"a sound business decision and the best step forward". Paradise responded to the criticism by working quickly with McSweeney's to restore ownership of the magazine to its original publisher. Description The Believer is a magazine, as its co-editor Heidi Julavits wrote in 2003, that urges readers and writers to "reach beyond their usual notions of what is accessible or possible." In 2004, the critic Peter Carlson praised the magazine's essays as "highbrow but delightfully bizarre." Its book reviews may assess writers of other eras and interviews with writers, artists, musicians and directors often conducted by colleagues in their fields. In 2003, Ploughshares editor Don Lee called it a "utopian literary magazine. This is the sort of thing everyone dreams of – having this quality of staff on board." Writing in The New York Times in 2005, A.O. Scott described the magazine as part of "a generational struggle against laziness and cynicism, to raise once again the banners of creative enthusiasm and intellectual engagement," noting its "cosmopolitan frame of reference and an eclectic internationalism," mixing pop genres with literary theory. "The common ground n+1 and The Believer occupy: a demand for seriousness that cuts against ingrained generational habits of flippancy and prankishness." Contents The magazine includes several feature essays in each issue but also draws on a stable of recurring features. Past and recurring columns include "Sedaratives," an advice column founded by Amy Sedaris that hosts a guest contributor every issue, such as Buck Henry, Eugene Mirman, and Thomas Lennon; "Stuff I've Been Reading" by Nick Hornby, a mixture of book discussion and musings; "Real Life Rock Top Ten: A Monthly Column of Everyday Culture and Found Objects," written by Greil Marcus; "What the Swedes Read", by Daniel Handler, which examines the work of Nobel Prize Winners; and "Musin's and Thinkin's," by Jack Pendarvis. All issues include a two-page, multi-color design feature called "Schema," whose theme has ranged from "Forensic Sketches of Literary Criminals" to "Habitats of Regional Burger Chains." Illustration Illustrations and cartoons are featured throughout the magazine. Until late 2014, the cover illustrations for all regular issues were done by Charles Burns, while most of the other portraits and line drawings are by Tony Millionaire (following Gilbert Hernandez from the fifth issue on). Michael Kupperman's Four-Color Comics has appeared in many issues, and in most issues a series of images from a given artist or other source run as