The A.V. Club
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| Type | Alt-Weekly Entertainment Newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Paper (included with The Onion) and Internet |
| Owner | The Onion, Inc. |
| Founded | Mid-90s (see History) |
| Official website | www.avclub.com |
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. It features reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its parent publication, The A.V. Club is not satirical, though much of its content maintains a similarly humorous tone.
The A.V. Club print edition is bundled with The Onion and distributed as a free publication in Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Madison, Milwaukee, New York City, Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Columbus, Denver/Boulder, Austin, Washington, D.C., Ann Arbor, Providence, and Toronto, Canada.[1]
The A.V. Club is based in Chicago.[2]
Contents |
History [edit]
In 1993, five years after the founding of The Onion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, UW student Stephen Thompson launched an entertainment section, later renamed The A.V. Club as part of the newspaper's 1995 redesign. (The name references "The Audio-Visual Club"). While the section was initially viewed as an afterthought to the publication's flagship fake news stories, Thompson credited it as becoming "very important" in allowing The Onion to expand distribution nationwide, as it was easier to sell advertising next to movie reviews and concert listings than satirical news items.
Both The Onion and The A.V. Club made their Internet debut in 1996, although not all print features were immediately available online. The A.V. Club website was redesigned in 2005 to incorporate blogs and reader comments. In 2006, concurrent with another redesign, the site shifted its model to begin adding content on a daily rather than weekly basis.
According to then Onion president Sean Mills, the A.V. Club website received over one million unique visitors for the first time in October 2007.[3] In late 2009, the site was reported as receiving over 1.4 million unique visitors and 75,000 comments per month.[2]
In December 2004, Stephen Thompson left his position as founding editor of The A.V. Club.[4]
On December 9, 2010, it was discovered that a capsule review for the book Genius, Isolated: The Life And Art Of Alex Toth had been fabricated; the book had not yet been published or even completed by the authors.[5] The offending review was removed from The A.V. Club, and editor Keith Phipps posted an apology on the site.[6]
On December 13, 2012, long-time writer & editor Keith Phipps—who oversaw the development of the site for eight years after Stephen Thompson left—stepped down from his role as editor of The A.V. Club stating, "Onion Inc. and I have come to a mutual parting of the ways."[7][8][9]
On April 2, 2013, longtime film editor and critic Scott Tobias stepped down from his role as film editor of The A.V. Club stating, "After 15 great years @theavclub, I step down as Film Editor next Friday."[7]
On April 26, 2013, it was announced that longtime writers Nathan Rabin, Tasha Robinson and Genevieve Koski would also be leaving the site to begin work on a new project alongside Scott Tobias and Keith Phipps,[10] with Genevieve Koski stating on her Twitter that she'd continue to write freelance articles.[11] In the comments section of the article announcing the departures, writer Noel Murray also announced he would also be joining their project but would continue to contribute to The A.V. Club in a reduced capacity.[10] While unconfirmed, speculation in the Chicago media world points to Pitchfork Media launching a new film-based venture called Pitchfilm with former A.V. Club writers presumably joining the staff.[12]
Regular features [edit]
- A.V. Club Crossword, edited by Ben Tausig
- A.V. Undercover, a video series featuring bands covering songs in the A.V. Club office.
- Comics Panel, monthly (formally bi-weekly) reviews of comic books.
- Commentary Tracks of the Damned, a feature reviewing DVD audio commentaries of universally panned films
- Films That Time Forgot, an examination of B movies
- Inventory, a list of examples from a pop culture-related theme, such as "15 True Comeback Albums" or "24 Great Films Too Painful To Watch Twice"
- My Favorite Music Year, a series where various writers try to answer the question: What year in music means the most to you?
- My World of Flops, reviews of box-office, television, and literary bombs by Nathan Rabin
- Newswire, blog-style reporting of pop culture news items
- Podmass, a review of podcasts from the past week; published every Friday
- Pop Pilgrims, Dan Telfer and Brian Berrebbi's video series of their travels to famous film, TV, and literary locations.
- Random Roles, an interview focusing on several selected roles from an actor's career
- Random Rules, an interview asking a celebrity to account for random tracks on his or her personal MP3 player
- Red Meat, a syndicated comic strip by Max Cannon
- Savage Love, a syndicated sex advice column by Dan Savage
- Sawbuck Gamer, a column highlighting inexpensive games.
- Scenic Routes, Mike D'Angelo looks at key movie scenes, explaining their meaning and importance.
