RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

184 | denis beckett
Tambo’s and Mbeki’s likenesses were not illegal; just risky,
risking a banning order or a charge of “furthering the aims of a
banned organisation”. Mandela’s likeness was illegal. He was in
jail, the law was clear.
Johann was jumpy about the law but jumpier about
interpreting almost-seventy-year-old Mandela from the few
images I could round up of Mandela pre-forty-five.
On the precision issue, I shrugged: give it a go, your guess is
as good as anyone’s.
On the legal issue, I mumbled that nobody knew this was
Mandela; it was an imaginary person standing up and speaking
to an imaginary parliament. Johann didn’t buy that, sensibly,
but he did say the job was “too interesting not to do”; good
man. He wouldn’t put his name to it, though, (one result is that
I forget his surname, with apology.)
Johann’s magnum opus was scheduled as the cover of the
July edition, 1986. Sad to say, July was abolished. ads bookings
amounted to eight pages. Was this the time for Frontline to say
Goodbye cruel World? Obviously not. Johann had to see the
light of day. With cap in hand, heart in mouth, pride in pocket, I
knocked on the door of 47 Sauer Street, The Star’s building and
the argus headquarters, to ask my old boss Jolyon Nuttall if he’d
care to buy Frontline. He didn’t. Frontline’s sole balance-sheet
“value” was, ignominiously, its assessed tax loss. Jolyon was not
about to pay Frontline’s bills, but he did, with a magnanimity I
consider breath-taking, offer a “publishing partnership” which
gave me access to argus people and facilities.
Boosted, I prevailed (embarrassingly) upon most of July’s
advertisers to shift to august, and Frontline greeted humankind
for the 54th time, with a new lease on life, a healthy 16 pages of
paid ads, and Johann’s cover.
The first thing about that cover is that when it appeared
everyone who saw it said unhesitatingly “that’s Mandela”.
four years later Mandela appeared, and Johann’s guess proved
enormously, eerily, right (unlike most pre-release efforts,
including Time’s computer-aided cover.) Johann showed 25