12/10/08
Text: Scott Indrisek
Time magazine—not exactly a bastion of hipness that we tend to follow too closely—just released a bevy of Best Of lists. One of them runs down the year’s finest magazine covers. (Anthem didn’t make the cut, but those jerks haven’t taken a peek at our red hot Benicio del Toro cover yet. They’ll regret it).
The important thing to note is that Time has no taste. Yeah, we sort of love the “Elliot Spitzer has a dick for a brain” conceit that landed New York the number two spot. And we heart Interview’s redesign (plus anorexic, cocaine-using supermodels).
But Rolling Stone’s sort of blah Obama cover didn’t wow us. (Although he does look more sociable than he did on this Terry Richardson-shot cover for Vibe.) And as for Mad magazine’s inane “Obama as Alfred E. Neuman?” Guys, we get that our President Elect has big ol’ Dumbo ears. But anyone who’s not blind knows that it’s our current Criminal-in-Chief who resembles that cartoon moron—why mess with the formula?
Now again—Time magazine is not a standard resource for the cutting-edge. But in an economic climate that’s not exactly favorable to print media (or anything else, for that matter), it’d have been nice to a few art-and-design risks being rewarded. We don’t expect intricate artsy fare like Esopus or Bedouin to be on Time’s radar, but hell—did anyone really get a boner over this “awesome” Economist cover?
Oh, and Time—you think this is the #1 T-shirt slogan of the year? You’ve obviously never met this guy.
If you really have the patience, here’s Time’s take on absolutely everything in 2008.
