Afleveringen
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EVERY DAY IS MOTHERâS DAY
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If The Full Bleedâs second season had a theme, it just might be âWe Made A New Magazine During the Pandemic.â Listen to past episodes and youâll see that our collective and unprecedented existential crisis ended up producing a lot of magazines.
Melissa Goldstein and Natalia Rachlin met as coworkers at the lifestyle brand Nowness in the UK. Later, with Melissa in LA and Natalia in Houston, they bonded over their new status as mothers: they had given birth a day apart.
And they both found that magazines aimed at mothers were deficient. These titles spoke of babies and parenting and the decor of the babyâs room, but they rarely spoke of the moms as⊠people.
So they created Mother Tongue, a fresh look at womanhood and motherhood, and a kind of reclamation of both terms. The magazine functions as a conversation between like-minded moms from everywhere. Plus, like all modern media brands, Mother Tongue has great merch.
The election looms large, of course, over the magazine and our discussionâwe spoke a week after it and letâs just say both Melissa and Natalia were still processing the results. But Mother Tongue is not going to shy away from talking about that either.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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âTHATâS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU HAVE GRAPHIC DESIGNâ
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Simon Esterson is one of the most influential figures in British magazine design shaping the field for decades with his distinctive approach to editorial work.
Unlike many designers who built their careers within major publishing houses, Esterson chose a different path, gravitating toward independent publishing where his influence could be greater and his contributions more impactful. This decision allowed him to play a key role in fostering a rich culture of design-led publications.
His early work at Blueprint, the legendary British design and architecture magazine, set the stage for a career that would lead him to The Guardian, The Sunday Times of London and the Italian architecture magazine, Domus, before establishing his own London based studio, Esterson Associates.
Today, Estersonâs most visible project is Eye, the internationally-renowned journal of graphic design. As its art director and co-owner, he has been instrumental in maintaining its reputation as one of the most essential platforms for design professionals.
Thanks to his nonstop editorial work, Esterson is widely considered to be a mentor and role model for generations of British designers proving that great editorial design does not require vast resources, but rather a clear vision and an understanding of how design can elevate content.
Thatâs what great designers do.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Commercial Type and Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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A WEED GROWS IN PORTLAND
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Anja Charbonneau would be the first to admit she didnât have a strategy in mind when she launched her dreamy celebration of all things marijuana, Broccoli magazine, back in 2016. Having worked as a freelance photographer and writer, and then as Creative Director of lifestyle favorite Kinfolk, she started Broccoli with the simple idea to explore Portlandâs then burgeoning cannabis scene and its culture.
Fast forward to today: Anja Charbonneau oversees a publishing conglomerate that produces a number of magazines, books, and something called âoracle cardsââwhile also spearheading an advocacy group, and a whole lot more.
If anything has changed, ironically, itâs that the last edition of Broccoli was the last edition of Broccoli. Yes, there are new magazines on the way, and new books, and new ideas to explore, because Anja Charbonneau does not sit still, even while sitting atop her nascent empire.
From cats to mushrooms to artful snails to all things celestial, Broccoli publishes stuff that tastes great and thatâs good for you and your soul.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON
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Nearly 40 years after its launch, Spin magazine has returned to printâand at the helm, once again, is its founding editor and todayâs guest, Bob Guccione Jr.
Launched in 1985 as a scrappy, rebellious alternative to Rolling Stone, Spin became a defining voice in music journalism, championing emerging artists and underground movements that mainstream media often overlooked.
Now, as it relaunches its print edition, Spin will attempt to find its place in a media landscape that looks completely different. But Spinâs origin storyâand Guccione Jr.âs careerâhas been shaped by a complicated legacy. His father, Bob Guccione Sr., was the founder of Penthouse magazine, a publishing mogul who built an empire on provocation and controversy.
Launched in 1965 as a scrappy, rebellious alternative to Playboy, Penthouse was more than just an explicit adult magazine. It was a cultural lightning rod, sparking debates on censorship, free expression, and morality.
