shipofthesun: unfortunatly, no. the cover of "Two Virgins" sealed the deal.

Actually some of us are still out on that paticular question...

Holy crap that N.G. womans eyebrows go all the way up her forehead.

that's one hell of a fake job, then.

shipofthesun

and as a side note, Lennon would be horrified at his diefication.

So would Jesus.

2005-10-18 01:30:48 AM Gavino


I liked John Lennon before he sold out.

/heheh. hahaha.


There was a time when he hadn't?

Oh, wait... nevermind.

-Sorry, couldn't resist...

No Such User:

Need any help? I love going through old junk. Especially if there's books and mags.

I asked my husband and his immediate response was "The Rolling Stone Cover with Jennifer Aniston's ass on it." #1. Of all time. Nice.

There is a big difference between "the best photo of all time" and "the best magazine cover of all time." Magazine covers, especially mags like RollingStone, rely on having some current cultural significance for that particular issue, and that particular week.

I hate the naked Lennon/Ono photo. It borders on repulsive. But, I cannot deny that it was a great magazine cover. I read somewhere (probably in RollingStone) that Liebowitz wanted them both naked, but Yoko wouldn't go for it. So, John got naked, and Yoko didn't.

It probably would not have been a great magazine cover if Lennon hadn't died that day.

2005-10-18 01:18:40 AM No Such User

I had one or two copies of almost every NG between the 1940's and 2002, including the bound versions and indexes, and a few older ones. I took up a large part of the basement, well one room anyway. 8' x 10' x 6' deep.

I left most of them behind when I moved.

Queensowntalia: Well, the problem with "greatest" is thats highly subjective. It certainly doesnt merely mean most visually stunning.


And it certainly doesn't merely mean most "culturally significant".

Still don't know how you turned "greatest" into "culturally significant".

/Another vote for the Afghan girl.

I am going to Afghanistan next year and my friend and I will go find Sharbat Gula. Stay tuned.

Sharbat Gula means nectar of flower.

the Afgan girl is the most striking image i've ever seen on a magazine cover ever. i would like to think it was taken in the spur of the moment - that it wasn't posed at all.

I agree with the Afghan girl photo. I was in the Middle East when that photo was taken and saw a lot of the Afghan hill refugees that were fleeing the Russians. Those people are tough as cat 5 nails. I wondered then how many Americans could walk barefoot for 200 miles through freezing temps and mountain terrain carrying a child and everything you own on your back with helicopters shooting at you.

gameshowhost: WTF happened to her nose? It was so cute and buttony.

Look again. Her nose isn't cute and buttony. The angle of the photo makes it look like that. Noses and ears continue to grow throughout your life, so if you have a big nose now, it's going to get even bigger.

Get over it you worthless pukes.


Lennon would kick your panzy asses.

Thanks, Chariset!

fapfapfapfapfapfap...

An-Unnecessarily-Long-Name:
HLTG Hes right, the beatles are the single most overated band ever. Had they surived much longer they would have been as valid as oasis.

No. Just... no.

Their popularity and influence on music and pop culture through the period of time they were around is really beyond incredible. And they did survive; the band's greatest hits albums that were released a few years back topped the charts AGAIN 30 years after the band was "valid".

McCartney and Lennon both went on to have successful solo careers after the band broke up. Even Ringo, who didn't have the same success as those two afterward, is immediately recognizable to generations of people who were born long after the band was "valid".

I like their music, but it's not my favorite. I like Lennon's solo stuff better, personally. But the influence and popularity they had on (most of our) parents' generation is incomparable to anything that has come since; that's not hard to recognize, appreciate, or acknowledge.

And I'll agree with their cover choice. The afghani girl is an amazing picture, but as a cover the Lennon one and what was happening around the time when it released really made it legendary. I thought everyone had seen it and knew it until reading Fark, actually. I still remember when it came out and I was something like five years old at the time.

JANET JACKSON BOOB HANDS PICTURE STAT

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Band????

Black Crowes???

I call shenanigans!!!

I've got to agree that Afghan Girl is one of the best photographs ever taken, and should win this contest handily. Though the Lennon photo is certainly excellent.

Ohhhhh, magazines!

My bad.

/just RTFA

Any designer worth his salt knows Afghan Girl is teh awesome while that Lennon/Oko crap is... well, CRAP. CRAP ON A CRAPPY CRAP CRACKER.

Who the fark votes for this shiat to win awards? Oh, right, crappy middle-aged artists and the idiot advertisers who support them.

gameshowhost: I've *never* seen a person's nose become *less* broad through age.

