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| Whim Quarterly |
U.S. humor magazine makes debut, seeks writers and cartoonists
July 16, 2010
By Don Bates, contributing editor
Comedy writers Paul Underwood, Rick Pecoraro, and Brock Mahan not only want more humor in the world. They also want to nurture it more formally. So they’ve launched Whim Quarterly, a magazine that gives writers, actors, and comedians—virtually anyone who loves to make others laugh—a place to script satire, test jokes, and generally make more mischief with words. And they’re printing it on “actual (flammable) paper.”
Each issue boasts contributors from comedy sweatshops such as the The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Late Show with David Letterman, The Onion, National Lampoon, and what the editors refer to as “an absurdist broadsheet…called The New York Times.” Taken as a single entity, Whim Quarterly’s current “board” of contributors have “36 eyes, six Emmy Awards, and a soul crushing amount of personal debt.”
Paul, Brock, Rick and their staff want to tickle the country’s funny bone but they also want to increase their publication’s circulation and readership. They know that content is the key to their success, so they’re looking for new writers and cartoonists to help them make their magazine a stand-up sensation at newsstands throughout the U.S.—even better, throughout China and India. (Contributors can submit materials to thefolks@whimquarterly.com.)
Paul (aka The Right Honorable Lord Speaker) and Rick (aka Sergeant-at-Arms) met in high school in Omaha, Nebraska. As students, they published their first humor rag, which “Only their teachers appreciated.” Separately, they moved to New York City to ply their comedic talents for real. Rick became a page at the Late Show where he and Paul met Brock (aka Dictator for Life).
Today, Paul is an editor at UrbanDaddy and Brock is an Emmy Award-winning freelance TV writer. Unlike his Gotham-based co-conspirators, Rick lives in Nashville where he handles the role of WQ technology coordinator and go-to IT guy.
Paul says one reason he and his partners decided on printing Whim Quarterly is they’re partly Luddites regarding words. Reflecting their collective aesthetic, he says “When it comes to print, I’m old school. I have a real reverence for something that lives and breathes on the page.”
Articles from the two maiden issues, this winter and spring, illustrate the editors’ zany perspective and underscore that they’re banking on far more than a whim and a prayer to succeed.
Winter 2010 (The Phlegmatic Issue) spoofs the “Top 50 Mediocre Movies of All Time.” First place goes to “The Flowing of Anna Ray,” last place to “Zantor, The Beast Within.” An alternative cocktail menu features the Silver Sombrero, made with “black bean-infused anejo tequila,” and a Bloody Mary flavored with “cigarette ashes and irregular golf tees.”
Cartoons are a given in each issue. One, based on “objectivism” philosopher and writer Ayn Rand’s newly discovered but unpublished picture book, shows Billy, the main character, refusing to share with his classmates, telling them to “Get your own blocks” and “I am the builder.” In an illustration of “Reform Judaism,” the caption has the Rabbi intone, “Today you become a ‘man (cough) a-tee,’” and in the next frame we see the image of an anthropomorphic Manatee – I assume from Florida – wearing a yarmulke.
A clever photographic montage displays the street monikers, along with photos, of “new drugs your kids are taking,” and there are classified ads for such items as “Hamster Pants” to cover “unsightly hamster genitalia,” and a fat man’s “Home Liposuction Vest” to help defeat the Battle of the Bulge.
The magazine’s logo features a chicken, seen on the first cover as it waits—why else?—to cross the road. The editors share a great affection for their feathered friend’s friends. They respectfully point out that only “one chicken was hurt during the making of the first edition,” although “Many more were consumed” during the same period.
Print also allows Paul, Brock and Rick to run longer pieces. Unlike the snackable writing that characterizes so much of what’s on the Internet, Whim Quarterly articles often run 2000-3000 words or more. Contributors can submit expanded pieces without fear of being sliced and diced. “We’d rather reject a piece than edit it word for word,” says Brock.
“We’re irreverent,” he adds, “but we’re not Maoist. We want readers to feel like they’ve entered a strange alternative universe when they open the cover.” Paul stresses, “We want to evoke the comedic universe, laughing at jokes and the rules behind them. We’re silly but smart.”
Brock shares an apt metaphor: “It’s as if an asylum had taken over the New Yorker.” Paul quickly amplifies, “Or the New Yorker taking over an asylum.”
It’s also intended to be a publication with legs. As Rick points out, “One of the things we pride ourselves on is that there is very little content within the pages that dates itself to a specific point in time. Ideally you'll be able to pick up a copy years down the road and it should still feel interesting, and of course, funny.”
Snappy graphics enliven the publication’s look and feel. Notes Rick: “A lot of the fun of the magazine for me comes from playing with the form of magazines themselves – the layouts, the photo spreads, the weird back-page content and order forms, etc. You're
still getting a little something extra when you're able to read it on paper.” Thea Rossi, Chief Design Officer, created WQ’s lively and engaging retro-hip design.
In Spring 2010 (The Sanguine Issue), there are pieces on America’s Least Desirable Suburbs,” “Lost Dance Crazes of the 1920s” and the “Obituary for Luigi Gabagoozzini, beloved Italian Stereotype.” Dead at 87, Gabagoozzini was hailed as “the face that sold a thousand stuffed crusts,” and the good-natured Italian who starred in such blockbusters as “The Meatballese Falcon” and “From Here to Ethnicity,” as well as other “wopsploitation films.”
Another irreverent piece is “Houdini’s Secret Diaries,” which includes as entry for October 30, 1926, the day before he died at age 52. In the magician’s immortal words, “Devised new trick, whereby I am repeatedly punched in the stomach, with a force that would kill most mortal men. This is the one they’ll remember me for!”
Houdini died of peritonitis, allegedly and accidentally killed by a McGill University student, J. Gordon Whitehead, who delivered multiple blows to Houdini’s abdomen in order to test the magician’s claim that he was able to take blows above the waist without injury. Prior to the “beat down,” Houdini apparently had been suffering from appendicitis. Maybe we should nominate the Big H for a post-posthumous Darwin Award.
Manhattan readers may find the magazine at Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bargain Books, 34 Carmine Street (near Bleecker), with more retail sites aborning. It’s also available through Hickoree’s Hard Goods (hickorees.com).
To sample or to subscribe to Whim, visit the publication’s website at www.whimquarterly.comThe editors are also seeking hosts for their launch parties.