Serious reading for summer.
Dear Monthly, We at Cockburn and Poole would like to most sincerely congratulate you on your perseverance, consistency and diligence in putting together this fine magazine. Without your input this journalistic landscape in this country would be barren. We applaud your indefatigable thoroughness in searching and upholding a counter to the mainstream. And we cheer in unified chorus when we read from your stable the thoughts and words of our luminaries, deep thinkers and commentary. Without you, the conversation in this country would be moribund, monochromatic and motionless. Each month we yearn for further input from the cleverest, the most incisive and thought provoking. You are more than a thought bubble upon the subconsciousness of australians, you are a thought dirigible. And you fly above us with correctitude and unswerving deliberation towards the target of moral ethical and spiritual authority. Without you we are directionless, cut asunder, lost and impoverished. You sustain and enlighten us. Speak to us and we shall listen. Enlighten us so that we may grow. And direct us so that our inner selves are nourished. Oh monthly, you are all these things and yet, we feel just mildly disconnected. There is just one other thing that we ask of you so that we may be complete. Could you have a ‘funnies’ section? Though having ‘First Dog on the Moon’s’ beautifully incisive description of Karen Silkwood and her death from radiation was most thought provoking on the back of the Summer Issue, it was not FUNNY!!
Imagining the ‘thought dirigible’
Being astute, socially conscious and instructive is all very well, but we need to laugh just occasionally. Indeed wasn’t it the Cardinal who said to the actress ‘trust me , I’m working for God, and I won’t tell provided you don’t either’. All good magazines have a cartoon, or at the very least a light fragment of comedic input. ‘Smith’s Weekly’ was a tremendously good read, (so I’ve been told) and in Archibald’s time the top tier of cartoonists graced the pages. The ‘New Yorker’ is not a bad read, and even, the Womens’ Weekly had ‘Mandrake the Magician’ to adorn its middle section.
Perhaps incorporate the Mad Magazine back page fold-out section?
Mad Magazine. An exemplar in combining wit with erudition.
We could elaborate and list all the papers, magazines and periodicals that have prospered and flourished over the last century as a consequence of light-heartedness. Indeed even Pravda, and its namesake in Australia, ‘The Truth’ excelled in illuminating their pages with ‘funnies’. Now you may think that a ‘funnies’ section may not be weighty enough, but we have it on good authority that the very authors you employ would be exceedingly gratified to have the odd cartoon appended. We have it on good authority that Robert Manne is an ardent enthusiast of Mad Magazine, and we also have it on good authority that ‘the Don’ himself Don Watson is crazy bout Tintin. And there is a rumour that Richard Flanagan is a rusted on Vampirella fan. Don’t think that such levity devalues the stature of these celebrated thinkers, the New Yorker is brimming full of them, and besides, we believe circulation would go stratospheric if you adopt the Mad Magazine foldable back cover. Flicker cartoons in the tradition of the cinematograph and posters for things other than worthy but dull exhibitions would make the magazine a visual pleasure as well as an intellectual one, and you‘ll find these well-meant suggestions may represent a turning point in your publications fortunes.
Yours most enthusiastically; one of the editors, Cockburn and Poole.