Spy magazine was a satirical monthly founded in 1986 by Kurt Andersen and E. Graydon Carter, who served as its first editors, and Thomas L. Phillips, Jr., its first publisher. After one folding and rebirth, it closed for good in 1998.

Primarily a magazine of satirical journalism and humor, but also featuring some more serious investigative journalism, the New York-based Spy was modeled loosely on the British magazine Private Eye. It specialized in intelligent, thoroughly researched, highly irreverent pieces targeting the American media and entertainment industries. Some of its features attempted to present the darker side of celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger (printing a nude photo of him and a picture of his father's Nazi party membership card), John F. Kennedy, Jr., Martha Stewart, and especially the real-estate tycoon Donald Trump and his then-wife Ivana Trump. The mogul was repeatedly described as "short-fingered vulgarian Donald Trump," and such pejorative epithets became a Spy trademark. New York Times op-ed columnist A.M. Rosenthal became Abe "I'm Writing as Bad As I Can" Rosenthal, and his wife became "bosomy dirty-book writer Shirley Lord." Media mogul Laurence Tisch was invariably described as a "churlish dwarf billionaire." Spy 's popular features included "Separated At Birth?," an imitation of a Private Eye feature that printed side-by-side photographs of two different celebrities, and "Celebrity Math," which presented thumbnail headshots atop simple mathmatical models representing the components of celebrities (e.g. Fabio - Catherine Deneuve = Billy Ray Cyrus).

Despite its relatively short life, Spy was among the most influential of American magazines, chiefly for its detached and ironic tone, its use of quasi-scientific charts and tables to convey information, and its elaborate, classically influenced typography and layout. The magazine was also divisive: Many established journalists considered it abrasive and tawdry, whereas many younger ones felt it precisely reflected their worldview.

Spy briefly broke even in 1989, but was ultimately not successful as a business, particularly after a recession affected the U.S. economy beginning in the early 1990s. The founders sold the magazine to European buyers in 1991; several months later Carter left the magazine; Andersen departed 18 months later, replaced by Tony Hendra. The magazine briefly ceased publication in 1994, was revived soon after under new ownership, and finally went out of business in 1998. Its last editor was a recent Harvard graduate, Bruno Maddox.

Spy used lawyers to vet such potentially libelous material, but its stories often angered their prominent subjects, occasionally driving away advertisers.

In October 2006, Miramax Books will publish SPY: The Funny Years (ISBN 1401352391), a greatest-hits anthology and history of the magazine created and compiled by Carter, Andersen and one of their original editors, George Kalogerakis.

The magazine was named after the fictitious magazine which employed Jimmy Stewart's character, Macaulay "Mike" Connor, in the movie The Philadelphia Story.

Books

• Separated at Birth? (1988, ISBN 0385247443): A collection of photos from "Separated at Birth?"
• Spy Magazine Presents The Warhol Diaries Index (1989)
• Private Lives of Public Figures (Drew Friedman, cartoons from Spy, 1990)
• Spy Notes on McInerney's "Bright Lights, Big City/Janowitz's "Slaves of New York"/Ellis's "Less Than Zero" and All Those Other Hip Urban Novels of the 1980s (1989, ISBN 0385247451): A Cliffs Notes-style look at the literature of the eighties
• Separated at Birth? 2: The Saga Continues (1990, ISBN 0385410999)
• Spy High (1992)

CDs

• Spy Magazine Presents: Spy Music (Vol I)
• Spy Magazine Presents: White Men Can't Wrap (Vol II)
• Spy Magazine Presents: Soft, Safe & Sanitized (Vol III)

External links

• "Ten Years Ago in Spy"

Defunct magazines | Satirical magazines of the United States