It happens all the time. If you look carefully (which is difficult to do without being hypnotized by her eyes) her nose has a distinct bump below the bridge, which became larger as she aged. Plus, people's faces tend to sort of grow into their noses. I'm not expressing that correctly. If your face looks like it has a big nose when you are an adolescent, your face will probably not look like it has a big nose when you get older.

I like both for different reasons (Lennon/Ono and Afghan girl).



I like this one too.

As much as I appreciate the cultural signifigance of the Rolling Stone and National Geographic covers, my personal fav would have to be Wired's Sept 2003 cover.

FirstNationalBastard: And Lennon probably wouldn't be as fondly remembered... no, as deified as he is today if he hadn't been killed.

I agree. I am not a Beatles fan. I do not like their music.

Luike half the posters, I'm going with Afghan girl over some stupid Rolling Stone cover.

Luike I said before, it isn't the quality of the photo which counts, it's its use on a magazine cover which makes a particular photo important. I believe the Afghan girl photo is amazing. I also believe the naked Lennon photo isn't that good. I hate it. But, judging between magazine covers, the Lennon photo beats the Afghan girl photo as an apropos magazine cover.

gameshowhost: I'll just whack it to the Girl pic.

Whack it to Disposable Rob's Wired cover post.

After you do that, look at her nose.

back in my kidhood, National Lampoon was the king of covers, and Esquire was amazing too. Now all magazines are more likely to have an airbrushed starlet on the cover than anything else. Vanity Fair is a good example.

Yet another vote for the Afghan Girl.

/I do like Lennon, though boomer nostalgia chasers are the worst people on earth

Wow, Fark's had a lot of Beatle-bashin' threads the last few days.

It might be interesting to hear an anti-Beatle point of view if it sounded like the one giving it had even half a clue what they were talking about. Most of the "they suck" dudes sounds like they haven't heard the music.

"They suck" ... "they're overrated" .. "not as relevant as (insert Oasis-style group who were like famous for an album-and-a-half)..."

If you're going to bother being negative, can't you at least back it up with something besides "oh, I don't like them, therefore their 40-year legacy means nothing..."?

C'mon ... show the "Baby-boomers" (as if they're the only ones who find the Beatles impressive) how they're so misguided ... you can't do it, but it'd be vaguely amusing to see you try ...

I like these two, in combination:

gberkeley

Yeah I think we can tell that you're using an Apple. Fetch boy, fetch! Get the shiny thing!

/that ought to keep the mac users entertained for a few hours
//add a few more during which they'll piss off everybody whose taste isn't measured in overpriced tacky consumer items with their evangelistic ravings about how it is the epitome of art and design

One more vote for the Afghan girl.

Beatles = Overrated.
Influential != Good.

btw the supposed excellence of that Afghan girl photo is just a boring meme. Find something better than a half-boy/half-girl with weird eyes who looks like she/he/it is on drugs.

I bet none of you even knew of the existence of the photo until reading the article describing the photo as excellent and the subsequent search to find the girl again. Doesn't lend credibility.

> [i]I bet none of you even knew of the existence of the photo until reading the article describing the photo as excellent and the subsequent search to find the girl again. Doesn't lend credibility.[/i]

I did; I have a copy of the magazine on my shelf and I distinctly remember being struck by the image the first time I saw it. Think about it; if nobody found the image striking, why would there even be a fuss over it, culminating in a subsequent search to find her again?

You may be right that the image isn't as noteworthy as it is widely held to be, but I think you've wrongly gone to the extreme in that direction.

Find something better than a half-boy/half-girl with weird eyes who looks like she/he/it is on drugs.



Damn...

If that really is the "after" pic of the Afgan girl, she hasn't aged well. (She looks about 16 years old in 1985. If that is her in 2002 making about 32 years old, she looks about 50).

Yes, it's real, but it looks like they didn't give the photo as much attention in the darkroom; the saturation is not as intense - the washed-out colours at least contribute partly to the perception of age.

god tough choice. I cant decide. Both are brilliant. I recall National Geographic sending that out as thier free, promotional issue. I also agree with the above post stating that I'd like to believe it was spur of moment shot, not staged. Afghan girl says to me, "get out of my world, you dont belong here. You have no idea what real life is like." And its chilling and humbling. I wish she could stay young forever. In that one moment, she seems to have life figured out.
/wow.
//ppl need to listen to more beatles.