- Taste Test, reports and reviews of unusual foodstuffs
- The A.V. Club Blog, a more casual forum for the site's writers to share anecdotes and observations
- The Hater, a column by Amelie Gillette focusing on pop culture and celebrity news, and its offshoot The Tolerability Index. The Hater was put on hiatus in May 2010 as Gillette left The A.V. Club to become a writer for the TV series The Office, but The Tolerability Index is still published weekly.
- The New Cult Canon, a series by Scott Tobias examining movies from the '90s and the '00s that have attained cult status.
- Then That's What They Called Music, a series by Nathan Rabin chronicling pop music's evolution through the CD series Now That's What I Call Music!
- T.V. Club, episode-by-episode reviews of a wide variety of both current and classic TV shows
- Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation?, Steven Hyden's personal retrospective on alternative music in the 1990s.
The eight print editions of The A.V. Club include subsections containing local content such as event previews and dining guides. They also include additional comics such as Postage Stamp Comics by Shannon Wheeler and Wondermark by David Malki. Not all print editions include Savage Love and Red Meat, generally due to other syndication arrangements in those cities.
Books [edit]
In 2002, The A.V. Club released a collection of 68 interviews that had been featured in previous issues, entitled The Tenacity Of The Cockroach: Conversations With Entertainment's Most Enduring Outsiders (2002, ISBN 1-4000-4724-2).
On 13 October 2009, the second A.V. Club book, Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined by Saxophone, and 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop-Culture Lists (2009, ISBN 1-4165-9473-6) was released, featuring a combination of never-before-published lists and material already available on the AV Club website.
The A.V. Club released My Year of Flops: The A.V. Club Presents One Man's Journey Deep into the Heart of Cinematic Failure (2010, ISBN 1-4391-5312-4) on 19 October 2010. The book consists of entries taken from the site's recurring My Year of Flops column along with new material not previously available. It is A.V. Clubs first release credited to a single author, Nathan Rabin.
A.V. Club year-end lists [edit]
The A.V. Club began publishing website consensus year-end album and film lists beginning in 2006. Before that year (starting in 1999), only individual writers' lists were published. Lists for individual writers continue to be published alongside the website consensus list.
Album of the Year [edit]
| Year | Artist | Album | Nation | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | The Hold Steady | Boys and Girls in America |  United States |
[1] |
| 2007 | Arcade Fire | Neon Bible |  Canada |
[2] |
| 2008 | TV on the Radio | Dear Science | United States |
[3] |
| 2009 | Phoenix | Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix |  France |
[4] |
| 2010 | Kanye West | My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy | United States |
[5] |
| 2011 | Wye Oak | Civilian | United States |
[6] |
| 2012 | Frank Ocean | Channel Orange | United States |
[7] |
Film of the Year [edit]
| Year | Director | Film | Nation | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Alfonso Cuarón | Children of Men |  Mexico |
[8] |
| 2007 | Coen Brothers | No Country for Old Men | United States |
[9] |
| 2008 | Andrew Stanton | WALL-E | United States |
[10] |
| 2009 | Kathryn Bigelow | The Hurt Locker | United States |
[11] |
| 2010 | Debra Granik | Winter's Bone | United States |
[12] |
| 2011 | Terrence Malick | The Tree of Life | United States |
[13] |
| 2012 | Paul Thomas Anderson | The Master | United States |
[14] |
References [edit]
- ^ "About The A.V. Club". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 25 October 2011..
- ^ a b Steve Johnson (27 October 2009). "Onion’s A.V. Club is building up its brand". The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2010-03-14.
- ^ David Shankbone (24 November 2007). "An interview with 'America's Finest News Source'", Wikinews
- ^ NPR Bio for Stephen Thompson, Editor, NPR Music
- ^ "The Most Amazing Review of the Year". Comics Comics. Retrieved 9 December 2010.
- ^ "An apology from The A.V. Club". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 9 December 2010.
- ^ a b Goodybyes & Hellos Untitled Keith Phipps Project, December 13, 2012
- ^ Keith Phipps is no longer editor of The A.V. Club The A.V. Club, December 14, 2012
- ^ Editor Keith Phipps Leaves The A.V. Club Criticwire, December 13, 2012
- ^ a b An Update from the AV Club The AV Club April 26, 2013
- ^ @GenevieveKoski Twitter
- ^ Pitchfork starting movie website, Pitchfilm.com? Time Out Chicago April 26, 2013
External links [edit]
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