The Onion mailed me the DNC print newspaper!

Print's back, and The Onion is literally bigger than it was 11 years ago!

Welcome back to The Onion: 20 Years Later, where we review the print issue from 20 years ago, find out what’s still funny and examine the cultural impact.

Today, however, we’re doing something a little different.

I’m taking a (quick) look at The Onion’s glorious return to print after nearly 11 years away — a special edition produced for the 2024 Democratic National Convention and distributed during the event.

I worked in newspapers from 2005-09, where I would design and edit 8-12 pages each night, including the front page 2-3 days a week. So I have experience with print design, even if I’m way out of practice.

If you subscribed to The Onion’s upcoming monthly print edition, you recently received the issue in the mail. Subscribers also received a special message from “The Onionati” via email:

A couple of important notes!

1. This is not a full-on review like I normally do. This wasn’t a normal issue — most of the articles are print-only or are reprints of old web articles. Secondly, I’ve barely had time to read through it myself! For today, I’m giving my impressions on the physical paper itself, including the fake ads, and how it compares to the old print edition.

2. I’m separating these “new” reviews into a different section of the newsletter, (cleverly?) titled The Onion's Return to Print. As an email subscriber, you should see no difference. However, my understanding is you can unsubscribe from this “section” but still get the regular Sunday emails reviewing The Onion from 20 years ago. If you go that route, make sure you’re still receiving the regular weekly emails. Shoot me a note if you run into problems.

If you’re new here, welcome! I invite you to sign up below. View the archives here.

What issue is this?

via The Onion

This is Vol. 60, Issue 34. How did The Onion choose these numbers? Well, it’s pretending like it never stopped printing. And the math checks out — Vol. 40, Issue 34 published almost exactly 20 years earlier.

That said, this is clearly a special issue, written as much for actual DNC attendees as for the rest of us.

What is the physical newspaper like?

The Onion’s print edition in 2024 is roughly 11 inches wide by 16.5 inches long — more or less the dimensions of a tabloid paper.¹

This is significantly bigger than The Onion’s Dec. 12, 2013, issue, which was the last of the 25-year original run. That final issue was roughly 10.5 inches wide by 12 inches long.² You can see them side by side below:

Just as The Onion’s “Our Dumb Century”³ reflected evolving newspaper design throughout the 20th century, this looks and feels like (what’s left of) print in 2024:

• The left side is “the rail,” highlighting stories inside the newspaper (these articles don’t exist, as there’s no page E5, for example).

• Some headlines are left-aligned, while others are centered. But unusually, some multi-line headlines indent the 2nd line by roughly 1 full-size space, with an additional indent for each succeeding line:

  

• Overall, I’d call the design “clean,” with an emphasis on thin black lines and white space to separate headlines and images. This contrasts with the big green lines and shaded boxes you might remember from the early 2000s:⁴

• That said, The Onion isn’t imitating trends like integrating content into the nameplates (here’s a recent example) or the New York Post’s reliance on a single headline.

• If anything, it feels like a classic look of a longstanding metro newspaper — a la the Sacramento Bee or The Washington Post. But I’m sure The Onion’s design firm would have a better explanation.

• Printing in CMYK color isn’t easy! My old newspaper could struggle to line up all 4 plates, especially on an older printing press. The Onion’s print shop did a good job overall, but note this house ad — the text is slightly blurry, and the blue (cyan) peeks out at the bottom and around the QR code:

Let’s talk about the fake ads

The Onion was once an advertising powerhouse, but this issue features of house ads (The Onion promoting itself) and fake ads.

I love this in theory — who doesn’t want to make fun of Ashley Madison, CNN, local lawyers, etc.? But I am slightly concerned whether this will hurt real ad sales later on.

A fake ad for Ashley Madison

The right-hand corner of the Ashley Madison ad says, in incredibly small print, “THIS IS NOT A PAID ADVERTISEMENT.” Similar wording appears on a handful of other fictitious ads.

Here are a couple of other ads:

This one had me fooled for a few minutes, especially because arts listings were such a mainstay of the old Onion.

The Chick-fil-A ad will get the most attention, deservedly so, but I also like how all 3 ads work as a group.

But what about the actual articles and jokes?

The Onion technically has an archive for Vol. 60, Issue 34, but it’s unreliable because it also contains random things The Onion published that week, like “Jennifer Lopez Files For Divorce From Ben Affleck.”

