Hasta La Creative!

Archie Andrews, the iconic American comic book character introduced 73 years ago, will die this month when he takes a bullet meant for an openly gay U.S. Senator who supports stricter gun control.

His death (which we should note isn’t much of a spoiler since it was revealed by the creators months ago) occurs in Life With Archie No. 36, and its aftermath will be featured in No. 37, the final volume of a series that follows the grown-up adventures of the character and his pals from Riverdale, USA. The more familiar teenage Archie lives on in other titles, which, like many comics, have their own continuities. 

Archie has focused on serious social topics quite a lot in recent years, with stories exploring cancer, death, affordable healthcare and gay marriage. (The wedding of his friend, Kevin Keller, sparked a boycott from conservative group One Million Moms in 2012.) The main character’s death, however, clearly ups the ante and has generated considerable media attention since the twist was revealed in April. (The details of Archie’s death weren’t disclosed until this week, and the shooter’s identity hasn’t been disclosed.)

Major comic book characters have “died” before, notably Superman, Captain Marvel and Spider-Man, but Archie’s demise is different because he’s a mortal with no special powers who sacrifices himself in a politically charged narrative.

“He’s human. He’s a person. When you wound him, he bleeds. He knows that. If anything, I think his death is more impactful because of that,” Archie publisher and co-CEO John Goldwater told the Associated Press. “We hope by showing how something so violent can happen to Archie, that we can—in some way—learn from him.”

For the most part, public reaction has been mixed, and mainly split along progressive/conservative lines. One Huffington Post commenter says Archie’s writers have “taken this venerable old line and breathed a new essence into it,” while another chides, “It is exasperating to see the extent of childish propaganda in our society.”

A Verge reader asks, “Is it really appropriate to take a character that’s been a comic book character and a pop culture icon for 70+ years and to kill him off for the sake of a modern political statement? That’s like… killing off Donald Duck to protest the Vietnam War, or killing off Charlie Brown to protest the Affordable Care Act.”

Some question whether a potentially powerful message is undermined by offing Archie in one story arc while he remains youthful and alive in other series still available on newsstands. “While I’m all for tackling tough issues in comics, my problem is that Archie isn’t going to stay dead,” writes a commenter at ComicsAlliance.com. “When you write a story tackling something like gun violence, when the main character of the book eventually comes back the whole point of the story loses its weight.”

Chris Cummins, who follows comics at DenOfGeek.us, takes a broader view, and believes that Archie’s martyrdom is in keeping with his selfless personality and true to the spirit of the overall series: “This demise is a fitting and tonally perfect tribute to a character who has always put his friends first.”

Dodo magazine might only be on its second issue, but it's got big plans for the future. In fact, one idea directly involves the future.

The magazine is putting together a "time capsule" double issue—half of the edition is available now, and the second half will be sent out in 2024 to everyone who subscribes to Dodo this year. Also, if you follow the website prompt and write a letter to your future self, you'll also receive that with your 2024 half issue. If Dodo sends each issue in a vintage Trapper Keeper, it will have officially reached Peak Middle School.

This isn't their first goofy marketing stunt, either. Dodo printed just one copy of its "Issue Zero," which it buried in a treasure chest that interested parties needed a map to find.

The time capsule thing relies on the bold presumption that a print magazine can make it 10 years in the digital era. But I want Dodo to succeed, if only because I'm wondering what else they've got planned.

Via PSFK.

We're not normally coffee-table book people, but this? This is awesome.

Designer Dinah Fried has just published a collection of fascinating images called Fictitious Dishes: An Album of Literature's Most Memorable Meals. To compile the 128-page labor of love, she cooked, photographed and art directed recreations of 50 meals found in literature, from Oliver Twist to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (who can forget all those oh-so-Swedish egg and cheese sandwiches with coffee?).

"Many of my most vivid memories from books are of the meals the characters eat," Fried writes. "I read Heidi more than 20 years ago, but I can still taste the golden, cheesy toast that her grandfather serves her, and I can still feel the anticipation and comfort she experiences as she watches him prepare it over the open fire."

