Inque #2
245 x 340mm, 212 pages
London & New York
Annual, for ten years only
First publishd 2021
Editor: Dan Crowe
Design and art direction: Matt Willey
Cover art: Paula Scher
To be published annually for ten years and then killed off, Inque is Dan Crowe and Matt Willey’s dream project, a heavyweight literary/arts mag without advertising or other commercial compromise.
Those who’ve been paying attention, however, will have noticed that this issue comes a year later than planned... This, as Dan Crowe explains in his editors letter is due to a melange of mildly depressing things: ‘War, political turmoil, rising paper costs, rising postage costs, and the ongoing carnage of Brexit...’ (Inque may have been launched with the lofty intention of reflecting its era, but I’m not sure such a direct link was envisaged!) All of which meant this sophomore edition had to take a little extra time to come together, but here it is! And with powerful wraparound cover art from graphic design legend Paula Scher to boot, asking, ‘How did America become so openly nasty?’
Once again, contributors are made up of an impressive literary roster including Stephen Fry, Nicholson Baker, Sheila Heti, John Edgar Wideman, Annie Ernaux, Will Self, Heidi Julavits, Natasha Brown and more. Plus on the imagery side, work by Paul Davis, Thomas Prior, Agnes Lloyd-Platt, Matt Dorfman and Lucinda Rogers.
And, as with the first issue, Inque and all that it holds inside its pages arrives in a satisfyingly heavyweight format: large but not too large, and impressively timeless in design and production, including a series of bespoke Matt Willey stencilled headlines.
On the Journal:
‘Does Inque deliver on the bold promises of its fundraising campaign? Yes it does—there’s nothing like it out there. It’s the biggest, bravest magazine launch of 2021, indie or mainstream, and establishes a new benchmark for others…’
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