Editorial: The Baffler

Illustrations for "The Baffler"
Art Director: Tom Frank

     Back before Tom Frank was a major pundit ("What's The Matter With Kansas"), he had a magazine called "The Baffler". I came across an issue in my local thrift store, and was immediately in love with the editorial angle: it was like an angry, intelligent literary magazine about business politics. A little poetry, some graphic-novel form short stories, and lengthy essays about the wrong-doings of corporations and big business. This was back in the go-go days of Clinton, so it was quite an anomaly. I wrote to Tom Frank, and as I recall, I asked him if he wanted to get married... or, if that was not feasible, perhaps I could contribute some illustrations?
     He went for the latter.
     But it all worked out! I'm glad to have had a hand in the magazine's short lifespan (though I understand it's back in print, and now features stories by Matt Taibbi, which gives you some idea of the flavor). I include these mainly for my friends, who were curious to see this work.

This illustration was for an article on Amway, but eventually was used by The Baffler for their t-shirt, and other promotional materials.

The main story in this issue was about how journalism became profit-driven, and now delivers the news people want to hear, rather than what is actually going on.

Since I wasn't getting paid very much, I felt free to propose radical solutions. I was keen on illuminated manuscripts at the time, and wanted to do my own version... so these strips ran along the edges of pages for the article about how Amway exploits its "distributors".
I think they were rather amusing!

These strips accompanied an article called "Interns Built The Pyramids"... you can guess what that was about!

The Baffler rebooted a few years ago, and I was happy to do this job for an article on corruption in Washington (focussing on the Chamber of Commerce). Here are some ideas I sent: