Comic and cultural commentator Mo Rocca had an early start: He created his own celebrity magazine in junior high school. “It was long before Us Weekly, long before OK!,” he said at a recent screening of Juno. “It was a lot of work, we sold sixteen copies for a dollar a pop, and it was called Insight.” What did it cover in that blissfully pre-Britney era? “The cover story was about the most popular guy at Pyle Junior High,” Rocca said. “The headline said PYLE’S BIGGEST HEARTBREAKER, and the article inside was about the three girls he had gone with that year. Also, there was this really slutty girl, and we created a comic strip where she fought crime by being really slutty.” It led to some trouble—“I had to return all the money, and retrieve all the copies I sold,” Rocca said—but the comic has no regrets: “It was the most shameful thing, for which I am most proud.”
Email
Print
Eight Year-End Films Vie for Oscar Contention
Sondheim and Lansbury on a Lifetime in Theater
The Black Keys Release Their Hip-hop Debut
How the BQE Became an Artistic Muse
On Great Jones Street, Shopping Is Art 
Classic Fare, Old-world Charm at Le Caprice
Buy a Brownstone for Less Than $1 Million
Fifty of the City's Tastiest Soups
Reasons to Love New York 2009
New York Politicians Refuse to Quit
A-Rod Has Babe Ruth in His Sights
McCain Yields to the Party's Pressure