The Stranger is taking a break for the holidays, but the Internet never rests, so we’re re-running some of our favorite stories from our 25th Anniversary Issue. Enjoy and see you in 2017!
Ellen Forney’s first Stranger cover was also her first big break. It was 1993.
Using a brush on thick bristol paper, she painted a portrait of relaxation, liberation, and cool: two friends chilling and smoking in the bubble bath next to the cat licking its butt.
Carefully, she carried the painting to the upstairs of the Wallingford house acting as the “office” of the paper. Gingerly, she handed her fragile, proud creation to James Sturm, now an acclaimed artist whose work adorns the New Yorker, who was then the first art director of the paper.
Making fun, he bobbled her art from hand to hand, joking that he would drop it. Except then he did drop it. And on its way down, trying to get it, he accidentally kicked it.
It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
Forney, as well as countless other artists, has commandeered the cover of The Stranger many times. Every week, The Stranger picks a work of art. The Stranger puts that work of art on 66,500 pieces of paper and distributes those papers to 2,100 locations—to every corner, counter, and cafe in the city.
