TIMOTHY McSWEENEY’S ULTIMATE COMBO SUBSCRIPTION

Giving this combo subscription as a gift? Click here to download an official printable PDF gift notice.

This is the combo subscription for McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, McSweeney’s New Release Subscription, and Illustoria magazine. To subscribe to any of these on their own, or for multiple variations thereof, click here.

“There are few examples in publishing that equal the care and inventiveness McSweeney’s offers their readers—the industry at large should take note.”
—Bookends and Beginnings, Evanston, IL

As we look ever onwards—galloping toward the future—we’ve put together our most ambitious combo subscription yet. Our Ultimate Combo Subscription is practically guaranteed to satisfy every reader in your life, young and old. In one fell swoop, you’ll get: four issues of our multi-award-winning McSweeney’s Quarterly, three issues of Illustoria, the beloved magazine for younger readers, AND the next six non-children’s titles published by McSweeney’s Publishing. What more could you ask for? Let us know and maybe we’ll figure out how to include that next time. In the meantime, we’d like to think this ludicrously good deal will tide you over.

Take a look at what you’ll have coming your way:

Illustoria #25: Comics
Get ready to get sequential as we present our first-ever all-comics issue, featuring seventy-two pages entirely dedicated to the comic artform!

In our twenty-fifth issue, we dip into the immersive world of panel-format storytelling and all the world-building, character-developing, plot-twisting details. Check out interviews with our cover artist, Jillian Tamaki, and other series artists who share how they get ideas (and keep getting ideas) over time. Discover wordless comics, DIY comics, and autobiographical comics about real life. Feeling brave? Gather friends and try performing your own comic. Find all this and much more as you tear through this unforgettable unputdownable issue panel-by-panel.

Rosamond Lehmann in Vegas by Nick Hornby
A collection of riotously entertaining columns, written for The Believer magazine during its years in the desert.

In this new anthology of his columns for The Believer, Nick Hornby delves into the latest escapades from his reading life. Spanning the magazine’s Las Vegas era, these consistently hilarious dispatches touch on numerous subjects, including epic cattle drives, chess prodigies, and Arsenal’s 1976 thrashing of West Ham. From his tub-side lectern, Hornby catalogs everything he reads—the good, the great, and the could-not-finish—with the characteristic wit and charm that has made his column so widely beloved. Whether writing about heartbreak or quantum physics, Hornby offers surprising insights, and proves himself, once again, as one of our greatest living cultural critics.

Featuring an introduction by Claire Dederer.

McSweeney’s 75: First Fiction
In a June 2023 submission call for new work by never-before-published writers, McSweeney’s received thousands of submissions in a single month. The stories in this issue (our seventy-fifth, an almost unfathomable milestone) are the crème de la crème of that bounty.

Guest-edited by longtime McSweeney’s editor Eli Horowitz, our seventy-fifth issue contains ten radiant stories, each published as an individual booklet with stunning art by ten different artists. All ten booklets are collected inside a beautiful and sturdy and elaborately foil-stamped dossier-like case, which opens (rather extravagantly) to reveal a series of accordion pockets—each one containing a pair of booklets—and snaps shut (rather satisfyingly) with a magnetic closure. In these brilliant literary debuts there are fish guts, meteor hunters, military coups, ghost towns, and fake orphans. The stories, whose authors and settings span continents, dazzle in their originality of vision and voice. They announce themselves with bravado, excellence, and energy. In his introduction to the issue, Horowitz writes, “I’m not sure what set of circumstances allowed these wizards to escape previous publication—youth? shyness? vast conspiracies?—but the wait is over: they have arrived.” Get this issue for eternal bragging rights of being present at the ground floor of each of these ten writers’ sure-to-be-storied futures.

Penalties of June by John Brandon
The millennium is drawing to a close. Pratt, a young Floridian who’s just finished a prison sentence he both did and didn’t deserve, is looking to start a new life. But will he be able to shake his shady past?

Brimming with tension, action, wry dialogue, and unexpected pathos, Penalties of June is John Brandon’s sixth book published by McSweeney’s. With his distinct feel for the underbelly of his home state of Florida, Brandon takes readers into the forbidding corners of the Tampa Bay area—unsavory motels, secondhand shops, no-frills diners, and dubious used-car lots. Pratt navigates crime bosses and drug dealers on a perilous mission, his steed a trusty (if creaky) Chrysler LeBaron. Faced with an impossible choice, and the prospect of finally finding love after years behind bars, Pratt risks it all for a chance at making things right.

IMPORTANT LOGISTICAL INFORMATION: This is a one time combo price, all subscriptions to McSweeney’s Quarterly automatically renew after four issues, at 15% off the price of a regular sub (currently $80.75), while the McSweeney’s New Release Subscriptions renew after six issues at a price of $95, and Illustoria after three issues at a price of $40. In the event of any future rate changes, we will notify you via email. If you’d like to cancel any of the three subscription at any time prior to its auto-renewal, you can log in to your account and adjust your subscription settings. Or send an email to custservice@mcsweeneys.net with the subject lines “End Quarterly Renew,” “End New Release Renew,” “End Illustoria Renew,” or “End Ultimate Renew” depending on your desires. All subscriptions placed by November 15, 2024 will begin with Illustoria #25: Comics, McSweeney’s Issue 75, and Rosamond Lehmann in Vegas. Refunds will be accepted only up until the first issue of your renewal is shipped. If you’d like to give the Quarterly Concern as a one-time gift, purchase a gift subscription here. Any subscription purchased with the “gift” option marked at checkout will not be enrolled in autorenew.

International shipping costs for the full thirteen-publication combo subscription: $90