Bloody X to mark Osama in Time magazine special issue

Hitler, Sadaam Hussein, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, now Osama bin Laden. Time magazine's cover for only the fourth time in its 88-year history will put a bloody, red "X" across the face of the dead al Qaeda leader in its special May 20 issue out on newsstands on May 16. This, according to minonline. 

Time magazine archives available back to 1923

Time magazine now has opened up its archives going back to 1923; you can find covers and stories for every issue in fully searchable form. The links are so sophisticated that you can follow a story week to week. (The cover shown is from 1978).

Time's new look, looks familiar, says Maclean's:

In the note from the editors, Maclean's suggests this week that the much ballyhooed redesign of Time magazine looks an awful lot like Maclean's own redesign of November 2005.

In concert with Maclean's centenary in November 2005, we waved goodbye to news rehashes, and cut back on lifestyle and service journalism. We committed ourselves to forward-looking coverage of news and current affairs. Our national, world, and business sections expanded. We strengthened the magazine's own voice with weekly editorials and consistently witty and provocative covers. We introduced a bevy of compelling new columnists, including Mark Steyn and Scott Feschuk. We also redesigned our inside pages, limiting the size of pictures and headlines in order to increase the total amount of reading material in every issue (we now offer 50 per cent more text and twice as many stories each week). And we set aside our rainbows of coloured type to concentrate on traditional news colours: black, white, red and yellow.

Lo and behold, says Maclean's, the redesign of Time came out a couple of weeks ago and

Its editor claims a renewed emphasis on news and current affairs. He introduces new columnists and promises more point of view. The new design allows for more text, smaller pictures and headlines. It features black, white, red, yellow type. There are boxes at the top of the cover with headlines and pictures. There are more (efforts at) humour and a (mildly) edgier tone overall. The magazine has also changed its weekly date of publication from Monday to Thursday [Maclean's had already changed from a Monday to a Thursday pub date.]

Time wrote a special feature on all the deep, original thinking and high-priced design expertise that contributed to its new look. We have to admit, our first impulse was to call foul. Then we remembered we kind of owe Time for all the years we followed its lead. It also occurred to us that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So, after all that, we've simply decided to blush.

[We were tipped to this item by an item in a blog published by Foreign Policy magazine.]