Mr. Magazine

The 75th Anniversary issue of Esquire has arrived and 100,000 copies of the newsstand covers carry the world’s first E-ink cover. As you may recall last month Wallpaper magazine used, in their limited edition subscription cover, what they called Clever-Ink that only appears when it is placed under direct sunlight (See it here). Well, there has been a lot written about Esquire’s cover and the creativity of the E-Ink that makes the cover looks like a mini electronic billboard announcing “The 21st Century Begins Now (three hours later on the West Coast)”… and another mini electronic billboard inside the front cover introducing Ford’s Flex car.
Is this issue a collector’s item? You bet, just look at all the listings on Ebay and the price that people are trying to sell this $5.99 issue for. I had my daughter take time off her job in New York City and head to Borders the minute the magazine was released on the newsstands to get me my copy and FedEx it to me in Mississippi. My first reaction was wow and so was the reaction of every one who saw the magazine in my office. Then I opened the cover and read Esquire editor David Granger’s letter from the editor. My wow doubled and my belief in the future of print doubled too.
Granger points out to the readers that as they “read this issue — and this issue will call out to you to read it, invest time with it, and grapple with the personalities and ideas on display here — the overwhelming theme is one of optimism, the sense that things are getting better rather than worse, that challenges are surmountable.”
Indeed they are, and this world’s first E-Ink cover is nothing but an invite to dive into the pages of Esquire and enjoy the power of print and its content. A technological gimmick (two pages) that is very well done, but with content (320 pages of normal ink on paper) that is second to none. Congratulations David Granger and congratulations Esquire…Looking forward to the 100th anniversary edition and its great content, gimmick or no gimmick.