Wigwag (magazine)

"Wigwag" was an American magazine published from 1988 until 1991.

Founded by Alexander "Lex" Kaplen, who worked at "The New Yorker", "Wigwag" eschewed celebrity coverage in favor of personal and literary writing. A test issue was put on newsstands in the summer of 1988, and the magazine formally debuted in October 1989. The magazine attracted writers such as Peter Matthiessen, Terry McMillan, Garry Wills, Sousa Jamba and Nancy Franklin, but despite a circulation of 120,000, and despite being financially successful, ceased publication when the Gulf War broke out in 1991 and the economy entered a recession. It published its last issue in February 1991. In its brief lifetime it reached a circulation of close to 200,000 and became a brand name signifying the qualities it represented: family-feeling, sweetness of character, quietly beautiful prose, an appreciation of the qualities of non-metropolitan America.

The legend of "Wigwag's" founding by a group of young exiles from "The New Yorker" - an exodus which followed "The New Yorker's" acquisition by Conde Nast and Conde Nast's subsequent dismissal of "The New Yorker's" great editor William Shawn - attracted an enormous amount of attention to its launch and early publication. Once launched, it quickly became a success d'estime, and critics often called it the "Anti-"Spy" - in reference to the funny, cruel and cynical New York magazine of that name. Many saw the two magazines as rivals for media attention - neither survived the 1991 recession (although "Spy" lingered on in a brief afterlife). Contemporary observers thought that the "parent ship," "The New Yorker" itself, then edited by Robert Gottlieb, also saw itself as threatened by "Wigwag" during "Wigwag's" lifetime. "Wigwag" proposed a kind of counter-reality to the brittle sophistication which magazines like "The New Yorker" and "Spy" aspired to - offering, instead of "The New Yorker's" famed "Talk of the Town" section, its own wistfully titled opening section, "Letters from Home."

Notable staffers at "Wigwag" include Nancy Holyoke, who went on (with the help of Harriet Brown, another "Wigwag" editor) to found "American Girl" magazine at Pleasant Company in Wisconsin, Caroline Fraser, the author of a noted life of Mary Baker Eddy, and Evan Cornog, now associate dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. One of the most significant contributors to "Wigwag's" identity was its art director, the distinguished illustrator and designer Paul Davis. Many have observed that "Wigwag's" editorial and design innovations under Kaplen and Davis were later adopted by Tina Brown and implemented at "The New Yorker" when she became its editor.

* [http://preview.foliomag.com/classics/marketing_great_one_remembered_17/ "A Great One Remembered: Wigwag, 1988-1991"]
* [http://www.jewishworldreview.com/sam/schulman010400.asp Remembrance by publisher Samuel E. Schulman]
* [http://www.designingmagazines.com/?p=406 DesigningMagazines.com on Wigwag's design legacy]