Special Issue: Valentine’s Day

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I love creating theme issues. And my hands-down favorite theme issue is the Valentine’s Day issue, because it’s a great jumping off point for all kinds of fun weirdness: trashy Mad Libs, BDSM vampires, a taste-test of erotic “edibles” from sex shops, and other love-dovey stuff.

For a long time, I’d wanted to do a bad-romance-novel-cover spread above as an homage to something I’d seen in Lemon magazine — and with an assist from Uncle Walter and the Phoenix design team, my wildest dreams came true in 2011. My other V-Day bucket list article was to get a bunch of chefs to make gourmet food out of Necco hearts (partly inspired by Mario Batali’s infamous Starburst-and-Red-Bull sauce), but I was convinced that was too outlandish to pull off … until our superstar food editor Cassandra Landry took the idea and ran with it. And suddenly, Boston chefs were making high-falutin grub out of Red Hots and Nerds. I could have wept with joy. (Or maybe that was sugar rush.)

And let’s not forget the clip & send Valentine cards.

In 2011, we also started collaborating with art collective Paint Pens in Purses to make these totes-adorbs Valentines.

The art for the first batch was pretty much anything goes; but for the second installment, we went for a “Love Hurts” theme, to go with the music section’s blowout “Top 100 Emo Songs of All Time” (read more about the Emo 100 web component here).

Somewhere along the way, I got a wild hair to combine the Valentine’s Day cards with our marketing campaign for the Phoenix‘s annual Boston’s Best reader poll … and it all came together in 2013.

Special Issue: The Rapture Issue

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Behold, the Rapture Issue: yet another example of an office joke spiraling so far out of control that it becomes a full-on print issue. (As I recall, editor Carly Carioli was hesitant to green-light this … until he realized that this was his chance to do the Weekly World News cover he’s always wanted. That sold him instantly.) In addition to the brainstorming and general content wrangling, my major contribution to this package was the headline “God Hates FAQs.” (Also, I co-wrote “Rapture Pets,” which is basically Muppet Babies meets Left Behind, with a cameo appearance by Christopher Hitchens. It all kinda makes sense, promise.)

Despite this blasphemy, the entire editorial staff got raptured somehow — which someone (one of damned and earthbound, apparently) documented for posterity.

Special Issue: Summer Guide

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The Phoenix‘s annual summer guide has long struck fear into the hearts of the company’s listings staffers, who spent the spring frantically typing their fingers into bloody nubs to make sure every flea market, lobster fest, and puffin-watching tour (no, really) in New England was entered into our sprawling listings directory.

Though daunting, the summer guides were really satisfying for me — when else can you cover both the history of the claw machine and the International Classic Video Game Tournament, or give a shoutout to cornholin’, or make a Choose Your Own Adventure-style game out of Boston landmarks? In 2011, I had the opportunity to massively overhaul the format of the guide, and work with our design director to give it a much greater emphasis on visual elements — a trend we continued in 2012. (To see all the articles at a glance, click here for 2011, and click here for 2012.)

That said, I can’t take any credit for my favorite part of these issues: the amazing photography/”living images” by the outrageously talented Boston photographer and filmmaker Mike Pecci.