Though Penthouse funded Spinâs launch, the father/son dynamic was soon fraught with conflict over Spinâs editorial direction combined with Penthouseâs declining appeal. That tension led to a deep riftâthe two were estranged for years. But Spin survived, thriving under Guccione Jr.âs leadership as it defined a new era of music journalism.
We talked to Guccione upon his return to the magazine he built, and offers a spin-free take on dad, the launch, and the comeback.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Commercial Type and Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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THEYâRE FIXINâ TO CHANGE YOUR MIND
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The people behind The Bitter Southerner are many things but they are not, they will remind you, actually bitter. The tongue is planted quite firmly in the cheek here. But The Bitter Southerner is, for sure, like it says on the website, âa beacon for the American South and a bellwether for the nation.â
Sure, why not.
But what started out as an ambitious e-newsletter has evolved now into a ⊠project. Read The Bitter Southerner and you realize how ambitious and radical their businessâand messageâtruly is. This is not just a brand but a movement, a way to talk about the South and Southern things, but through a lens many of us, through our own biases and ignorance, wonât quite see.
And the world is listening. Stories from The Bitter Southerner have either won or been nominated for eight James Beard Awards. And now they are up for a National Magazine Award for General Excellence.
We spoke to co-founder Kyle Tibbs Jones about the genesis of the magazine, about what it means, about the community it has found and spawned, and about the future, not just of the brand but, maybe, of the South, and where The Bitter Southerner fits into it all.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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MAKE IT BIG. NO BIGGER
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Paula Scher is not really a âmagazine person.â
But if you ever needed evidence of the value of what we like to call âmagazine thinking,â look no further than Pentagram, the worldâs most influential design firm. The studio boasts a roster of partners whose work is rooted in magazine design: Colin Forbes, David Hillman, Kit Hinrichs, Luke Hayman, DJ Stout, Abbott Miller, Matt Willey, and, yes, todayâs guest.
Paula has been a Pentagram partner since 1991. Sheâs an Art Directorâs Club Hall of Famerâand AIGA Medalist. She has shaped the visual landscape for iconic brandsâCoca-Cola, Citibank, Tiffany, and Shake Shackâalways with her instinctive understanding of how typography, design, and storytelling come together.
In other words, she plays the same game we do.
In 1993, Paula collaborated with Janet Froelich on a redesign of The New York Times Magazine and built a platform for pioneering editorial innovation that continues to this day. In 1995, she helped me break down Fast Companyâs editorial mission, in her own distinctively reductive way: âItâs about the ideas, not the people,â she said. It was a game-changer.
But Paula isnât just a design legendâsheâs also a complete badass.
Starting out at a time when the industry was still predominantly male, Paula carved out space for herself by fighting for it. Her work at CBS and Atlantic Records redefined album cover design. Later, her rebranding for cultural institutions like The Public Theater and the Museum of Modern Art helped cement the importance of an unforgettable identity system for any organization.
And, as a longtime educator at New Yorkâs School of Visual Arts, Paula has molded generations of designers who have gone on to shape the industry in their own waysâincluding our very own Debra Bishop.
We spoke to Paula upon the launch of her new, 500-plus page monograph, Paula Scher: Works.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Commercial Type and Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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WTF IS AFM?
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Feeld is a dating app âfor the curiousâ and its users are an adventurous, thoughtful bunch. And Feeld is also a tech company that happens to be led by thoughtful long-term types who see the value in print as a cornerstone for their community of customers. Enter A Fucking Magazine.
Led by editors Maria Dimitrova and Haley Mlotek, AFM is a cultural magazine about sex that is also not about sex. Maybe itâs about everything. Or maybe my old lit prof in college was right and everything really is about sex. The first issue of the magazine is out and it demands attention because it is beautiful and smart and literate. And also because it feels like something new.
