Heidi MacDonald’s recent shout-out reminds me that I’ve been meaning to plug Giant, the genuinely excellent entertainment/pop-cult mag that occasionally employs me, for some time now. Simply put, if I didn’t receive free contributor’s copies, I’d subscribe to this magazine in a heartbeat. (And I’m not just saying that because they pay me.)
Why? Because recent issues have included such features as a profile of State-offshoot comedy group Stella as written by the State’s “red-head gay” Kevin Allison; a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon; a full-page photograph of Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian, labeled simply “Just Because”; a profile of Joy Division featuring interviews with Bernard Sumner and Deborah Curtis; photos and excerpts from Matthew Modine’s on-set memoir of Full Metal Jacket; a lengthy Office Space cast reunion; a “Where Are They Now?” write-up for each member of Faith No More; a Top 20 guide to Asian horror; an interview with David Patrick Kelly of Twin Peaks, Flirting with Disaster, and The Warriors, which among other things reveals the origin of “Warriors! Come out and plaaayaaay!”; a guide to Lebowski Fest; an interview with Law & Order: SVU star Christopher Meloni focusing solely on his character from Wet Hot American Summer, Gene the cook; and on and on and on. It’s so close to having a pipeline directly from my brain that they could well call the magazine Sean. My guess is many readers of this blog will feel the same way about the magazine themselves.
And since I might as well plug what I’ve got in it this month (issue #6–the one with Mischa Barton on the cover): I’m oddly Marvel-centric this go-’round, with a quick “Break Into Comics in Five Easy Steps” interview with Brian Michael Bendis and a review of Brian K. Vaughan’s Runaways Vol. 1 hardcover. I also plug the upcoming Mark Newgarden collection from Fantagraphics, We All Die Alone. Next ish, my piece on Charles Burns’s Black Hole, the best horror comic of all time, is the Books section’s lead review, and I’ll have a write-up of the new Chris Ware Acme Novelty Library hardcover in there as well.
It’s a great magazine, is what I’m saying, and according to the subscription card in the latest issue it’ll cost you $7.97 for a year’s subscription. I don’t know how to beat that, folks. Go read it already.