How far we’ve fallen
I just stumbled across this presentation comparing venerable magazine titles’ early 20th century covers with contemporary versions. Contrast these classic covers, with minimal copy and lovingly-crafted illustrations or arresting graphics, with the style that unfortunately predominates today, with ubiquitous airbrushed, smiling celebrities overlaid by maniacally cacophonous headlines, badges, starbursts, and banners.
Look to opinion magazines like The Nation and the New Republic for a cool drink of water amid this aesthetic desert — they still manage to churn out dramatic and elegant cover art with regularity.
And even the cash-strapped American Conservative manages to present interesting and sometimes witty artwork, like this one lampooning the neoconservatives.
(I wish I could find a higher-res version of this one. It’s not an eye-popping composition, but at a larger size you could better see the pudgy pasty faces, taped-up eyeglasses, and the sexy Sarah Palin pinup.)
Of course, opinion magazines are sure-fire money-losers, and they’re less dependent on impulse supermarket buys, so the for-profit magazine world might not be looking in their direction for aesthetic inspiration. But still, is a downmarket cover art renaissance too much too hope for?
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:30 pm
The italicized captions alone are worth the price of admission. Classic. (Anyone who has seen Kelly Ripa in a low-cut blouse without airbrushing knows this is on the money.)
May 23rd, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Any readers who disagree with Syzygus will have their admission fee refunded.
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
I’m so confident of my position, I’ll refund them myself!
May 26th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I’d be far more likely to pick up Good Housekeeping that had a pretty illustration on the cover than one with a huge-ass picture of Kelly Ripa. After all, I have to maintain my Kelly Ripa boycott.
May 26th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Buttercup, I don’t even know you, but I think I could love you. Is Regis Philbin some sort of she-demon magnet or something?
May 27th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I didn’t realize there was so much anti-Kelly Ripa sentiment out there.