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Spy magazine is to the media set what Sassy is to twentysomething girls: everybody loooves it and reminisces about how good it was even though those days are dead and gone. It was pretty great, although you can barely kick a dog without hearing about it. Now Folio asks, what about Wigwag mag? It launched around the time Spy did, but isn't nearly as well-remembered. Why not, certain media geeks want to know? (It could be noted that these influential magazines, appealing to a fairly small, elite circle, were both financially inviable).

There are lots of reasons for this. Spy was the louder and brasher magazine-it cheerfully went about making enemies among New York's rich and powerful. Spy's editorial and design influences were more varied and harder to pin down than Wig Wag's (which was clearly directly influenced by the New Yorker where the editor and many of the staff had worked). And, Wig Wag's post-modern pages have not aged nearly so well as Spy's. The specific visual language Spy pioneered live on in dozens of magazines including New York, Vanity Fair and Radar. Wig Wag's impact is not seen in a few easily identified tropes such as Spy's disembodied floating heads. [Folio]

What were your defunct influential favorites, fellow media geeks?