THE ONION
Run of 27 early issues (1990-91) of this classic comedic venue from its years as a regional Madison, WI free college weekly.
Very good overall.
Price: $3,000.00
THE ONION
"The World's Most Trusted News Source"
What MAD magazine was to the 1950s and '60s (manic, sincere), and NATIONAL LAMPOON was to the 1970s (cynical, parodic), THE ONION has been since the late 1980s (monotone, satiric: whatever, never mind). As a college student in the early 1990s, your cataloguer recalls first seeing — as on first looking into Kricfalusi's REN & STIMPY — issues of THE ONION as they were almost reverently passed around a Baltimore rowhouse where they had been ferried by some itinerant partygoer. We (I) almost could not believe such a thing existed. While satire like SNL's WEEKEND UPDATE certainly predated and prefigured (and figures like the Johns Stewart and Oliver would follow), editor Scott Dikker's ONION (founded just two years prior to this run in 1988) didn't so much mock the news format as it did appropriate it to mock an increasingly disorienting late 20th- / early-21st-century reality ("'No Way To Prevent This' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens," "Wealthy Teen Nearly Experiences Consequences," "Area Man Passionate Defender of What He Imagines Constitution to Be," "Oprah Viewers Patiently Awaiting Instructions," etc.). (As well as your cataloguer's own personal favorite: "William Safire Orders Two Whoppers Junior," and the too-close-to-home "Cool Dad Raising Daughter On Media That Will Put Her Entirely Out of Touch With Her Generation.") At the time still little more than a college-town free weekly, early issues are genuinely rare. A substantive and formative run of this still (all too) relevant comedy institution.
The Object
Madison, WI: The Onion, 1990-1991. 27 volumes; 15'' x 11.5''. Original printed newsprint self-wrappers all. Vol. 18, nos. 2-6, 8-25; vol. 19, nos. 1-5 (six issues, number 4 used twice but not duplicate), 7-9, 12, 14-17. Toning overall. Some splitting to folds of early issues. Final issue lacking lower half of front wrapper. Minor chipping, reading wear. Some mailing labels. Overall, sound.
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