Hillary Mag Cover 'Deeply Weird'

New York Times staffer David Joachim tweeted a photo of the newspaper's Sunday magazine cover, declaring that it shows Hillary Clinton "as you've never seen her before." That's an understatement. It depicts Hillary as a planet (or a "faceplanetball" in the words of Mediaite) and the type explains that the story is about her "gravitational pull" on the 2016 election. No word from Clinton herself yet, but there's plenty of other reaction:

• Nia-Malika Henderson, Washington Post: "Editors must be running out of ways to portray Hillary Rodham Clinton on the covers of their magazines. ... Deeply weird."
• Brian Braiker, Digiday: It's "unflattering and creepy at best," but a source at the paper tells him that “the space theme might make more sense in the context of the story.” (The story's not out yet.)

• Samantha Grossman, Time: "If this is an indicator of the bizarre shenanigans in store for the 2016 election cycle, then we’re pretty excited. Very, very confused, but also excited."
• Susana Polo, the Mary Sue: "It’s an inexplicable, not particularly creative, visual metaphor that would be incredibly visually unflattering no matter whose face you did it to."
• Rob Beschizza, Boing Boing: "I feel like this is a momentous moment, so I ordered myself a Planet Hillary Mini Button from Cafepress."
• Instant photo meme: The Wire and BuzzFeed round up some of the weirder ones emerging. Each site has a different image with a Teletubbies theme, oddly.
• How it came to be: Arem Duplessis at the Times explains that the story, headlined "Planet Hillary," is about her "influence on the various people within her political universe." The original sketch idea brought to mind the classic "man on the moon" image, and further tweaks expanded on the theme.

(More Hillary Clinton stories.)