Discussions about AFM also lead to discussions about custom publishing: There is no hiding Feeld in the pages of AFM. All of the money behind the magazine is from Feeld, and half the contributors are also users of the app. Customers, in other words.
As someone who came out of the custom world, I have long said the best custom media were the products of brands that were confident and forward thinking; when a brand saw itself more as patron and less as custodian. Meaning they didnât get overly involved.
Luckily, the higher ups at Feeld are relatively hands off, and allow Maria and Haley to do their thing. Which is very fucking smart.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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THE WINNER
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Clang! Clink! Bang! Hear that? Itâs the sound of all the hardware that Jake Silversteinâs New York Times Magazine has racked up in his almost eleven years at its helm: Pulitzers and ASMEs are heavy, people!
When we were preparing to speak to Jake, we reached out to a handful of editors who have loyally worked with him for years to find out what makes him tick. They describe an incredible and notably drama-free editor who fosters an amazing vibe and a lover of both literary essay and enterprise reporting who holds both an MA and an MFA. As one New York Times Mag story editor put it, Jakeâs superpower is his âvigorous and institutionally-shrewd support of skilled reporters with strong voices pursuing projects that were just a little beyond the paperâs ordinary comfort zone.â
Hereâs a theory we set out to test in this interviewâone that weâve floated in our newsletter, The Spread, for years now: Is The New York Times Magazine the best womenâs magazine out there?
Yes, weâre talking about the stories they produce under Jake, like Susan Dominusâs ASME-winning, game-changing story about menopause and hormone replacement therapy, and Linda Villarosaâs feature shining a light on the Black maternal health crisis.
But weâre also talking about the woman-loaded top of the Times Mag masthead, on which Gail Bichler, Jessica Lustig, Sasha Weiss, Ilena Silverman, and Adrienne Greene reign supremeâand seriously outnumber their male counterparts.
And we could spend all day name checking favorite writers, like Dominus and Villarosa, but also Emily Bazelon, Danyel Smith, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Irina Aleksander, Jordan Kisner, Azmat Khan, Pam Colloff, Nikole Hannah-Jones, J Wortham, Wesley Morris. We could go on and onâyou get the idea!
So, did Jake agree with our womenâs mag theory? And what is it like to have the deep resources it takes to make these kinds of stories these days? Youâll have to listen to find out.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Commercial Type and Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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THE HEART OF ROCK âNâ ROLL
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Thereâs a saying about the Velvet Undergroundâs first album: it didnât sell a lot of copies but everyone who bought it went on to form a band. Not everyone who read Creem went on to form a band, but almost everyone who ever wrote about rock music in a significant way has a connection to Creem.
Founded in Detroit in 1969 by Barry Kramer, Creem was a finger in the eye to the more established Rolling Stone. Creem called itself âAmericaâs Only Rock ânâ Roll Magazineâ and its cheeky irreverence matched its devotion to its infamous street cred. Punk, new wave, heavy metal, alternative, indie were all championed at Creem.
Writers and editors who worked for Creem read like a whoâs who of industry legends: Lester Bangs. Dave Marsh. Robert Christgau. Greil Marcus. Patti Smith. Cameron Crowe. Jann Uhelszki. Penny Valentine. And on and on and on.
The magazine stopped publishing in 1989 a few years after Barryâs death. A documentary about Creemâs heyday in 2020 helped lead to a resurrected media brand, founded by JJ Kramer, Barryâs son, and launched in 2022. The copy on the first issueâs cover: âRock is Dead. So is Print.â
Totally typical Creem-assed fuckery. And still totally rock n roll, man.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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FARM-TO-NEWSSTAND PUBLISHING
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The pandemic screwed a lot of businesses over, but it did a real number on the restaurant industry. Beset by low margins at the best of times, Covid was to the business what a neglected pot of boiling milk is to your stove top. But Max Meighen, a restaurant owner in Toronto decided to fill in his down time by ⊠creating a magazine. Because of course he did.