The website also omits more than 50% of the articles and jokes because they either are:

• exclusive to the print issue.

• reprints from old web-only articles.

As I mentioned above, this is much more like a special issue than a regular newspaper. So while I’m not reviewing the articles and jokes this time, I will share the headlines of the stories you missed.

The print exclusives include:

• “I Was Honored To Die So The Print Edition Of ‘The Onion’ Could Live” (front-page headline and photo)

• “Lawn Sign Warns Trespassers To Beware Honor Student” (front-page headline and photo)

• “‘New York Times’ To Cease Publication” (front-page article)

• “Supreme Court Rules 6–3 To Open Evil Tomb Of Batibat” (front-page article)

• “What Issues Are Most Important To Gen Z Voters?” (labeled as an “infographic,” really a listicle)

• “Zoo Gorilla Looks Bored Out Of Mind Reading ‘Wuthering Heights’” (article)

• “Conservative Relative’s Description of Chicago Clearly Came Directly From ‘Dante’s Inferno’” (article)

• “Tourist Impressed By Size of Chicago Residents” (article and spiritual successor to 2003’s “Dozens Dead in Chicago-Area Meatwave”)

• “Hades’ Inferno Stadium Once Again Ranked Toughest Arena To Play In” (article)

• “Yankees Move To Connecticut To Raise Kids” (article)

• “Nuclear Weapons Have The Potential To Frighten My Nervous Dogs” (column)

• “DNC Kicks Off In Chicago” (American Voices)⁵

• “Obituaries” (listings)

• “Weddings” (listings)

• “Onion Real Estate” (listings)

• “Horoscopes” (with a new astrologer, Sebastian Frost!)

• “Streaming Guide” (TV recommendations)

There are also some reprints:

• “Chicago Adds 90-Story Stack Of Italian Beef To Skyline” (Feb. 6, 2020)

• “Shedd Aquarium Would Trade It All For A Single Dog” (May 22, 2023)

• “CTA Hoses Train Cars Down With Fresh Piss” (May 9, 2023)

• “Barack Obama Opens New Electronics Store” (Aug. 11, 2023)

• “Woman Claiming She From Chicago Technically From Magical Fantasy Land Inside Wardrobe” (Oct. 20, 2023, sadly not a reference to “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe”)

• “138 Dead As Loud Sneeze Startles NRA Meeting” (July 18, 2023)

• “Unsettling PETA Ad Features Sobbing Burger Giving Man Blow Job” (June 10, 2022)

• “Elon Musk Rushed To Hospital After Attempting To Impregnate Toaster” (Jan. 2, 2024)

• “Caitlin Clark Supplements Rookie Salary By Taking Adjunct Professor Of Basketball Job” (July 10, 2024)

Finally, there are a couple of full-page cartoons from Stan Kelly, who shared them on Threads (click the following links to view them!). One is the trademark “Sicko” depiction, and the other is a Chicago-themed illustration and coloring page.

Despite my childhood love of MAD Magazine, I’m not well-versed in The Onion’s cartoons, despite Stan Kelly (the pseudonym of Ward Sutton) drawing them since 2006! Definitely a blind spot in my reading of this publication.

Final thoughts

I’m astonished at how good the design and layout is. You wouldn’t know The Onion abandoned print for 10 years or that print is largely dead outside of certain niches.

I think the jokes are solid, but that’s almost secondary (for now). I’m watching how The Onion’s staff regains its comfort with the look, feel and pace of making jokes in print. I hope it’s a counterweight to the breakneck idiocy of the internet that forces everyone to make fast jokes rather than great jokes.

Finally, a thank you to all of y’all for reading and supporting this ridiculous newsletter. Have any of you subscribed? What are your impressions? And what do you want The Onion to bring back from the old print days? Let me know in the comments!

1. This is not “tabloid” in a pejorative sense, as one might call the National Enquirer, although those publications were often tabloid-sized in an era where more respectable newspapers were broadsheets.

2. At some point between 2010 and 2013, The Onion shrunk the width of the paper by about 0.5 inches. This was a common move I experienced at my newspaper — trimming the width slightly to save on printing costs while hoping readers wouldn’t notice.

3. I may get commissions for purchases made through book links in this post, including these.

4. Some newspapers still have this look, such as the Decatur Daily in Alabama.

5. This issue features all 6 of the “local” people; this is a change from the past 15 years or so, when American Voices published multiple times per week but only featured 3 responses to each question.