The Last Laugh
Closed mid-September 1994 · On stands late September 1994
The Front
After the Last Relaunch
Spy Magazine folds after a sale and a series of relaunches failed to find the readership the original had
The Meridian Index
September's small numbers — back-to-school ad pages against last year, the average length of a magazine's masthead across the newsstand rack, subscription-renewal envelopes returned unopened
The Essay
What Survives a Format
What a satirical magazine's closure says about the difference between a voice and the business that carried it
The Foreign File
The Referendum Nobody Abroad Is Watching
A dispatch on the diplomatic maneuvering ahead of a widely expected intervention
The Feature Well
The Masthead as Artifact
A reported piece walking the last Spy masthead line by line, treated as a document rather than an obituary
The City
Subject: A walk through the Flatiron sublets left behind by the magazine's various relaunches
The Back
Books: A review of a collected-Spy anthology rumored but not yet published · Art: A notice on the fall museum season's opening week nationally · Film: A dispatch on the fall festival slate