Just when you think you are the last person alive outside of George Lois who thinks he was brilliant, along comes Spiegelman. Thanks.

I'm just glad that not all of them have been appropriated by Radar.

I saw some others yesterday, and after looking at these, I have to say that he's not my cup of tea. They all have a kind of stale look to me.

But I would love to hear the thesis of the article on American women.

George Lois: When "creative" actually meant something.

@Seeräuber Jenny:

According to Time:

"Another cover showed a morose nude jammed, derriere-first, into a garbage can. The article it advertised-"The New American Woman: through at 21" -was so heavily rewritten (seemingly to fit the cover illustration) that Freelance Writer Harlan Ellison refused to let Esquire use his byline. The article described a pseudotypical Los Angeles woman, prone to suicide, sexually jaded, hooked on pills and astrologically obsessed, who was supposed to be the wave of the future for all American women coming into their early 20s."

[www.time.com]

@Seeräuber Jenny: Yes, indeed. I only read the article to find out the rationale for that cover.

@Seeräuber Jenny:

Addressing that comment to yourself seems all too appropriate.

@Sailor:
I suspect that was some kind of cut, but the knife was a little dull.

I wondered what the article was about. I did a search on the web and found an a piece published at the time (infant media criticism, as it turned out) that described it. I posted the link, referencing my previous comment. And the problem with that is ... what?

If I mistook your tone, I apologize.

@Seeräuber Jenny:

"found a piece"

Another self-referencing comment. Shocking! Oh, the liberties taken!

@Seeräuber Jenny:

I do think it was interesting that Esquire, at least according to Time, didn't let a few facts get in the way of a good (sexist) image.

@Seeräuber Jenny:

No need for apologies. We have too much history for that.

I'm just not sure what George Lois' creative vision has to do

with Harlan Ellison's typically over-hyped and witless

story, one of many in that era. If anything, it makes an ironic

comment on how stupid the premise was/is/will be.

@Sailor: WTF?

@belltolls: I wish I could accept your thanks honestly... but I didn't know who he was before this morning. But now I like him lots!

@Helman:

Think about it. You should be onto something by Monday.

@Sailor: Wow. You are so smart. I will think about this. Am thinking I will conclude that you are an asshole, but I could be wrong.

For me the sweetest Lois cover is still the one of Sonny Liston in the Santa cap, Dec. '63. Somehow appropriately,it was the Esky ish on the stands when JFK was assassinated.

@Helman:

On second thought, don't think about it.

You'll probably hurt yourself.

@Seeräuber Jenny: Hah, that's no surprise to hear Harlan was behind that. He was constantly pulling his byline in protest, half the time using "Cordwainer Bird." He's been the same gutsy punk since the 50s and highlighted awesomely in Gay Talese's Esquire piece about Sinatra's cold, where Sinatra kicked him out of a bar over his boots.

@Sailor: I’m normally not one to to get in the way of a bitch-fest, and maybe it’s the coke talking, but, regarding your exchange with Seeräuber Jenny and Helman, it seems even an admirer of George Lois could understand that his style and ideas have been imitated and, indeed, replicated so frequently that even the originals would appear stale to many eyes today.

Not to be a pretentious ass, but—actually, to be a pretentious ass—Baudrillard’s concept of simulacra may be a productive way to think about the perception of originality in magazine graphics and photography. Magazines are meant to be ephemeral, disposable. Perhaps you and Ian Spiegelman are connoisseurs of the medium; perhaps you have chosen to put a frame around these images, to historicize and elevate Lois’s work as the original, the exemplary. But to most people it is indistinguishable from the copies, and the copies of copies, and so on.

I am probably not doing justice to your thoughts or to those of Seeräuber Jenny, and, indeed, I am watering down Baudrillard’s virtually eschatological notions about the end of reality and of meaning. I guess it seems weird to me to get so defensive about magazine cover art. What next?