John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

Spy magazine and typography

For the last few weeks, I've been following a project that makes me quite happy: the digitization of Spy magazine in Google Books, which was never a huge commercial hit (ceasing to exist, I think, basically confirmed its failure in that regard) but which was embraced heartily from the start by a fan base whose only fault was that it was too small. Spy launched or transformed a lot of careers and helped change the magazine world, including in how they look.

This package on Print's website focuses on how Spy manipulated type in groundbreaking ways. For younger readers, it's important to know this: Spy was bringing new life to heads, layouts and body copy in a pre-digital era, when the costs of typesetting were expensive, sometimes insanely so. The mucking around you can do on a Mac in seconds? That would have required planning, thought and especially money to achieve the same results. I had already worked as a student-newspaper production manager when Spy debuted in 1986; I was working at The Sunday Express here in St. John's during its best years, and the magazine's influence went beyond the editorial side.

And I bet that cat lady does a wicked solo

Separated at Birth? was a mainstay recurring feature of Spy magazine (that is, when it was not only good, but one of the best magazines, ever). Not surprisingly, it's given rise to all kinds of knockoffs homages, including this page, which puts together Eddie Van Halen and the Simpsons' lovably weird Cat Lady, among many others ... like Metallica's James Hetfield and the Wizard of Oz's Cowardly Lion. (Go on ... look it up.)

Best mags

I love magazines. I could spend all my days (and nights) surrounded by them; indeed, I often spend a fair bit of my vacation time head-deep in magazines. Most nights, my bedside reading is not a book, but a magazine. A splurge at the bookstore is parking a couple of $20s by the newsstand. So, I was naturally curious to read this list of the best magazines, ever, with a setup by Graydon Carter. Carter edits Vanity Fair, but I bet he'll be best remembered for having given Spy flight.

I resemble that remark

Spy magazine's Separated at Birth? feature made great fun of photographs of particular people (Benazir Bhutto and Andrea Martin in character as Edith Prickley come to mind) who bore more than a passing resemblence to one another. Photographer Francois Brunelle ups the ante, with side-by-side portraits of people who sometimes were not even aware of the other's existence. A sample is seen above; click here to see a CBC.ca gallery and essay, and here to visit Brunelle's site.

Fun with photos

US Weekly plays on Spy magazine's old "Separated at Birth?" feature, except instead of pairing celebrities whose facial expressions are similar, this set combines a younger boldfaced-typed with an older companion. That's Paris Hilton and Donatella Versace above. Via Mind Boggles.

Blogrolling in our time

Dot Dot Dot got a namecheck in rj:product, one of the Newfoundland blogs always worth reading. Indeed, the author compiled a list of just that: Newfoundland blogs worth reading.

Consider this a little logrolling in our time, to use the title of a recurring column in the late, lamented Spy magazine.