And so he cooked up Serviette, a magazine about food that feels and looks and reads unlike any other food title around.
Nicola Hamilton came on as Creative Director soon thereafter. She had worked for a number of Canadian titles and during Covid, founded Issues Magazine Shop, one of Canadaâsâif not the worldâsâleading independent magazine shops. Because of course she did.
Food magazines, like all media, have gone through a lot recently, and the changes wrought by digital media have been amplified by Influencers, TikTokers, Instagram recipe makers, Substackers, bloggers, you name it. The food industry is ruthless and not for the weak. And I think youâll find that both Max and Nicola are anything but. They are, quite simply, Master Chefs.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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NOT THE SAFE CHOICE
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Most magazines are not political. Unless, that is, you create a bilingual Arabic-English language magazine about design out of Beirut. Or another bilingual magazine about women and genderâalso out of Beirut. Then, perhaps, your intentions are a bit less opaque.
Maya Moumne is a Lebanese designer by training who now divides her time between Beirut and MontrĂ©al. She is the editor and co-creator of Journal Safar and Al Hayya, two magazines that attempt to capture the breadth and diversity of what we inaccuratelyâmonolithicallyâcall âthe Arab World.â Both magazines are also examples of tremendous design and, frankly, bravery.
The subject-matter on display here means the magazines have limited distribution in the very region they coverâwhich is both ironic and the exact reason the magazines exist. That both have also been noticed and fĂȘted by magazine insiders in the West is perhaps also something worth celebrating.
Maya Moumne is a designer. Of the possibilities for a better and more inclusive future for everyone, everywhere.
[Production note: This conversation was recorded prior to the violence in Lebanon. We send our best wishes to the staff of Journal Safar and Al Hayya and hope they are safe. And mostly we wish for a peaceful future for all.]
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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CHAMPION OF A BETTER FUTURE
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Wired magazine feels like itâs been around forever. And perhaps these days any media that has been around for over 30 years qualifies as forever.
It has, certainly, been around during the entirety of the digital age. It has been witness to the birth of the internet, of social media, of cellphones, and of AI. It feels like an institution as well as an authority for a certain kind of subject. But what is that subject? Because Wired is not just a tech publication. It never was.
Katie Drummond is the editorial director of Wired, a position she has held for just over a year. This job is the closing of a circle in a sense, because her first job in media was as an intern at Wired. She has worked almost exclusively in digital media since, for a range of outfitsâmany of them shutteredâproof of the vagaries and the reality of media in the digital age.
At Wired Drummond oversees a robust digital presence, including video, the print publication, as well as Wired offices in places like Italy, Mexico, and Japan. She says that Wired âchampions a better futureâ ⊠meaning Wired seems like the publication of the moment, in many ways, at the intersection of tech, culture, politics, and the environment.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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EVERYONE IS A SALESMAN
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In 1995, New York magazine declared Martha Stewart the âDefinitive American Woman of Our Time.â And, as the saying goes (sort of), behind every Definitive American Woman of Our Time is another Definitive American Woman of Our Time. And thatâs todayâs guest, designer Gael Towey.
But letâs back up. Itâs 1982, and Martha Stewart, then known as the âdomestic goddessââor some other dismissive monikerâpublished her first book, Entertaining. It was a blockbuster success that was soon followed by a torrent of food, decorating, and lifestyle bestsellers.
In 1990, after a few years making books with the likes of Jackie Onassis, Irving Penn, Arthur Miller, and, yes, Martha Stewart, Towey and her Clarkson Potter colleague, Isolde Motley, were lured away by Stewart, who had struck a deal with Time Inc. to conceive and launch a new magazine.
Toweyâs modest assignment? Define and create the Martha Stewart brand. Put a face to the name. From scratch. And then, distill it across a rapidly-expanding media and retail empire.
