4. Entertainment Weekly, Oct. 3, 2008
When The New Yorker ran its Barry Blitt-illustrated cover cheekily portraying Michelle and Barack Obama as fist-bumping radical terrorists, it touched off a firestorm. The New Yorker was speaking to its tribe (see cover No. 1) and likely thought it was safe to do so. Wrong! The image, titled "The Politics of Fear," inflamed everyone in all the rings of the political circus, and the magazine had to explain its intentions — and the concept of satire — to the world. Amid all the hubbub came Entertainment Weekly, whose cover subjects, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, make their livings by pointing out the pervasive folly of the political process. By spoofing the original New Yorker cover, this one actually trumps it. In addition to making the reader (me, anyway) laugh out loud, it wryly comments on the controversy. In comedy, timing is everything, and the timing, spirit and execution of this cover made it stand out, and even helped defuse the rancor unintentionally created by the original. Bravo!
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