Special Issues 2010
A special look back at the special year in City Weekly special issues.
By Bill Frost @bill_frost
As you may have noticed, we love themed “special issues” here at City Weekly, since we average about one every four weeks. Believe it or not, we’ve actually retired a couple over the past 26 years—anybody remember Winterize? The Spring Issue? The Literary Guide? Here’s a look back at what we kept in 2010, as well as a surprise 2011 bonus.
>> Read the 2010 Year in Review <<
Jan. 21, 2010: When the promo logo for the City Weekly Music Awards is the most interesting feature of your cover, something’s wrong. The “Sundance Survival Guide” was a useful read, but you’d never know it from the deadly dull cover we wrapped it in—a Hyundai user manual has a catchier cover than this “book.” Rating: 4 (out of 10).
| Feb. 18, 2010: Like last year, only hairier: The City Weekly Music Awards 2010 issue featured people’s-vote winners Bird Eater, Paul Jacobsen & The Madison Arm and The Naked Eyes (later renamed Spell Talk) kickin’ it at The Beerhive. If the dude on the left hadn’t forgotten his beard, this could pass for a Lynyrd Skynyrd album cover. Rating: 6. | |
| April 1, 2010: The April Fool’s joke that some folks still believe: The “End of an Era” cover and stories within weaved the tall tale of City Weekly founder John Saltas leaving the publication and selling it to the LDS Church. The best part of the gag? Since Saltas is rarely around, this is what his office looks like most of the time, anyway. Rating: 8. | |
| April 8, 2010: On our favorite Best of Utah cover in years, perennial Best Anchorwoman winner Hope Woodside of Fox 13 clinked cups with the ubiquitous Sister Dottie S. Dixon (aka actor Charles Lynn Frost, him/herself winner of CW’s Best Utahn title) at the Beehive Tea Room (also a BOU winner). Gonna be hard to top this. Rating: 10. | |
| May 6, 2010: Does it get more “green” than a model buried alive under a fresh layer of sod? As our Green Guide 2010 proved once again, illustrating the virtues of saving the planet on the cover of 60,000 newspapers distributed all over the state ain’t easy. Still, at least it’s not a yellow “book” about going green. Rating: 5. | |
| June 24, 2010: Brigham Young rocking a tight T-shirt that declares love for City Weekly—money in the bank. Our “25 1 Anniversary Issue” (since we didn’t get around to it in 2009) cover was a statement of black & white simplicity, accentuated with hints of Ute red to make Saltas feel less uneasy about pimping Brother Brigham. Rating: 10. | |
| July 22, 2010: Who’s wearing the ski glove in July? That was the least of our worries with the first annual “Utah’s Coldest Beers” issue, an extensive and divisive undertaking that had CW staffers testing brew temperatures up and down the Wasatch Front. Any beer snob will tell you “cold” doesn’t necessarily equal “good.” Repeatedly. Rating: 6. | |
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Aug. 19, 2010: As all-inclusive as we could get with (northern) Utah colleges, our colorful Back to School 2010 issue cover starred CW interns repping for the University of Utah, Weber State, Utah State and Westminster College, as well as our own multitasking Austen Diamond stuck on BYU duty. Sorry about that, bro. Rating: 8. |
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| Sept. 16, 2010: Since our local-arts awards issue included a category for graffiti, it made sense to spray-up the cover of Artys 2010. Of course, it might have been better to use some actual work from a local artist instead of compositing a replica to represent it, but at least we didn’t paint any naked women this time. Rating: 4. | |
| Oct. 14, 2010: Fun factoid: A former City Weekly editor happened to be having dinner at Takashi at the very same time we were doing the chalkboard photo shoot for our Dining Guide 2010 cover. Even more surprising, he even made eye contact and acknowledged our presence for several milliseconds. Good vibes all around. Rating: 9. | |
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Oct. 28, 2010: The John Kilbourn-illustrated, Alice In Wonderland tea party-themed “Election Issues” cover—starring Jim Matheson, Rob Bishop, Gary Herbert, Lohra Miller, Peter Corroon and Jason Chaffetz—at least made more sense than a certain 2010 Tim Burton/Johnny Depp movie. Right? Of course it did. Rating: 8. |
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| Dec. 2, 2010: “The One Mighty & Strong” wasn’t really a “special issue,” but City Weekly’s Facebook fans certainly took issue with Brian David Mitchell’s mug appearing in their news feeds. So much so, we replaced it after three days of complaints from creeped-out people who thought they’d somehow befriended BDM. Rating: 2. | |
| Jan. 16, 2011: In September of 2010, City Weekly got a nice shout-out from Bored to Death—and that HBO comedy is set in New York City. Closer to home, in the upcoming January season premiere of HBO’s Utah-centric polygamy drama Big Love, a fabricated issue of CW appears not once, but twice. In the aftermath of Sandy businessman Bill Henrickson (Bill Pullman) winning a seat in the Utah senate and then outing himself and his extended family as polygamists last season, the ensuing local media storm is apparently so all-consuming at the onset of Season 5 that even City Weekly has to put it on the cover, along with the Deseret News and Provo’s Daily Herald (though mentioned in the episode, The Salt Lake Tribune is nowhere to be seen). HBO must like us. This might be a stretch, but is there any chance we could get on True Blood next? Rating: 11. |
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