Suffocating readers with The Paper
When the first issue of The Paper was published in 2023 I wrote a review that said, “I love it, but I’ve had it in the office for a few weeks now, and I’m still trying to figure out what exactly it is, and why I like it so much.”
Two years later and the second issue has emerged out of the Welsh ooze, so this time I jumped at the opportunity of speaking with editors Erin Mathias, Oliver Gabe, and Owen Davies, to find out what it’s all about. And the answer is… lots of things.
First of all there are the contrasts. “Really depressing things or really boring things can be really funny,” Erin said at the start of our conversation, and all three of them kept returning to the idea. They spoke about undercutting themselves, setting something up so they could knock it down, and using humour as a way of drawing readers in, while something deeper and darker lurks beneath the surface.
They also spoke about their contributors, and how the magazine started with their friends. They knew that their friends were all excellent storytellers, and they wanted to create something that could share the fun they were having with a wider audience. They also spoke about the heyday of Welsh Twitter, and the desire to preserve some of its best humour in a format that could be archived and kept forever.
They put out an open call for the second issue, which brought new writers and contributors, and in the process of making the first one they also met lots of people who they wanted to include in the second. But that same sense of fun and friendship runs through issue two, which I think is testament to the way that they all work together, making a magazine that’s totally unlike any other.
And finally, Ol in particular spoke about designing the magazine, and the overwhelming reading experience that he creates by filling every inch of space on the page: “It doesn’t feel right that you get one perfect piece, and then the next one and the next one, so they all kind of jumble into each other… Maybe if you don’t give people chance to stop they’ll just keep going until they’ve had enough.”
I realised while we were speaking that it’s difficult to talk about funny things and make them sound funny, so if this conversation leaves you in any doubt you’ll just have to trust me. The Paper is genuinely really funny – go buy a copy and you’ll see for yourself. But also, the magazine is less about individual standout pieces of writing, and more about the overall effect that comes from loads of funny, weird, dark stuff being crammed together on its massive pages, overwhelming the reader and carrying them off into its own world.
I’m an even bigger fan of the magazine now than I was before we spoke, so I hope you’ll enjoy this conversation with the three of them. I’m going to be taking a break from the podcast over the summer, but it will be back again in September, so make sure you follow us on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts, and we’ll be able to deliver our next episode to you as soon as it’s ready.