In the process, Stewart, Motley, and Towey redefined everything about not only womenâs magazines, but the media industry itselfâand spawned imitators from Oprah, Rachael, and even Rosie.
By the turn of the millennium, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, as it was rebranded in 1997, included seven magazines, multiple TV projects, a paint collection with Sherwin-Williams, a mail-order catalog, Martha by Mail, massive deals with retailers Kmart, Home Depot, and Macyâs, a line of crafts for Michaelâs, a custom furniture brand with Bernhardt, and even more bestselling books. And the responsibility for the visual identity of all of it fell to Towey and her incredibly talented team. It was a massive job.
We talk to Towey about her early years in New Jersey, about being torn between two men (âPierreâ and Stephen), eating frog legs with CondĂ© Nastâs notorious editorial director, Alexander Liberman, and, about how, when all is said and done, life is about making beautiful things with extraordinary people.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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THE BRAND CALLED US
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In the summer of 1995, I got an offer I couldnât refuse. It came from my guests today, Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, the founding editors of Fast Company, widely acknowledged as one of the magazine industryâs great success stories.
Their vision for the magazine was an exercise in thinking different. Nothing we did hewed to the conventional wisdom of magazine-making. Our founders came from politics and activism born in the ivy halls of Harvard. Our HQ was far from the center of the magazine world, in Bostonâs North Endââleave the pages, take the cannolis.â And Fast Company was not a part of the five families of magazine publishing. It wouldnât have worked if it was.
I was one of the first people Alan and Bill hired, and as the magazineâs founding art director, I could tell Fast Company was going to be big. And it was big. Huge, in fact. Shortly after its launch, a typical issue of the magazine routinely topped out at almost 400 pages. We had to get up to speed, and fast.
Its mission was big, too. Bill and Alanâs plan sounded simple: to offer rules for radicals that would be inspiring and instructive; to encourage their audience to think bigger about what they might achieve for their companies and themselves, and to provide tools to help us all succeed in work ⊠and in life. Their mantra: Work is personal.
The effect, however, was even bigger. The magazine was a blockbuster hit, winning ASME awards for General Excellence and Design. It was Ad Ageâs 1995 Launch of the Year. Bill and Alan were named Adweekâs editors of the year in 1999. It even spawned its own reader-generated social network, the Company of Friends, that counted over 40,000 members worldwide. And it brought together an extraordinary team of creatives who, to this day, carry on the mission in their own wayâincluding the founders.
Nearly thirty years after the launch of the magazine, Alan is currently serving his second term as the mayor of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Bill is the best-selling author of Mavericks at Work, among other books, and continues to lead the conversation on transforming business.
We often said that Fast Company was the one that would ruin us for all future jobs. It was a moment in time that I and my colleagues will treasure forever. I am thrilled to be able to share that story with you today.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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SHE LOOKS FORWARD TO YOUR PROMPT REPLY
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Jody Quonâs desk is immaculate. Thereâs a lot there, but she knows exactly where everything is. Itâs like an image out of Things Organized Neatly.
She rarely swears. Or loses her temper. In fact sheâs one of the most temperate people in the office. Maybe the most. Sheâs often been referred to as a ârock.â
She remembers every shoot and how much it cost to produce. She knows who needs work and who she can ask for favors.
Sheâs got the magazine schedule memorized and expects you to as well. Sheâs probably got your schedule memorized, too.
Sheâs usually one of the first in the office and last to leave. In fact, on the day she was scheduled to give birth to her first child, she came to work and put in a full day. When her water broke at around 6pm, she called her husband to say, âItâs time.â
I donât know if any of this is true. Except the baby thing. That is true. Kathy Ryan told me so.
I had a teacher in high school, Ms. Trice. She was tough. I didnât much like her. She would often call me out for this or that. Forty years later, sheâs the only one I remember, and I remember her very fondly. In my career, Iâve often thought that the best managing editors, production directors, and photography directors were just like Ms. Trice. These positions, more than any others, are what make magazines work. Theyâre hard on you because they expect you to be as professional as you can be. They make you better. (I see you, Claire, Jenn, Nate, Carol, and Sally.)
