Is it real? Or is is the news?
I’m not usually a fan of shlock tabloids. I have friends who were very excited about Batboy: The Musical, based upon the popular reoccurring character in the Weekly World News, and young-adult librarians have considered putting tabloids in periodical sections as an “lite” option for reluctant readers. However, in my opinion, The National Enquirer, The Globe, and the like are filled with disturbing levels of invasion into the lives of celebrities and as well as content that is borderline repellant in its overt titilation.
So it is with some degree of surprise that I found the cover this the current edition of the Weekly World News to be incredibly inventive. The “Or the kitten DIES!” idea is a classic National Lampoon joke, but the graphic is well-done in the traditional part-drawing, part-manipulated-photo manner. The (partially obscured) headline about SPAM is hilarious, and I’d never really noticed the banner motto before. It’s all quite self-aware. Perhaps it really could be used by librarians in media literacy curriculum.
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