Tuesday, May 17, 2016

THE BEST NEWSPAPER FORMAT

By far the most exciting front page newspaper format I know of was that of a weekly British tabloid: "The Illustrated Police News" which ran from the 1840s to 1938.  


The paper was lurid to be sure, but it was immensely popular and it spun off a host of imitators. Of course you could argue that the Police News itself was an imitator.


It was a much more exciting and densely illustrated version of The London Illustrated News (above). It also benefited from traditions laid down by the Penny Dreadfuls and the broadsheet tradition of The Newgate Calendar. Even so, the IPN had a flair that its rivals couldn't match. 


Illustrated news naturally favors the type of news that lends itself most readily to illustration, namely violent crime and sex.


Wow! Now THAT's (above) a front page!


The paper must have had a reputation for being low class. It also must have occurred to lots of people that a more upscale version, covering more traditional news, was needed. It occurred to the chief engraver for the IPN, who started his own illustrated paper called "The Graphic."

The Graphic sold well but it lacked the pizazz of the Police News. It relied on realistic etchings and on photography when that became available. In my opinion that was a fatal decision. 

 Photography is too literal, too limited to what the camera can actually see. 
Not only that, but it doesn't reproduce on pulp paper very well. Photography is a fine supplement to illustration but it doesn't do much to help the newspaper that it dominates. In my opinion photography never worked in pulp newspapers and only came into its own in glossy-paper magazines like LIFE.


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4 comments:

  1. Stephen Worth10:53 AM

    By the time photography became available to magazine publishers at the turn of the century, so did mass produced color printing, Most illustrated magazines used B&W photos for current news stories or perhaps travel pieces, and color illustrations for the more "universal" imagery you're pointing to here. (Universal is the best word I can think of to describe it right now. But it's the opposite of specific breaking news type images.)

    L'Illustration from France did a good job of mixing artwork with photos. The ads are particularly good in that because they either used huge full page B&W glamor photos of beautiful women, or incredible art nouveau or deco illustrations. Both of them made the product look magical. They would also do themed issues on air flight or automobiles that would mix small photos of air races or road races with great big paintings of idealized machines zipping along at incredible speed with a Clark Gable type at the wheel.

    I think mixing the real with the idealized makes the idealized more real.

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  2. Anonymous7:13 PM

    Sensational! Reminds me very much of the work of the painter Joe Coleman. He does these ornate portraits of historical figures like John Dillinger, surrounding them with pertinent quotations and illustrations of events from their lives.

    The effect is like a cross between these true crime spreads and religious iconography.

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  3. Eddie Fitzgerald9:41 PM

    Wow! L'Illustration...I'll look that up!

    Anon: I like combining styles and traditions. Thanks for the tip about Joe Coleman. I'll look him up!

    Anon: Sorry I accidentally deleted your comment! I'm so sorry to here that Wander Over Yonder isn't getting picked up for a final season. It was a show that believed in combining cartooning with real animation, something you don't see often these days.

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  4. Joel Brinkerhoff7:18 AM

    I know you're concentrating on news coverage. For me, the depictions, illustrated or photographed, can be nightmare inducing. At the risk of derailing your focus, I would like to mention the disappearance of illustration art in general. I miss the inventive use of commercial art. Here's a fine site dedicated to the artists who pioneered illustration artwork: http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/

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