Baffler's Back!

January 12, 2010 10:48 AM

The Baffler, storied zine of cultural and political analysis and criticism, is back, and excerpts of the latest issue are now online, including a review of Rod Blagojevich's memoir by Matt Taibbi, as well as articles by Christian Parenti and Walter Benn Michaels.

Founded by Tom Frank (previously here and here) and Keith White (now associate director of the Congressional Quarterly), it was published (notoriously) sporadically from 1988 to 2007, and lost some momentum when its Chicago offices were destroyed by a fire in 2001 (previously). More backstory on its return here; updates are on Facebook and Twitter.

posted by carrienation (13 comments total)

Oh yay!

I keep every issue of the Baffler whenever I can get one, and guard it jealously. I was so bummed when they went offline.
posted by lysdexic at 11:00 AM on January 12, 2010

I just read the Blago book review. God, how I missed this.
posted by lysdexic at 11:03 AM on January 12, 2010

Woot!
posted by notyou at 11:13 AM on January 12, 2010

yay!
posted by vespabelle at 11:18 AM on January 12, 2010

Good lord. I conveniently signed up for a "year" subscription back in summer 2003.

I've gotten one issue since, in summer 2006. I'm OK with irregular publishing, but that's sorta ridiculous.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:00 PM on January 12, 2010

On the Parenti piece: GULAG-tastic.

More generally: Baffler, how we have missed ye.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 4:35 PM on January 12, 2010

I was another subscriber, back before their warehouse fire. I got a few issues, then there was the fire and after that Frank was just to busy writing books. Just after the fire, I bought another subscription for an old friend thinking that the Baffler could use a couple of bucks. He never got a single issue. So fuck the Baffler. Not that I'm bitter or anything but jeez a commitment is a commitment.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 7:07 PM on January 12, 2010

I bought another subscription for an old friend thinking that the Baffler could use a couple of bucks. He never got a single issue.

Ha! The same thing happened to me. I don't hold it against them, though I should - that's how glad I am that they're back.
posted by moxiedoll at 7:41 PM on January 12, 2010

Woohoo! I've got a couple old early copies up in my attic. Nice to see Matt Taibbi in there now.
posted by intermod at 8:03 PM on January 12, 2010

Hey Baffler! I was all set to throw money at you for a print subscription, but your payment page is unencrypted. Ain't doin that.

Also, an RSS feed would be good.
posted by intermod at 8:06 PM on January 12, 2010

Woooo! The Baffler was a great little journal. I'm so glad to see it's back. thanks for the heads up, carrienation.
posted by Joad at 8:47 PM on January 12, 2010

I just got Vol. 2. No. 1 in the mail yesterday, which is somewhat amazing since I've moved twice since I got the last issue. I know you're watching me!
posted by mrgrimm at 12:15 PM on January 14, 2010

Don't know if anyone will see this, but they've also just gone live with an archive of a number of past issues. They aren't the best scans in the world, but it's still nice to have some of the previous issues readily accessible.
posted by carrienation at 12:25 AM on January 27, 2010