About this project

Looking Glass Magazine is the world's first journal of Gonzo Anthropology. This jaw-droppingly illustrated quarterly is printed on high quality paper with a perfect spine, and is, itself, a collectible art object.

In some ways, it's a magazine about everything, but it focuses on the other side of the mirror: the occult history of musical genres; the secret fringe of human sexuality; the hidden, the unusual, and the under-researched. Our mission is to publish the most highly creative non-fiction in the world. We feature sections on the anthropology of literature, science, film, comics, music, food, fashion, art, video games, and sports.

The magazine also contains new fiction from established and emerging writers--and we pay SFWA rates, making us an important forum for professional talent in a world where such platforms are vanishing.

Each issue of Looking Glass contains supplements for Cyberpumpkin: The Royal Game of Bloodthirsty Fashionistas, a Magic: The Gathering-style, combat oriented collectible card game where the latest and wildest fashions are given special powers and set against each other in an
imaginary death-match called The Ball.

In addition to articles, we have featured and will feature mind-expanding interviews with cutting edge artists and legendary icons, like Lars von Trier, Clive Barker, Samuel R. Delany, MGMT, Coco Rocha, Tori Amos, comics geniuses Alex Ross, Grant Morrison, and Gail Simone, among many, many others. Every bit as exciting as that, though, are the anthropologists to whom we introduce our readers. Looking Glass celebrates anthropology, journalism's smarter, older, and more fabulous cousin. Robin Derby, for example, studies tales of werewolves and other shape shifters in the
Dominican Republic, and is a storehouse of weird and wonderful stories not published anywhere, while G. William Domhoff is the foremost theorist in the study of dreams. They share their knowledge with us, as does Oran Z, the curator of a museum of African-American cryptohistory, and Mary Cappello, an anthropologist of... awkwardness. (She knows how heavy silences contain creative power, and how awkward moments can be used to increase the elasticity of the mind).

Looking Glass brings the most fascinating people in the field of anthropology together in a lively, brilliant, and jargon-free discussion.

Looking Glass can turn any traveler or tourist into an anthropologist, and gives its readers the keys to deepen their experience of travel in ways they didn't even know were possible. But we need help getting this phase of our publication underway, and making sure we can run on our own while providing this content at an affordable cost. We're looking for enough capital to run for a year, keeping our standards of quality high. We operate with little to no overhead, and for many of us, it's a labor of love. Every cent we're asking for goes into making the product spectacular, and making sure our readers experience unheard of returns on their investment of time and money.

With the help of the Kickstarter community we can create an amazing product and build a dynamic rapport with our readership. We want to continue to maintain this laboratory of innovation in non-fiction. With your help, we can!