I suspect that a slew of Jody Quonâs coworkers and collaborators feel that same way about her. Actually, I donât suspect. I know. Iâve heard it from all corners of the magazine business. I heard it again yesterday from her mentor and good friend, Kathy Ryan.
âShe just has that work ethic,â Ryan says. âItâs just incredible when you think about it. The ambition of some of the things that theyâve done. And that has been happening right from the beginning. Ambition in the best sense. Thinking big. And sheâs cool, always cool under pressure. We had a grand time working together. I still miss her.â
Jody Quon is one of those people who makes everybody around her better. Thatâs what I believe. And after this conversation, you probably will, too.
es.â
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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CHIC, BUT MAKE IT NICE
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Itâs a clichĂ© because itâs true: in the fashion world, youâve got your show ponies and youâve got your workhorses. We mean it as a compliment when we say that Samira Nasr truly earned her place at the helm of the 156-year-old institution, Harperâs Bazaar. Donât get us wrong; Samira is seriously glamorousâsheâs the kind of woman who phrases like âeffortless chicâ were invented to describe. But she did not cruise to her current perch on connections and camera-readiness alone. Rather, she worked her way up, attending J-school at NYU, then making her way through the fashion closets of Vogue, Mirabella, Vanity Fair, InStyle, and Elleâwhere we met in the trenches, and got to see firsthand how she mixes old-school, roll-up-your-sleeves work ethic and her own fresh vision.
When Samira got the big job at Bazaar in 2020, she became the titleâs first-ever Black editor-in-chief. The Bazaar she has rebuilt is as close as a mainstream fashion magazine gets to a glossy art mag, but it is far from chilly. As she has long put it, âI just want to bring more people with me to the party.â Which, when you think about it, is a brilliant mantra for a rapidly shifting era in media and culture. How to keep a legacy fashion magazine going circa 2025? Drop the velvet rope.
The timing for this mantra could not have been better. After her first year in the role, Bazaar took home its first-ever National Magazine Award for General Excellence.
In our interview, Samira talked about remaking one of fashionâs most legendary magazines â plus, jeans, budgets, and even the odd parenting tip. We had fun, and we hope you
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER
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âI was a publication designer for 20 years, making book covers at Knopf with Sonny Mehta, Carol Carson, and Chip Kidd. Later, in the early aughts, I made stories and booksâand other thingsâat Martha Stewart Living. Then I took a brief adventure to graduate schoolâto learn a new trade. And finally I moved to The New York Times, where I helped create several of its legendary digital products, like NYT Cooking.
In December 2020, I bought a building on the Delaware Riverâand opened the Frenchtown Bookshop.
My name is Barbara deWilde ⊠and this is The Next Page.â
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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A PRETTY COMPLICATED ORGANISM
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Like many of you, I was stunned by what happened on November 5th. Itâs gonna take me some time to reckon with what this all says about the values of a large portion of this country. As part of that reckoningâand for some much-needed reliefâIâve opted to spend less time with media in general for a bit.
But on âthe morning after,â I couldnât ignore an email I got from todayâs guest, New York magazine editor-in-chief David Haskell. [You can find it on our website].
What struck me most about his noteâwhich was sent to the magazineâs million-and-a-half subscribersâwas what it didnât say.
There were no recriminations. Nothing about how Kamala Harris had failed to âread the room.â Not a word about Joe Bidenâs unwillingness to step aside when he should have. No calls to âresist.â In fact, the hometown president-electâs name went unspoken (as it is here).
What Haskell did say that left a mark on me was this:
âI consider our jobs as magazine journalists a privilege at times like this.â
I was an editor at Clay Felkerâs New York magazine, the editor-in-chief of Boston magazine, and I led the creative team at Inc. magazine. And it was there, at Inc. that I had a similar experience. It was 9/11.