Check out a few of the literary tableaus below and see several more on Brain Pickings, where Fried's former Rhode Island School of Design adviser, Maria Popova, describes the evolution of the concept:

The project began as a modest design exercise while Fried was attending the Rhode Island School of Design a couple of years ago, but the concept quickly gripped her with greater allure that transcended her original short-term deadline. As she continued to read and cook, a different sort of self-transcendence took place. … A near-vegetarian, she found herself wrestling with pig kidney for Ulysses and cooking bananas 11 ways for Gravity’s Rainbow.

Swann's Way by Marcel Proust (1913): Tea and petite Madeleines.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951): Swiss cheese sandwich and malted milk.

The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (2005): Cheese and hard-boiled egg sandwiches with coffee.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957): Apple pie and ice cream.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911): Roasted eggs and potatoes with salt.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson (1971): Grapefruit and tequila.

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851): Clam chowder.

Heidi by Joanna Spyri (1880): Cheese toast.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (1915): Half-rotten vegetables, bones and other refuse.

Fictitious Dishes: An Album of Literature's Most Memorable Meals is currently available on Amazon for a little under $15. 

Hat tip to my friend Theodore Hahn for pointing out this project on Facebook.

If you've seen Rolling Stone's latest cover featuring Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Veep fame, your initial thoughts were probably along the lines of "Elaine from Seinfeld is naked!" or perhaps "JLD looks damn good for 53!" or maybe even "I want a tattoo of the U.S. Constitution on my back, too!"

But if you paid attention in history class (nerd alert), you'll notice something else: The big ol' "John Hancock" tattooed just north of Louis-Dreyfus' derriere is a mistake. Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.

Always quick to ruin everything, the Twittersphere wasted no time in pointing this out.

Pro tip: John Hancock didn't sign the Constitution pic.twitter.com/qFQ2oYFmKa

— JustinGreen∞ (@JGreenDC) April 9, 2014

Louis-Dreyfus also addressed the gaffe in her own Twitter account, putting the blame on her Veep character Selina Meyers' generally incompetent communications director, Mike.

Hancock signed Dec. of Independence NOT Constitution.Yet another Mike fuck-up.Dummy.#veep #crackexcuse @VeepHBO @mrmattwalsh cc@rollingstone

— Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) April 9, 2014

A source at Rolling Stone, however, said the John Hancock signature was deliberate and was meant to be "in the spirit" of Veep's farcical tone. "The Declaration of Independence is on the other side, but we couldn't fit all the signatures on there," the source said.

UPDATE: A day later, Louis-Dreyfux continues to have fun with it:

#TBT John Hancock not part of tattoo.It is a birthmark.1962 photo is proof. Apologies 2 @RollingStone #crackexcuse pic.twitter.com/h9fYXGqBSo

— Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) April 10, 2014

We all know the purpose of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is to create spank-bankable material in a format convenient for reading on the toilet. But the baseness of its purpose doesn't mean it can't be creative. On the contrary, SI continues to boldly seek new frontiers of wankspiration.

Perhaps to counterbalance the rather immovable Barbie, SI put bombshell Kate Upton on a Zero-G plane and took photos of her floating about in swimsuits. The results really are out of this world.

The whole concept is brilliant. Think about it. What is the sole enemy of big, glorious boobs? Why, gravity, of course. And in these photos, Upton laughs in the face of physics, achieving superhuman results previously available only to superheroines.

The 2014 SI swimsuit issue lands on newsstands today.

BuzzFeed, the curator of all things viral on the www, fired Mark "Copyranter" Duffy last month after employing him for a year and a half. And he did not go quietly. In a new article on Gawker titled "Top 10 Best Ever WTF OMG Reasons BuzzFeed Fired Me, LOL!", Duffy pulls no punches.

He reveals that he took a $43,000 annual pay cut to leave the agency world, worked as many as 70 hours a week for BuzzFeed, ranked seventh out of about 100 writers for traffic—and yet was canned anyway over "creative differences." A photo shows his termination paperwork with a sticky note that says "CUTE" on it—perhaps BuzzFeed's most egregious error in all of this. "A 53-year-old man, BuzzFeed's oldest ever employee, jobless and without health insurance? CUTE as a fucking bug's ear," Duffy writes.

