WHEN EUSTACE MET FRANÇOISE

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 I first met Françoise Mouly at The New Yorker’s old Times Square offices. This was way back when artists used to deliver illustrations in person. I had stopped by to turn in a spot drawing and was introduced to Françoise, their newly-minted cover art editor.

I should have been intimidated, but I was fresh off the boat from Canada and deeply ensconced in my own bubble—hockey, baseball, Leonard Cohen—and so not yet aware of her groundbreaking work at Raw magazine.

Much time has passed since that fortuitous day and I’ve thankfully caught up with her ouevre—gonna get as many French words into this as I can—through back issues of Raw and TOON Books. But mostly with The New Yorker, where we have worked together for over 30 years and I’ve been afforded a front-row seat to witness her mode du travail, her nonpareil mélange of visual storytelling skills.

Speaking just from my own experience, I can’t tell you how many times at the end of a harsh deadline I’ve handed in a desperate, incoherent mess of watercolor and ink, only to see the published product a day later magically made whole, readable, and aesthetically pleasing.

Because Françoise prefers her artists to get the credit, I assume she won’t want me mentioning the many times she rescued my images from floundering. I can remember apologetically submitting caricatures with poor likenesses, which she somehow managed to fix with a little digital manipulation—a hairline move forward here, a nose sharpened there. Or ideas that mostly worked turned on their head—with the artist's permission, of course—to suddenly drive the point all the way home.

For Françoise, “the point” is always the point. Beautiful pictures are fine, but what does the image say? Françoise maintains a wide circle of devoted contributing artists—from renowned gallery painters to scribbling cartoonists, and all gradations between—from whom she regularly coaxes their best work. I thank my étoiles chanceuses to be part of that group.

And now, an interview with Françoise. Apparently.

—Barry Blitt

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Commercial Type and Freeport Press.

A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

A 5-STAR MAGAZINE (DO NOT DISTURB)

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Orlando is the magazine as hotel, quite literally—we’ll explain what that means in a bit—a magazine that one can inhabit and live in, a love letter to culture in the most expansive use of the word. It’s also very Italian. Maybe because it comes from Italy. More specifically, from the mind of Antonella Dellepiane Pescetto, who is Italian. But more importantly, she is someone with exquisite taste.

And, yes, the magazine is set up as a hotel. Just go to the table of contents and you start to see how this concept works. Or visit the website, it’s obvious there, too Ad the concept structures all various—and sometime disparate—ideas that go into the making of Orlando.

And if you visit the website, again, you’ll find courses and tours and podcasts and a Spotify playlist to accompany each story in each issue as well as a boutique, and you can sense the publishing plans as well. But mostly you’ll find yourself in a charming confection of a magazine, kind of like something Wes Anderson might have come up with had he been Italian, which might work for you, or not—not everyone loves Wes Anderson, sure—but just like you know a Wes Anderson movie when you see or hear one, once you enter the hotel that is Orlando, you know. You just do. And it’s the kind of place you can get comfortable in very easily.

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.

A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

ONE CITY AT A TIME

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There are two kinds of travelers. The first group are those that need to see as many attractions as they can. The second are those that would rather wander around, get a feel for the place they’re visiting, and live as much like a local as possible. Neither is better. There’s no judgement here. But the people who are behind the bi-annual Fare Magazine are definitely of the latter group.

Founded almost ten years ago, each issue of Fare explores a single city, using food as an entry point to talk to locals and tell stories that you won’t find in your typical guidebook. You do not read Fare to find lists of must try restaurants. You read it to meet the people that make a city worth living in and worth visiting. You will learn something. And, maybe, this city will go on your list of places to visit.

Going from city to city is, of course, not the easiest way to make a magazine, but ten years in, Fare is still going strong, and the business is growing to include new titles and new offers. It’s a big world. And I get the sense Fare is going to keep wandering it, meeting the people who make every city taste better.

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.

A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025