Most appalling from an editorial standpoint was when a color-coded map rolled off the press in several barely differentiated shades of gray. We reprinted it last week and it turned out fine, but color got sucked out of a different section of the paper: "Gift Wrap," the advertising supplement.
Consequently, the person who wrote the highly entertaining text (when's the last time you could say that about advertorial copy?) didn't get proper credit; her byline was supposed to be in color, as was a whole paragraph of type, but it came out a very faint gray.
The author was Renée Downing, who is also filling in for film critic James DiGiovanna while he takes a few weeks to finish his dissertation. In the mid 1990s I hired Renée to take over as film critic during the last glory days of the Arizona Daily Star. She's kept a low profile since she quit the Star a couple of years ago, but I've seduced her back into the profession with the sleazy offer of a few movie- and book-review gigs. (She now sometimes addresses me as "Mr. Svengali, Sir.")
Now, if we could just be sure that the only colorful thing about the Weekly weren't the writing...
