The Big Issue

Our 2012 calendar on sale now!

Another year? Get used to it!

Here’s how you know another year has passed. You find yourself hesitating before writing a date on something: two thousand and…what? (It’s one reason cheques are increasingly rare – people muck up the year for most of January.) Second, you’re no longer sure which decade is called ‘the noughties’ (or was that a music-hall show?) and all the fuss about the Y2K Bug seems like a long time ago. Third, you’re putting up a new calendar.

The 2012 calendar is on sale now for just $5 and by buying one, you’re  supporting one of the many vendors all around Australia who are improving their personal circumstances by selling copies of The Big Issue. In 2011, we celebrated our 15th birthday, quite an achievement when many print publications are dying or have seen sales dwindle alarmingly. In 2012 – is that it really, already? – we will pass another milestone when our 400th edition is released. Four hundred of anything is generally impressive: the sports-minded may know already that only one batsman has made 400 runs in a test innings – Brian Lara of the West Indies, in 2004. (File that away for your next trivia night.) What else will we achieve? Perhaps I’ll get back to you about that in this space in a year’s time.

The calendar has evolved into a showcase of what The Big Issue magazine, published fortnightly, is all about. You’ll see many of the regular features: cartoons by Andrew Weldon, with us since the first edition in 1996; profiles of some of the magazine’s vendors; and a sampling of the artwork that gives The Big Issue its distinctive look. This year we feature some of our favourite illustrations from 2011 as well as vendor portrait photography by Andy Rasheed, James Braund, Paul Giggle, Arunas Klupsas, Ben Davies, Ross Swanborough and Peter Holcroft.

One last thing: while all in favour of recycling, I have a request. Keep this calendar. Some of the contributors may become even more illustrious than they are already. And, in time, 2012 may seem as distant as Y2K.

Alan Attwood, Editor of The Big Issue