McSweeney's, No. 33: The San Francisco Panorama [Unbound]

Dave Eggers (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 19, 2010

Issue 33 of McSweeney’s Quarterly will be a one-time-only, Sunday-edition sized newspaper—the San Francisco Panorama. It'll have news (actual news, tied to the day it comes out) and sports and arts coverage, and comics (sixteen pages of glorious, full-color comics, from Chris Ware and Dan Clowes and Art Spiegelman and many others besides) and a magazine and a weekend guide, and will basically be an attempt to demonstrate all the great things print journalism can (still) do, with as much first-rate writing and reportage and design (and posters and games and on-location Antarctic travelogues) as we can get in there. Expect journalism from Andrew Sean Greer, fiction from George Saunders and Roddy Doyle, dispatches from Afghanistan, and much, much more. We're going to try to sell this thing on the street in San Francisco, but it'll also go out to our subscribers and be in bookstores all over.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A beast, a magnificent venture... and an object of beauty. Must. Have. More." —Anthony Bourdain

Product Details

• Unbound: 200 pages
• Publisher: McSweeney's (January 19, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934781487
• ISBN-13: 978-1934781487
• Product Dimensions: 15.5 x 12.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #452,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars if only more newspapers were like this..., February 12, 2010

By 

Phil Rhein - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: McSweeney's, No. 33: The San Francisco Panorama (Unbound)

While there's been a lot of discussion on whether a $15, one-time only publication can really be held up as a workable business model for a newspaper, the simple fact remains that, as a piece of print production work, the Panorama is a giddy, glorious success. If you've ever looked with longing at photos of your grandparents lounging around in suits and dresses and yearned for the times when our society seemed a little more bound by common experiences and a slightly less hectic pace of life, the sheer luxury and scope of this newspaper is almost certain to leave you breathless - and if I'm ever able to find frames large enough, I fully intend to mount and hang dozens of pages of this paper as works of art and champions of design. The comics section alone might seem extravagantly priced for individual sale at $10 when compared to an ordinary comic book... but as a series of posters featuring top-notch work in the comics medium? In that sense, it's kind of a bargain - and that price doesn't even include the rest of the newspaper, which is a monster in both scope and size.
Again, most newspapers don't cost $15 and can't spend an entire year or more on writing and layout. And few, if any, can possibly compete with something of this nature, given a reliance on their local [and too-often poorly paid] talent and short-term daily or weekly deadlines... but as an inspiration of some of the ways, new and old, that newspapers can revitalize their form, the Panorama is a work of insight and grandeur.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Panoramic, May 18, 2010

By 

Sam Quixote - See all my reviews

This review is from: McSweeney's, No. 33: The San Francisco Panorama (Unbound)

McSweeney's 33 takes the form of a one shot newspaper called The San Francisco Panorama, about the size of a sunday paper. Besides the news section (brief), you get sections of investigative reportage, a sports section, a food section, a book review magazine, another magazine of various articles, and a comics section, all of which is presented in broadsheet fashion with two magazines inside.

There are a huge number of contributors, many of them big names. Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, writes about the value of public schools, Nicholson Baker does a piece on closed paper mills in Maine and posits the idea that they save forests more than broadband stations. China Mieville writes about how bored he is with end of the world movies and suggests a reprieve. Salman Rushdie writes about Kara Walker, an artist who works with silhouettes. There's a fantastic appreciation of J G Ballard by Geoff Nicholson which'll make you want to re-read all of Ballard's work again. Also Dave Eggers interviews Junot Diaz and Miranda July interviews James Franco.

The comics section is definitely worth a section as it's amazing. Chris Ware provides a build it yourself spacecraft for his comic strip "Rocket Sam", Dan Clowes spoofs "Lost in Space" with "The Christian Astronauts", while Alison Bechdel, Ivan Brunetti, Gene Luen Yang, Art Spiegelman, Adrian Tomine, Kim Deith, and Seth all provide strips. It's a definite highlight to an already gobsmackingly brilliant issue.
The fiction in this issue, the reason why McSweeney's was created, is few at only 4 short stories by George Saunders, Seth Fried, the actor James Franco, and Roddy Doyle. Ironically, they're not that great except the always great Roddy Doyle who supplies a great story about a homeless Polish man and his friend who win the lottery.

The best thing about this issue is the nonfiction. Investigative reporting on environmental degradation in California by Jesse Nathan, the cover story on the enormous new bridge being built in San Francisco and it's impact by Patricia Decker and Robert Porterfield, romance novels' cover men, an article on NASCAR racing, Sarah Palin's lack of ethics, film distribution, a playwright's fight against Wells Fargo to save a family from foreclosure, a 500 mile pilgrimage in South America, and a 5 month stint in Antartica for a local Oakland resident are all amazing.

There's so much here I've barely cracked the surface in the review. I didn't read all of it, particularly sports as I've no interest in American football, basketball, or baseball, though Stephen King provides a massive article, wonderfully illustrated, about the 2009 World Series. But basically, there's so much here, so well done, there's something for everyone.

Created over a year, this is McSweeney's most ambitious and best production yet. It continues to be a shining example of the relevance of the arts in the modern world and sustains a high level of creativity and imagination. You'll never read a newspaper with so much world class talent in one production, it's really amazing. In the mood to read something different? This is the one for you.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Super Sunday paper, March 15, 2010

By 

Joseph R. Knowles "RedEye" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: McSweeney's, No. 33: The San Francisco Panorama (Unbound)

This is a magnificent, heartfelt love letter to the newspaper... It shows how powerful the medium can be when you unleash the horses. Excellent design, great writing and plenty of surprises throughout. If you miss your old Sunday paper, here it is, complete with well-reported long-form pieces, full-color comics (and not the tired old chestnuts like Blondie and Beetle Bailey, but contemporary stuff from Seth, Chris Ware and Art Spiegelman), puzzles, a book review section (remember those?) and a full-blown magazine to boot. Check out the supplement to the sports section -- Stephen King's recap of the Phillies-Yankees World Series, which includes classic illustrations that look like they came from the back of a 1960s Topps baseball card.