A new feature in the making at HTML Giant: behind the scenes of production at your favorite litmags and presses, how things are put together, what is done, who eats first, and in today’s case, how many erections were caused during prep?

Here’s some outtakes from the recent, amazing cover of New York Tyrant’s fifth issue, with some words on the shoot and the culmination of the innovative cover with editor GianCarlo DiTrapano:

Bears. Bears, bears, bears. I wanted the cover of Tyrant 5 to have to do with them. So, we got a bear-suit and met Barbara Nitke (a Project Runway photog) at the NYPL. She took many shots there, on the steps there at the library. The original plan for the cover: Chris, bear-suit, NYPL. (Not sure why exactly those three things though.) Barbara was kind enough to do the shoot for free, but on the condition that Chris (the bear) would come back to her studio and sit for a portrait after we were done. She was kind enough to invite me along. “Bring the bear-suit!” Ten minutes later we were back at her studio. My clothes were on the floor and all I had on was the bear-head and my underwear.

The pig mask: Maybe kind of stupid. I saw it where we rented the bear-suit and it looked like how I felt I should look sometimes, if my outsides matched my insides. Someone later mentioned The Shining, but I swear I never even thought of that. There were many shots from the library, and there were many shots from the studio. Between the NYPL and the erotic studio shots, we relegated the literary for the porn-ish. Erik Blair did the lay-out, chose that sweet 80s metal font. Erik is a magic cover maker.

I feel like I might owe an apology to all bear-enthusiasts that bought the mag on spec, thinking there was bear porn inside. I hope they like what they found inside instead. There are definitely some stories you could masturbate to if you concentrate hard enough.

Is it selling out to put a famous person on your lit mag cover to help it sell? Of course it is.  But these bitches have been selling like hotcakes so I have ceased to care.

One last thing: My belly-button wasn’t always ugly like that. I used to have a total innie. It herniated one night in Rome, at the age of 21, after over-indulging in food and wine and sex. How Roman. (Obviously, I have huge self-esteem issues to have to explain that fact.)

www.chrismarchdesign.com

www.barbaranitke.com

erik@kevinconceptual.com

To check out the final cover, buy the issue (which includes work by Gordon Lish, Sam Michel, Eugene Marten, Jon Haskell, Eva Talmadge, and about 20 other loons, or to submit work for perusal and distribution to the bear community, check out New York Tyrant online.