At this very moment, the next issue of FANTASTIC MAN is at the printers, a painstaking process that receives as much care and attention as the creation of the magazine itself. It is with this love of print in mind that the online realm of FANTASTIC MAN will celebrate other printed titles from around the world that similarly commit themselves to exploring the possibilities of the printed page.

The reputation of THE NEW YORKER, the weekly magazine from NEW YORK, is such that some people assume it’s the best magazine in the world without actually ever reading it. They are missing out. Aside from its obvious greatness (the biggest budgets in the world allowing the best writers in the world to work on their stories for months etcetera), its week-in, week-out greatness comes from the audacity of its subject choices. Recent issues have featured stories on an art expert whose discoveries were too good to be true (it all hinged on what he claimed was a JACKSON POLLOCK fingerprint); the “corpse messaging” of a Mexican drug cartel (stark warnings written on the bodies of its victims); the Russian teenager behind CHATROULETTE (a study in adolescent ambivalence) and, memorably, a surgeon writing about how we should die. Last week’s cover, a simple illustration of a sunbathing woman dropping her iPHONE into a swimming pool, was as eloquent as all the words inside. (The issue should be in stores outside the US now.) To be fully subsumed in this world, a subscription is essential, not just because it’s five times cheaper than buying single issues, but most of all since it takes away the ability not to buy THE NEW YORKER. When flicked through at a newsstand, the quantity of words can seem an impediment. Once the reader acclimatises to its pace, the features with 10,000+ words feel like they’re over in a flash. Facebook  Twitter