I Like Paper

If you're a comic book fan you must appreciate paper as much as I do. I like holding the comic in my hand and reading it; viewing a page on a computer screen is absolutely not the same experience. But my fondness of paper doesn't stop there. Not by a long shot.

I also like newspapers! I have five papers delivered to my house every day. (As with comics, reading a paper online is just not the same, not as good. ) My paper delivery guy rolls by at 4:30 a.m. and once in a while I'm up and about by that time; a couple of days ago I saw him and he said to me (reverently, not with disgust) that he delivers more papers to me than he does to the library. I like the sound of that! For the record, I have received The Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times and New York Times for years; last year the Lady of the Hayfamzone stated an interest in receiving The Wall Street Journal, so I said okay; and earlier this year I was offered a year of Financial Times for free, so I said okay.

But today I want to tell you about the San Francisco Panorama. You haven't heard of it? Well, I suspect most people in San Francisco haven't either! It was a one-shot experimental newspaper last year, published as McSweeney's #33. The goal was to show how great and fun a newspaper could be, and I feel the editors succeeded fabulously. In an era when the dimensions of daily papers keep shrinking each year, the pages of Panorama are monstrously large (and of a heavier stock than usual newsprint). This Panorama is like a super-sized Sunday newspaper; there's an interesting magazine and a great comics section with work by Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware and Jessica Abel and others. It all is collected safely in a heavy and resealable plastic bag.

Look here to see more details about Panorama and then look on ebay to buy a copy at a reasonable price. Hooray for paper!

(Anachronistor's note:
This article is being written and posted on 5 May 2010 and NOT on 31 December 2009.)