Musto on Spy retrospective ....

“Spy’s design prefigured the Web in terms of the multiple entry points and levels of information.” And it was classy—mainly because, as the magazine’s first art director, Stephen Doyle, explains, “The serif type, the letter spacing, all this 20th-century publishing history that went into it gave it the authority it needed to be as sarcastic as it was.”



The adult-looking typefaces gave the bratty points of view more weight, but the covers generally went for sheer eye-grabbing, winky boldness. That was true whether they used Photoshopped images—like Hillary Clinton as a smiling dominatrix in February 1993, for a piece on “Power Playing in the Clinton White House”—or actual ones, like brave model Carol Alt with rats crawling up her legs, for the May 1988 “Welcome to Rat City!” cover. (The accompanying article was about Gotham’s infestation, but naturally the editors included a sidebar on “America’s Rodent People,” citing notables like “smarmy talk show host-vulgarian Geraldo Rivera” and “pathologically libidinous actor James Woods.”)

more here via Kottke


BTW - do a google image search for "spy magazine" and you will see a compromising pic of the California governor as the 2nd return.