that Benton rushed into print. Milton Glaser recalls that “Benton was
inventive and funny, and gave a very special stamp to the magazine during
his period. It differed from Henry’s Esquirenot in terms of design but on
the literary side. He had great ideas for stories that he and [writer] David
Newman [later his movie collaborator] were always generating. To a large
extent they formed the backbone of Esquire’s character at that time.”
Benton and Newman’s most lasting contribution was Esquire’s “Dubious
Achievement Awards.” Each year the “Dubies” laid waste pompous,
hypercritical, and scandalous public figures with biting wit and needle-
sharp truth, sometimes just bordering on libel.
Around 1963 Harold Hayes won the hard fought editorship of
Esquire. About the same time Benton left to begin his movie career. David
November was brought in as graphics editor to, as one observer puts it, “do
the mechanicals for Harold.” In practice, Hayes, a rather astute editor, was
doing the art direction—and doing it poorly. The magazine was beginning
one of its slides when Sam Antupit (b. 1932 ) was introduced to Hayes.
Antupit had previously been Wolf ’s assistant at Harper’s Bazaar and Show,
and was working at Push Pin Studios when outgoing editor Clay Felker,
whom he knew casually, asked if he would like to be art director of Esquire.
Antupit took the job with the proviso that he have full control of the visual
content of Esquire. The only caveat to which Antupit did not object was
that George Lois (b. 1931 )—whose agency Papert Koneig Lois was doing
innovative advertising at the time—would conceive and design the covers.
“It didn’t bother me,” admitted Antupit “because there was so much to do
anyway. And Harold made a really good political point:...every editor felt
that his or her articles were the best in the magazine and that they should
be featured on the cover. Hayes said that it was up to him to decide which
was the most important and not anybody else. But he couldn’t do that
without alienating his editors. So here was the perfect thing. An outsider
read all the manuscripts and picked the one he wanted to illustrate on the
cover. Sometimes he didn’t pick Harold’s lead. The Andy Warhol soup can
thing was not the main featured article, but it was one of the best covers
George ever did.”
George Lois’s Esquirecovers produced from 1962 to 1971 are icons
of graphic art, publishing, and American history. Many collaborations with
photographer Carl Fischer took an average of three days to produce and are
considered among the most memorable propaganda imagery in any
medium. Harnessing the technique of photo manipulation, Lois and
Fischer’s covers equal the acerbity and acuity of pioneer German
photomontagist John Heartfield. The trenchant coverlines were written by
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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