Terrible. Just terrible. The publication that turned me on to writing humor pieces is no more. Weekly World News is folding, this according to Reuters and other sources. Another story, discussing Weekly World News columnist Ed Anger is in the New York Times. The Weekly World News website, I've heard from Robert Greenberger who works for WWN, "will continue, [though] none of us have been told how exactly it will continue."
The Washington Post has extensive coverage (thank you!) of WWN.
I started reading WWN in college. Of course, there's the stories about Bat Boy (which has inspired a much-loved off-Broadway musical), but there are so many other stories that touched something in me - my funny bone. Like the woman who died because her fur coat bit her to death. Like the ventriloquist who went into a coma - but his dummy continued to talk! Like belly button wormholes, redneck vampires attacking trailer parks, fat cats, three-legged ice skaters, Poodle Boy, exclusive pictures of Hell, the discovery of Jesus' sandals, cheese on the moon, and on and on and on and on.
I've been communicating with them the past year or so in regards to writing for them. I wrote several Weekly World News-esque stories for a local site, Seattle Raptor, which has also sadly gone the way of the dodo, and thought I'd be a good fit with WWN. They, happily, agreed though they already had a strong stable of writers and couldn't get me on board. That's too bad because that would have been great to be a part of a publication that molded me as a writer. I kid not. Weekly World News helped shape my writing career and I'll be sorry to see it go. Who will pick up the mantle and continue to write about the stories that matter? And what of Bat Boy? Who will tell his story now?
1 comment:
Seattle Raptor is gone? Oh NOOOOO!
Hearing that the WWN shaped your writing make a lot of sense to me. Things are becoming clearer.
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