I wrote my monthly column in the haze that immediately followed the attacks, though it wouldnât appear in print until the December issue. It was titled, âThink Small. No Smaller.â In it, I urged our community of company builders to focus their attention on the things we can control. This is how it ended:
What we can say for certain is that the arena over which any of us has control has, for now, grown smaller. In these smaller arenas, the challenge is to build, or rebuild, in ourselves and our organizations the quiet confidence that we still have the ability to get the right things done.
For all the attention that gets paid to EICs, most of the work you do is done through the members of your team: writers, and editors, and designers, and so many others.
My friend, Dan Okrent, the former Life magazine editor and Print Is Dead guest, once said, âMagazines bring us together into real communities.â
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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WHAT MAKES STEVE BRODNER HAPPY
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When your boss tells you to track down an amusing Steve Brodner factoid to open the podcast with, and one of the first things you find is a, uh, a âdick army,â welp, thatâs what youâre going to go with.
Lest you judge me, I can explain. Brodnerâs drawing of this army was inspired by a guy who was actually named Dick Armey (A-R-M-E-Y)! He was Newt Gingrichâs wingman back in the nineties. I thought to myself, the people need to know this.
However, with the election now a few days behind us, maybe the time for talking about men and their junk is over?
What you really want to learn about is this Society of Illustrators hall of famerâs career. Brodnerâs work, which has been called âunflinching, driven by a strong moral compass, and imbued with a powerful sense of compassion,â has been featured in Rolling Stone, The Washington Post Magazine, Esquire, The New Yorker, and many others.
In this episode, Brodner talks about how the death of print has led to the current misinformation crisis. As it gets harder and harder to tell whatâs true, the future becomes increasingly uncertain. Even his most biting drawings are rooted in truth.
âSatire doesn't work if you are irresponsibly unreasonably inventive. If satire doesn't have truth in it, it's not funny.â
A production note: This episode was recorded exactly one week before the election. As our conversation began, we took turns telling stories about memorable election night parties, and our plans for November 5th. Hereâs Steve, talking about his plansâŠ
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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SHEâS OUR TYPE
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Everybody knows that in May 2023, a jury found Donald Trump liable for defaming and abusing E. Jean Carroll, and awarded her $5 million. And everybody also knows that in January 2024, another jury found Trump liable for defamation against her to the tune of $83.3 million. P.S., with interest, his payout will now total over $100 million.
But not everybody remembersâbecause we are guppies, and because, ahem, Print is Dead, yâallâthat E. Jean is a goddamn swashbucking magazine-world legend: a writer of such style, wit, and sheer ballsy joie de vivre that she carved out a name for herself in the boys club of New Journalism, writing juicy and iconic stories in the â70s and â80s for Outside, Esquire, Playboy, and moreâand then finally leapt over to womenâs magazines, where she held down the role of advice columnist at Elle for, wait for it, 27 years. Elle is where we intersected with E.Jean and where we first saw up close her boundless enthusiasm and generosity for womankind.
Weâll also never forget sitting at one of the magazineâs annual fancypants dinners honoring Women in Hollywoodâthese are real star-studded affairs, folksâwhen Jennifer Aniston stood up to receive her award and started her speech with a shoutout to her beloved "Auntie E.,â whose advice she and millions of other American women had devoured, and lived by, for decades.
Hereâs the truth: The woman that most of the world came to know through the most harrowing circumstances imaginable really is and has always been that fearless, that unsinkable. Itâs not a personaâitâs the genuine article. And when you hear her stories about how hard she slogged away for decades to finally get her big break in publishing, listeners, you will have a whole new respect for her.
As E. Jean tells us herself in this interview, she does very, very little press. So we couldnât be more honored that our friend and idol and The Spreadâs most enthusiastic hype woman sat down after hours with us for this interview. We just hope we did her justice!
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Freeport Press.
A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021â2025
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