Tin House Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 1, Fall 2006: #29 Graphic

Tin House #29

by Win McCormack, Lee Montgomery, Rob Spillman

When the idea of a Graphic Issue came up and all the usual suspects surfaced, we knew we had to spin it in another wider, weirder, more eclectic direction. We wanted to push the idea of “graphic” to include not only the mostly overlooked Jack Kirby classic Challengers of the Unknown, but also an excerpt from groundbreaking graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi’s Chicken With Plums, and a collage project by trailblazing cartoonist/graphic novelist/all-around-kick-ass-gal Lynda Barry (her art graces the cover). There’s also the political cartoon genius of Tom Tomorrow, Daniel Raeburn’s plunge into the seedy, truly cartoony mayhem of wildly popular Mexican pulp comics, and the incredible you-are-in-the-inferno essay of Jo Ann Beard, who takes us into the hellish night when painter Werner Hoeflich’s apartment burst into flames.

Genres: Fiction

216 pages, Magazine

First published October 4, 2006

About the author

Win McCormack is an American publisher and editor from Oregon.

He is editor-in-chief of Tin House magazine and Tin House Books, the former publisher of Oregon Magazine, and founder and treasurer of MediAmerica, Inc. He serves on the board of directors of the journal New Perspectives Quarterly. His political and social writings have appeared in Oregon Humanities, Tin House, The Nation, The Oregonian, and Oregon Magazine. McCormack's investigative coverage of the Rajneeshee movement was awarded a William Allen White Commendation from the University of Kansas and the City and Regional Magazine Association. His latest book, You Don’t Know Me: A Citizen's Guide to Republican Family Values, examines the sex scandals of Republican politicians who espouse "moral values."

As a political activist, McCormack served as Chair of the Oregon Steering Committee for Gary Hart's 1984 presidential campaign. He is chair of the Democratic Party of Oregon's President's Council and a member of the Obama for President Oregon Finance Committee. McCormack was also chosen as Alternate Delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. He currently serves on the Oregon Council for the Humanities and the Oregon Tourism Commission. Additionally, McCormack sits on the Board of Overseers for Emerson College, and is a co-founder of the Los Angeles-based Liberty Hill Foundation

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good collection though I didn’t find it as thematically consistent as I had expected. Some of the comic excerpts I’d read before which is good because the excerpts were pretty short. I liked a lot of the fiction and essays but the poems for the most part fell flat for me. Overall enjoyable but I’m not rushing out to find other issues. I’m quite happy with my Mcsweeney’s.

[David Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was hit or miss for me. Some things I loved, and others I thought were just fine. Most of the poems didn't do it for me, but oddly enough the story about The Typing Explosion intrigued me more than anything in the issue.