As a kid I remember paying a couple of quid extra to buy a comic book with a big hologram on the cover on the assumption that I could bag it up and retire when I was ancient and in my late twenties. Half a year later, the whole comic book collector scene imploded. I wish the same would happen with sports footwear, but that’s a whole different topic of discussion. 22 years later, I’m still lured in by a fancy magazine cover — I bought a digital cover issue of Esquire in 2008 that doesn’t seem to work, and for a second, I thought I’d seen the future, but I’d just seen an excellent gimmick. I’ve been waiting to see something similarly ambitious, and AnOther Magazine’s grand plan for a special edition of the latest issue looks fun — seeing as we’re always speculating over digital’s dominion over paper, this project puts an analogue format inside a special cover that’s an HD video of Rihanna filmed by Inez and Vinoodh (who just directed her FourFiveSeconds video), but also happens to contain the a selection of the very best Alexander McQueen show music, which plays when you plug-in speakers or headphones. I’m not sure if it the whole package is prescient or a well-designed in-joke at the expense of everyone writing print’s obituary, but I’m as drawn to it as I was when I spotted those Valiant chrome covers back in the day. And just like those comics, it comes with a markup — it’s 125 quid (which, in fairness, is newspaper priced compared to some issues of Visionaire). I want a copy though, solely because it’s how I imagined magazines to look in 2015, back when the notion of a smart phone or tablet seemed like an impossibility. I’m interested to see who’s going to step up and outdo this one — holographic cover stars on some “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi” type steez is the only way forward, or maybe an editor’s letter that hi-fives you for picking up the publication?
On the more non-moving, no-audio front, Marfa Journal has been very good so far, and issue #3 — which launched this evening at colette — looks great, with Gosha shooting Supreme, Jonathan Anderson and a hero of mine, Gaspar Noé taking up one of the covers. Multiple covers are usually an unnecessary stress in a newsagent, but Marfa Journal does a good choice of including at least one personal role model in the mix thus far, which makes the choice easy.
GWARIZM 