Box art
Literary journals might have a stuffy reputation. But since its conception in 1998 by author Dave Eggers, McSweeney's Quarterly has been anything but, opting instead to be an endlessly mutating delivery system for writing and art. It has been a hardcover book, a paperback, a newspaper. Once it was a bundle of mail; another time, a deck of playing cards. Imagination and capriciousness have defined McSweeney's for nearly three decades.
The latest issue, edited by Rita Bullwinkel and guest-edited by two celebrated writers - cartoonist Thi Bui and novelist Vu Tran - attempts to capture the messy and disparate nature of the Vietnamese diaspora with a package that is, by design, messy and disparate. The 78th issue of McSweeney's, "The Make-Believers," arrives in a cigar box with painted illustrations by Bui containing several unique booklets of stories, essays, and illustrations that try to pin down the elusive trappings of Vietnamese identity.
Curious about the tremendous effort of putting together such a unique package, The Verge spoke with Bui, Tran, and art director Sunra Thompson about how "The Make-Believers" came together. It turned out that although it might sound like this is …