McSweeney's Issue #4 (2000)

McSweeney's Issue 4 arrived in early 2000 to raised expectations; it was the first issue to come out after the coverage in the New Yorker, and within weeks of the release of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. It was fortuitous that this, then, was the number that they now describe as their "breakthrough issue." That breakthrough was not so much because of the content -- interesting in itself, and of a piece with previous issues -- but because of its presentation. Namely, Issue 4 eschewed a conventional binding and was printed as a series of pamphlets within a box:

In some ways, the heart of this issue is probably somewhere between Eggers' editorial pamphlet -- which includes a "Bill of Rights" on book design, asserting that writers should have a clear and unambiguous role in the design of their own work -- and Paul Maliszewski's pamphlet "Paperback Nabokov," which details the author's struggle to control the design of his book jackets. In short, it's about a writer-centered control of aesthetics, which is not quite how book publishing typically works.

The pamphlets themselves reflect that idea: rather than being grouped together and sequenced into a single binding, each is its own little kingdom, so to speak -- to be taken in whatever order the reader chooses.  The whole thing is defiantly impractical, in its own way. It's a challenging format to publish in, and a surprisingly challenging one to read in, not least because it forces you to slow down and encounter the works individually, rather than simply flipping through sections.

The box is an unusual enough format that the only direct predecessor I can find is a French arts publication from 1937, Verve -- described in this 1988 NY Times appreciation -- that used a box designed by Matisse to enclosed both a regular print issue and for both text and lithographs.

McSweeney's revisited the format in 2006 with Issue 19, designed as a series of both new and historical pamphlets -- packed in a cigar box, as if one had found it in an old attic:

My favorite example, though, might be Dancing Star #26 (2002), which shows the direct influence of McSweeney's #4. While touring for Banvard's Folly in 2001, I included random odd Victorian finds in my readings, and at one event an Indiana University college student approached me afterwards. Could he use one of those old excerpts in a magazine he was editing for his dorm? Sure, I said.  Some months later, this extraordinary production arrived in the mail:

Inside was a set of pamphlets....

And beneath those was a figurine...

And if you pulled apart the box, hidden under that was a folded up poster:

(This is only 2 panels: the poster's much bigger when fully unfolded.)

That student, as it happens, was none other than Brian McMullen. Ten years after Dancing Star 26, he created this boxed Issue 36 of McSweeney's: