Newsweek and Spy: Separated at Birth?
For its current issue, Newsweek tried something new, bringing in Stephen Colbert as its first-ever guest editor. But for the issue's cover, it resorted to something not so new, borrowing a visual joke from the long-defunct satire magazine Spy:
The Spy cover is from 1989. Of course, just about every magazine with any semblance of a sense of humor has been accused of stealing from Spy at some point (and Radar, where I worked for a year, was accused on a near-weekly basis). It's probably impossible to commit satire in magazine form without echoing Spy. But you'd think Colbert, as a comedian, might have a little more professional pride than this; Newsweek editor Jon Meacham says the cover treatment was Colbert's idea.
UPDATE: Speaking for himself and his Spy co-founder, Graydon Carter, Kurt Andersen says of Newsweek's tribute, "It pleased me. And I think we're both relieved that today, as opposed to 1989, America's most entertaining and WASPiest make-believe conservative Republican is the host of a TV show instead of president of the United States."
Earlier: Can Colbert get new Newsweek noticed?
The Spy cover is from 1989. Of course, just about every magazine with any semblance of a sense of humor has been accused of stealing from Spy at some point (and Radar, where I worked for a year, was accused on a near-weekly basis). It's probably impossible to commit satire in magazine form without echoing Spy. But you'd think Colbert, as a comedian, might have a little more professional pride than this; Newsweek editor Jon Meacham says the cover treatment was Colbert's idea.
UPDATE: Speaking for himself and his Spy co-founder, Graydon Carter, Kurt Andersen says of Newsweek's tribute, "It pleased me. And I think we're both relieved that today, as opposed to 1989, America's most entertaining and WASPiest make-believe conservative Republican is the host of a TV show instead of president of the United States."
Earlier: Can Colbert get new Newsweek noticed?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-08-2009 @ 3:43PM
bcw said...
You're completely ignoring the fact the Colbert actually got his hair cut off while in Iraq, thus the cover is a tie in to an actual event. I don't think Bush actually got that shaved into the side of his head. Verdict - apple to oranges and this article is a total FAIL.
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6-09-2009 @ 11:49AM
Felix said...
I believe Matt Haber is looking for a job. Do you need to bigfoot his natural territory like this?
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6-11-2009 @ 11:04AM
Frobozz said...
What did the Colbert people say when you asked them about this? You didn't ask? If that's the case, you apparently were too busy raising ethical questions to be ethical.
I suspect you don't know if this was borrowed at all, which would make the premise of this post patently false and the language of the post right up there on the border of slander.
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6-19-2009 @ 8:18AM
Frobozz2 said...
Hey! Frobozz is my username! Theif! Baggins!
As a diehard Stephen Colbert fan (having watched the first episode, and every episode since) and also an occasional Spy fan, I have to say that I wasn't even aware of the Spy reference until it popped up on the Google...
Still, given the similarity between the two images, it looks like Stephen was in on the joke. Separated at birth??
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