Screw magazine

"SCREW MAGAZINE" — “The World’s Greatest Newspaper” — was founded in 1968 by Al Goldstein. Begun as a response to a burgeoning sexual revolution and to the air-brushed soft-pedaled sexuality in magazines such as "Playboy", "Screw" set out to be the most outrageous magazine of its type. Printed weekly in tabloid form, the magazine quickly succeeded, reaching a circulation of 500,000, and making armies of enemies among conservatives and the “moral hypocrites” in government that "Screw" had vowed to fight.

"Screw" is best known for its alarmingly frank representation of sex, in both lurid photographs and prose that has continually pushed close to the edges of protected speech. Founder Al Goldstein has won a series of obscenity cases.

In 1974, Al Goldstein told "Playboy" magazine, “We lead the league in tastelessness. Our photographs are filthier and our stories more disgusting. We make no effort to be artistic.”

"Screw"’s embrace of the film "Deep Throat" guaranteed the film’s success and simulataneously ensured "Screw"’s place in publishing and as an innovator and trend-setter.

Over the years "Screw" has become known for its vicious attacks on celebrities, politicians, and pretty much anyone who has crossed Goldstein, from car rentals to local restaurants.

"Screw" is also legendary for its covers, which have featured a Who’s Who of American underground cartoonists, such as Robert Crumb, Vaughn Bodé, Wally Wood, and Danny Hellman.

In 1982, Goldstein was sued by Pillsbury after their “doughboy” logotype was spoofed in "Screw". Goldstein won that case and the right to parody corporate logos is now firmly entrenched as protected speech.

In the 1990s, as business began to slip due to new competition from free adult weeklies and the internet, Goldstein became weighed down in a feud with his son Jordan and began filling the magazine with personal attacks against his “ex-son” and his ex-wife. Many observers noted that as Goldstein’s famous hate rants became more heated, the magazine lost focus and drifted from its editorial goals.

In 2003, after suffering through several well-publicized harassment trials, ill health, reckless spending and mismanagement, "Screw" declared bankruptcy. Goldstein, never responding adequately to an adult market now dominated by the internet, said at the time "we are an anachronism; we are dinosaurs; we are elephants going to the bone cemetery to die.... The delivery system has changed, and we have to change with it if we want to survive."

Later that year "Screw" was purchased and re-launched by DJK Productions, a consortium of former employees.Fact|date=June 2008 Former "High Times" publisher Mike Edison, himself a former "Screw" freelancer, was named as editor-in-chief. He is only the second person to hold that position in thirty-five years.

"Screw" is now published bi-weekly with a circulation of 20,000.Fact|date=June 2008

In almost forty years of continuous publication, there have been almost 2,000 issues of "Screw", making it one of the most durable and long-lasting publications in American history.

The first "Screw" movie, produced by Joe Gallant and Kenny Law, was scheduled to be released in 2007.

SCREW ORIGINAL MISSION STATEMENT (From issue No. 1, 1968)

WHAT WE STAND FOR: Screw welcomes you to the first issue of the most exciting new publication in the history of the West,. You are on the virgin trip of the first magazine-newspaper that gives sex a break and makes no bones about it. People f*** and do other things to each to other — whatever it is, we won’t knock it. In the ear or up the nostril — it’s your bag and it’s your business. We promise never to ink out a pubic hair or chalk out an organ. We apologize for nothing. We will uncover the entire world of sex. We’ll be the Consumer Reports of sex. We will lay it on the line, and on the bed, floor, the beachheads of the world and then lay it on the line until the whole world gets the message — SEX IS FUN.