Five Star consists of four sections printed on heavy, expensive stock. They’re called the A Section, Culture, Focus, and Words, and the first three—all but the tabloid literary section—are broadsheets, roughly 13 by 23 inches. That was a pretty standard size in the day when newspapers were newspapers, but it’s zaftig by current standards, two inches wider than the present Tribune, which was narrowed by half an inch in 2007 and another inch in February. The dummy’s 56 pages in all, with a coffee-table heft that sends a message: read me or don’t, but your home will feel tonier for having me in it.

Maybe I’m groping for analogies, but Five Star suggests to me the day Hollywood’s knees stopped knocking and it hit back at television with CinemaScope. Five Star is the antithesis of RedEye. It’s not portable and it’s not disposable. For one thing, the pages are simply too big and heavy to negotiate on a bus or train; for another, you’d be barely done with one article when you pulled into your stop.

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Your New Sunday Tribune? | Media | Chicago Reader by Mike Miner.