The previous issue, which came out five days after the disaster, featured a cover about Corazon Aquino and Ferdinand Marcos. I wonder if it even mentioned the Challenger, or if the production deadlines were just too long to allow for any coverage?
Other things of note about the issue:
- It's 90 pages long. The current issue on the newsstand is a lot less than that.
- It has an ad for the People Express airline and lots of others for dead techy companies like DEC and ITT.
- It contains stories about Rudy Giuliani before anyone outside of New York City knew who he was ("The Passionate Prosecutor: U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani snares mobsters and headlines"), the beginnings of outsourcing of government services, and the Grace Commission's Ridley Scott-created ad portraying the Deficit Trials of 2017. Ha! Remember that? Maybe some billionaire should fund an ad called the Global Warming Trials of 2052.
- The books section provides a review of A Handmaid's Tale that tells us, "As a cautionary tale, Atwood's novel lacks the direct, chilling plausibility of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World. It warns against too much: heedless sex, excessive morality, chemical and nuclear pollution. All of these may be worthwhile targets, but such a future seems more complicated than dramatic." Wow, did that reviewer miss the point.
2 comments:
Each issue's cover date is a week ahead of its publication date. So the Challenger disaster appeared on the cover of the first issue to be published after it happened.
Ah, good point, Carl. I had forgotten that odd practice. When you're a regular reader it doesn't matter too much, but when the issues get put into an archive, it can make for some jarring date/event mismatches.
Post a Comment