Opium Magazine

Opium Magazine is a literary humor publication that boasts delightful design alongside its wide-ranging content. The website has been updated daily since its debut in 2001, and the print magazine, designed by David Barringer, has been published semi-annually since August 2005. Featured artists include Etgar Keret, Aimee Bender, Chuck Close, Jack Handey, Vik Muniz, Neil Labute, Daniel Handler, Art Spiegelman and more.

Opium’s Literary Death Match is a competitive, humor-centric reading series that features four readers (who represent print and online literary concerns) in an edge-of-your-seat read-off, all critiqued by three all-star judges. Regularly produced in New York City and San Francisco (and being pitched as a TV show), each live event marries the literary and performative aspects of Def Poetry Jam, the rapier-witted quips of American Idol’s judging (without the
meanness), and the ridiculousness and hilarity of Double Dare.