He then shares, BuzzFeed style, 10 reasons why he might have been fired. They range from "Age" (reason No. 10—Duffy is 53, while most of his colleagues are in their 20s) to "I regularly challenged editors" (reason No. 6) to "I am just an asshole" (reason No. 3). He also admits to sending out inappropriate company-wide emails and drumming at his desk incessantly, which are their own entries, though they could probably also fall under No. 3.

The article includes a lengthy response from BuzzFeed's Ben Smith, the target of most of Duffy's criticisms, who closes with: "I'm sorry the Cute sticker upset him." The comments are worth a read, as well, either ripping BuzzFeed for choosing fluffy clickbait over Duffy's tougher material or ripping Duffy for being, e.g., "an entitled fucking whiner, dude."

From an outsider's point of view, the Duffy/BuzzFeed marriage just didn't seem like the best fit for either party. We hope he gets a column at a publication that suits him, as well as a soundproof office and maybe some well-padded mittens.

USA Today has begun promoting several columnists in short YouTube videos—the most entertaining of which stars Michael Wolff, erstwhile Adweek editor and current writer for USA Today's Money section. In the spot, Wolff's takes-no-prisoners reputation has one suit literally running scared—he uses a grappling hook and rope to flee his office building upon hearing that the columnist has arrived and wants a word. Alas, they meet on the sidewalk, and the man barks, "This is off the record!"—as Wolff, nonplussed, silently tries to comprehend the man's desperation. The voiceover, echoed in on-screen copy, says: "Read Michael Wolff. And thank your lucky stars he's not writing about you." Commercial acting—is it everything Wolff expected and more? "All in a day's shamelessness," he tells AdFreak. See the paper's ads for columnists Christine Brennan and Susan Page below.

For anyone who avoided picking up this year's September issue of Vogue because it would cause back trouble to carry around, here's another option—an ad-free version is for sale on Craigslist, with all the advertisements either cut out or blacked out. This allows you to enjoy an "uninterrupted read" without all that pesky filler.

The only problem? The price. "I calculating the ad expenditure of this issue for 280 Full Page Ads and 45 Double Page Spreads," says the seller. "This was the amount advertisers spent so you could buy your copy of VOGUE at just $12 at your local bookstore. So obviously, without the ads, I will have to pass on the cost to you." That explains the asking price of more than $4 million. Seems maybe they forgot to divide that by the number of issues printed?

Full text of the Craigslist ad below. Via PSFK.

I am selling an "Ad-Blocked" issue of Vogue US, September Issue 2013. What I did was to cut out all the pages with advertisements, and left only the articles. For the pages I couldn't remove, I went over them with a big fat permanent marker. Now you can enjoy an uninterrupted read of the most anticipated issue of this fashion bible.

If this price is a little higher than you anticipated, let me explain. By referencing VOGUE's media rate cards, I calculating the ad expenditure of this issue for 280 Full Page Ads and 45 Double Page Spreads. This was the amount advertisers spent so you could buy your copy of VOGUE at just $12 at your local bookstore. So obviously, without the ads, I will have to pass on the cost to you.

There is good news though: the rate card did not include premiums for this being a "September Issue", which I am sure will bump the price up even more.

So what are you waiting for? This is a steal!

Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz has ruffled some bedspreads with this truly odd (and probably NSFW, though it's not really explicit) commercial positioning its new website as way more exciting than boring old sex.

"The design is impressive and comfortable, but the user experience as a whole … there's a slight sense of 'Been there, done that,'" the actor says in mid-copulation, according to The Hollywood Reporter, apparently referring to the experience of reading a traditional newspaper. The new website, though, is where the real thrills lie. "Life is not as interesting as Ha'aretz's new website," says the slogan at the end.

THR reports that women's groups in Israel were immediately outraged by the spot and formally protested it with a letter to the publisher. But 10 days after it was posted, it remains up on YouTube—and has more than 180,000 views.

Via The Ethical Adman.