We've noticed during the pandemic that a lot of people are pining for print.
With news about some newspapers and magazines in hibernation or termination in these times of plague and economic troubles, people have been craving the printed page.
They're sick of clickbait, bored of social media and puzzled by distracted and dazed youngsters lost down the digital rabbit hole.
You can't see the virus or the future [que sera sera], but you can see the printed page. Make sense? That's how we're reading the situation anyhow - from a printed newspaper, of course.
And let's not forget the magazines.
Lara Lupish has been wrestling with this very issue. To be more precise, she's been wrestling with the winter issue of the Newcastle-based Facon magazine.
"We were halfway through shooting the winter issue when it all went down [the pandemic]," said Lara, the magazine's editor-in-chief.
As COVID-19 restrictions hit, Lara had to make the call to publish the winter issue as a digital edition.
She is, however, optimistic that the magazine will return to print in future.
"I'm a print fiend," she said.
"I love going to the newsagent and buying magazines. I just think it's sexy to buy a magazine."
She believes in the "romance of page-turning".
"I'll often go to the newsagent and pick up four different titles and - depending on the time of day - have a coffee, glass of wine or champagne with it," she said.
The digital edition of Facon, published on the Issuu platform, will be a page-turning product.
"It was important for me to make sure we picked a platform where you could still actually turn the pages digitally," she said.
The free winter issue - the "Back To Origins" edition - will be released on Thursday.
Knights in the shadows
Reader Tim notes a couple of striking absences in the photos of Newcastle Knights players and coaches on the club's website.
"Unless they're particularly camera-shy, it seems odd that assistant coaches David Furner and Willie Peters aren't photographed alongside head coach Adam O'Brien."
The spaces where the photos should go are filled with vacant black shadows.
"Furner, especially, was one of the best forwards in the game in the '90s, playing Origin for NSW and a Test for Australia," Tim said.
"Peters was a more-than-handy first grader too, amassing more than 100 games with several clubs including South Sydney and St George-Illawarra."
Topics wonders if Andrew Johns could go incognito in one of his many assistant roles. For superstitious reasons, we reckon the black shadows should remain at least until the Knights lose a game.
The Name Game
Newcastle West's Greg Hunt asks readers whether the Knights "have the most exotically named backline in NRL history".
"How about Kalyn, Edrick, Bradman, Enari and Hymel. Throw in others like Tex, Gehamat, Tautau and Starford and it's a far cry from 20 years ago when we had bland names like Robbie, Darren, Adam, Mark, Matthew and Andrew."
Non-Viral Joke
Who was the last Knight of the Round Table? Sir Cumference.
- topics@newcastleherald.com.au
