I sort of envy anyone who subscribes to McSweeney’s who thinks they’re subscribing to a magazine, and winds up getting something like this in mail.
Beloved publisher darling McSweeney’s has never been one to shy away from pushing the boundaries of the printed form, and they surely aren’t going to start anytime soon. The creative minds behind the nonprofit, including founder Dave Eggers, are keen to continue innovating their offerings even further. Their most recent foray into genre-defying publications, for example, takes the shape of a magazine issue in a tin lunchbox.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary (its 74th issue) of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, McSweeney’s developed, designed, and produced a retro tin lunchbox with a “cover” illustrated by Art Spiegelman (author of the graphic novel Maus). The tin is filled with “author baseball cards,” among other thoughtfully designed trinkets.
The author baseball cards feature a lineup of literary giants, including Sheila Heti, Hanif Abdurraqib, George Saunders, Sarah Vowell, Michael Chabon, Eileen Myles, and more. The pencils feature original pieces by Lydia Davis, Catherine Lacey, and David Horvitz printed on them, with meaning designed to change as you use the pencil. Additional art rounds out the 25th-anniversary issue, in which Art Spiegelman teases out images from random watercolor inkblots.
Suffice it to say, this Quarterly Concern issue reimagines what a magazine can be on the most fundamental level. I asked McSweeney’s art director, Sunra Thompson, a few questions to learn more about the ideation process that resulted in this lunchbox concept. His illuminating responses are below!
How did your team land on a lunchbox as the main structure for this issue?
It started with the author baseball cards that come with the issue. Before we knew what the issue would be, we had this idea to make author baseball cards, with stats on the back and trivia from the authors, packed in real, tearaway baseball card packaging.
We knew we wanted to include them with an issue of McSweeney’s, but it wasn’t obvious how we’d package them with a book in a way that would make sense. We had a meeting at a certain point, and I mentioned tin as a material, mostly because I’d been trying for years to make a book cover out of tin. An editor said something about how tin always reminded them of special-edition DVDs from the ‘90s— apparently, tin was briefly trendy in DVD packaging for a while. That observation led directly to Dave Eggers saying, almost immediately, “Let’s put the issue in a lunchbox.” At least, that’s how I remember it.
Soon after that, we asked Art Spiegelman if he would create the art for the lunchbox, and astonishingly, he agreed.
What was the rest of the ideation phase like for this concept? How did you decide on each of the items inside the lunchbox?
Once we had the lunchbox idea, everything else flowed from there. We packaged the book of stories like an old Norton Anthology of Literature, which anyone who’s taken a senior high-school English class in the US will probably recognize.
Printing stories on pencils seemed like a gimme. Art Spiegelman graciously put together a portfolio of pareidolia art he’s been experimenting with—where he teases out images from random watercolor shapes—and we printed them in a booklet. And then the baseball cards—perhaps the centerpiece of the issue and the whole reason we decided to make a lunchbox in the first place—suddenly made sense bundled with a book of stories.
What was the most exciting aspect of this project for you? Is there an element of the finished product that you’re proudest of?
The art Spiegelman created for the lunchbox is astounding— the lunchbox really does look like nothing else. Working with a material we’ve never used before is also exciting, especially when it complements the issue’s theme. I’d wanted to work with tin for a while and got to do it in a way that didn’t feel too gratuitous. The baseball card packaging is also a highlight, particularly the silver packaging.
What sort of experience do you hope “readers” of this issue have when they engage with it?
I sort of envy anyone who subscribes to McSweeney’s who thinks they’re subscribing to a magazine and winds up getting something like this in the mail. I like to imagine someone being a little confused when this lunchbox lands on their doorstep, with the name of a literary journal they subscribed to a few months ago printed on the lid. That feeling of mild confusion, followed by surprise, awe, and joy, is nice to imagine.
McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern will be available to purchase for $35 starting June 27.