of work from the gallery’s own collection can be found here:
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/exhibitions/womenartists/
Anyway, I decided to look up Edmonia Lewis, as there were a few tantalisingly brief glimpses of a mixed race artist learning her craft during the Civil War and then moving to Rome to work with a ‘sisterhood’ (direct quote) of female artists.
Anyway I looked her up on Wikipedia and found out allsorts about her – including the fact that she went to Oberlin as well. Obviously this is a college that’s been turning out feisty, creative women for quite a while now!
Rachel Maddow update: according to the Slog, she confronted a serious anti-gay campaigner, whose distortions are being used to prop up anti-gay purges in Uganda, with his own bile:
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/12/09/rachel-maddow-to-anti-gay-ex-gay-hater-richard-cohen-im-reading-it-from-your-book-dude#more
@ MC re #29, After watching Rachel Maddow, and pondering the delights of her protagonist who thinks I can be cured of being gay, I do have to ask myself – is he the alternative?
#29 the Rachel Maddow link — Arghhhhh!!!!! Dude makes me wanna puke! (Ashamed he’s a Jew!) Barf! Blech! Ewwwww! (aw geez, I need some DTWOF-Mo-Clarice-Toni-Stuart-Jezanna outrage right about NOW!)
Following up our previous möbius-related discussion:
Hungry? Click [HERE].
(Sorry, no bacon.)
… or [HERE].
@NLC mobius strip bagel is so cool – thanks for sharing and I love the note on the cookies page:
“Note: if your computer has only an 8-bit aroma-card, clicking on the pictures above will not faithfully reproduce their delicious smell. You would need at least a 16-bit aroma-card to synthesize the nuances. “
@ NLC, the Mobius bagel divided my workmates into two twisted halves – those who jumped up and down saying it’s the coolest thing ever, and those who could not see WTF I was so amused by. Guess which half was bigger?
@NLC
Möbius bagel mit schmear… YUM! I liked his upcoming project, Möbius lox. Trilobite cookies looked good too.
I’m sure someone here will find Möbius strip bacon.
Here’s a guy who made a Möbius doughnut:
http://newyork.seriouseats.com/2009/12/even-cooler-the-mobius-doughnut.html
I think he’d fit right in here, judging from his closing remark:
“Only possible improvement: the bacon Möbius doughnut?”
BTW, the doughnuts in the article above were procured from the Donut Pub on W.14th St, and they are very good indeed.
Unfortunately, the Donut Pub happens to be down the block from the McBurney Y, so I routinely stop for doughnuts and coffee enroute to/from the Y, thus negating my workout. :(.