Spy: The Funny Years (Hardcover)

~ (Author), George Kalogerakis (Author), (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With equal parts nostalgia and snarkiness, this history /anthology celebrates the now legendary satirical magazine during its heyday—aka 1986 to 1991, when founders and partners Andersen (Turn of the Century and host of [PRI's] Studio 360) and Carter (editor of Vanity Fair) ran the show (the magazine folded as a monthly in 1994). "We were very lucky to catch two waves—the post-'60s ironic mood and the go-go financial mood," observes Andersen, and these pages offer plenty of opportunity to travel back to those heady days of "Separated at Birth?" and "The Spy Guide to Postmodern Everything." Those who wondered what life at Spy was really like will also be rewarded: former deputy editor Kalogerakis [...] has collected plenty of stories about minuscule paychecks, ridiculously tight budgets and bacchanalian parties (Andersen and Carter chime in with extensive annotations). Certain to be on the holiday wish lists of aging hipsters. (Nov.)
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Review

"Spy was the most influential magazine of the 1980S . . . it was cruel, brilliant, beautifully written and perfectly designed . . ." -- Dave Eggers

"It's a piece of garbage." -- Donald Trump

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Miramax (October 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401352391
• ISBN-13: 978-1401352394
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 10.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #396,196 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as funny as I expected or hoped, November 26, 2006

By	Bill Herring "Babaluba" (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While it's (marginally) interesting to me to learn about the backstage goings-on that went into creating this magazine that I used to love, what I really wanted was lots of reprints of articles that defined Spy. While a few of them are reprinted here (such as the wonderful piece on "yuppie porn") others are inexplicably printed in extremely small type ("A Spy Guide to Postmodern Everything") that literally require a magnifying glass to read! What a disappointment. I gave it an extra star because it's bound very nicely and obviously took a lot of effort to put together.

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SPY: Finally, a Fitting Farewell, October 29, 2006

By	William D. Geerhart (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"SPY: The Funny Years" is the next best thing to an announcement that the magazine is resuming publication. This book is more than just a "greatest hits" collection. Indeed, it discusses in detail how the remarkably vicious and intelligent publication came to be. Reading the book, one gets nostalgic and then angry that it didn't survive to chronicle the W years. Just imagine what SPY could have done to the likes of Ann Coulter.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Please follow up with a "Best of Spy" book!, February 7, 2007

By	Jeannette Belliveau "Author" (Baltimore, MD United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

How glorious to revisit the magnificent "Checks to Cheapskates" caper! Whereby Spy sent checks for 13 cents to Adnan Koshoggi and Donald Trump, who cashed them. (Cher, Bill Blass, Faye Dunaway, Rupert Murdoch, Mort Zuckerman and others cashed $1.11 checks.)

Most huge fans of Spy will want more reprints of classic articles (and in bigger, more readable type) than appear here. Still, it's wonderful to revisit the definitive article, "It's Yuppie Porn, and we can't help ourselves," as well as pieces on washed-up celebrities after-hours wanderings through the Big Apple, "Separated at Birth," "Logrolling in our Time," "Blurb-o-Matic" and "Celebrity Math."

We also have oddball gems such as "Meet the Nobelists: This month's question: What's the best way to eat an Oreo cookie?"

"Spy: The Funny Years" is a 50-50 split between being a narrative about the founding and history of the 1980s' funniest magazine and excerpts from the more infamous articles.

This book will leave you wanting to rush to eBay for some back issues, or wanting to beg Miramax, the publisher of "The Funny Years," to also bring out a "Best of Spy" compilation of the original articles.

I found myself enjoying the narrative of how Spy came to be, a narrative which may create envy in many a journalist in the stuffy mainstream media, reading about the vastly underpaid minions working at Spy to create its hilarious, information-rich visuals that presaged the Web. Spy also presaged "South Park's" evisceration of pompous celebrities (and Saturday Night Live's "Hollywood Minute").

Spy's founders managed to create articles that were hilarious, visually inspired, tough yet accurate, requiring top-notch lawyering. Will we ever see something comparable for our era?