Spot on doiron. The audience will give it exactly as much importance as you do. And they'll do the same with your magic, as so astutely noted by Tommy Wonder.

I've been in magic for 20+ years. I've performed The Anderson Tear, Hecklau's Newsflash and No Tear Versions 1 & 2. I've bought and read through several others as well.
Even knowing the markers involved...even looking for "the moment"...I don't see it and still have no idea. Great job John Graham. This got a great audience reaction. And I don't think the audience cares about the marker at all. My order will be going in.

MB

For those concerned about the pen. Could you put it down. Then after the tear pick it up and use it as your magic wand... This justifying the need to have it near the paper...

This looks great. I use news flash but will be garbing this up as well. don't care about the pen. I perform card tricks with a pen in hand sometimes. I don't think laymen will even care. This looks bad ass.

Doiron,

Sorry, I shouldn't have called your opinion silly. I apologize for that. But please don't state your opinion as fact.

You can say I am intent on finding problems that don't exist, but obviously I (and many others) are of the opinion that the problems with this effect do exist. Many people have joked about the size of the marker and others have enquired if the marker can be set down and then with motivation be picked back up. These two things wouldn't be happening if the marker was going unnoticed. Obviously I am not the only one on this thread that has concerns about the size of the marker and leaving the marker in play.

Your opinion is that laypeople won't notice the marker staying in play, but my opinion is that laypeople will notice that you are still holding that giant marker. After watching the demo, I thought maybe I was thinking like a magician, so I showed it to my wife (non magician). She said she wondered why he was still hanging onto the marker and not putting it away. That was enough to confirm for me that the marker will arouse suspicion.

I don't have a dog in this fight either. I don't know the creator or have a beef with him personally. I just recognize this as a method that SOME laymen are going to see through.

Obviously neither one of us has performed this effect, so we are just stating our opposite opinions. That is all they are, opinions based on our experiences and perception. I am not going to argue with you further on the matter, we are just going to have to agree to disagree. I think it is pretty clear we are not going to convince the other of our opinion.

( She said she wondered why he was still hanging onto the marker and not putting it away. That was enough to confirm for me that the marker will arouse suspicion ) Really?? that's a joke right? that's what your wife said after watching this? If she did the its because she was only looking for how it was done and not watching the effect. Laymen are not looking for how the magic is done. They just enjoy the magic if your entertaining enough.

Really? That's a joke right? (sarcasm doesn't feel good does it) Can we get back to having an adult discussion now?

If you think all laymen are just going to sit back and not question how something is done then you are naive. I don't care how entertaining you are, SOME people are going to think about how effects are accomplished. Laymen are not stupid.

In the original demo, the 1st presentation, the paper is already torn on the bottom, the guy then closes the paper, and makes the tear with his index finger, all the way down the page. He does not remove the page to show the cover page separately. That to me is more curious then any jumbo marker, of which I have one, just like the one in the video.

Secondly, about the fast preparation. I have never seen a newspaper with such sharply creased edges. Would have to use a hand iron to get sharp creases like that. So the 10 to 30 second set up is out the window, just by having to put ceases in the newspaper.

Having just about performed every newspaper trick ever created, this one just does not excite me from a presentation standpoint. It actually look to me like a step back in time the Slydini era of slowing opening a newspaper to reveal it restored.

Not showing the newspaper opened at the beginning is a killer for me. Then later they show different presentations clips, but no mention what you have to give up to that version. So the demo is a little misleading, as they do say there are variations, but which variation allows what feature and what is lost by using that additional method. There is usually always a tradeoff when it comes to being able to be so open with the handling.

I am sure the newspaper would have to be that advertisement size. I believe everyone here knows why. Don't you all think if you could any size newspaper they would have included it in the demo. That is the smart thing to do, if you want to sell a product.

If you want to present this miracle as shown on the demo, then go for it, but if you think you can change anything, then just find another newspaper tear.

Price is outrageous, but isn't everything today. It requires a gimmick, and that gimmick costs money to make, then the wholesaler and retailer has to make their profits. Distribution is not cheap.

I will have to pass on this one, for the reasons I mentioned.

Wanted to be sure everyone sees the live show performance footage. This is how the Examiner plays to a real audience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbhfNtA_gu0

Hmmm, I showed the uncut video to my wife and she didn't notice the marker at all. Each lay person will watch an effect differently. And there will always be someone who hates being fooled and just has to try and "figure it out". Good for them. Most don't care one way or another and just enjoy it for the entertainment. I don't think that audiences are stupid but we really don't impact theirs lives enough for them to really give a rats A$&.

If you like the effect buy it. Enjoy it. Use it. If you don't like it don't buy it.

Mr. Effecto - I shouldn't have snapped back at you with sarcasm. Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss things further. No need to make the rest of the Café community read through our dispute.



MBrook3902,

I completely agree with you. Laymen are all individuals and each of them are going to watch a performance differently. Most do not care to try to figure it out. Some do.

Not really sure why I got so fired up about proving my point of view about this effect. Like you said - If you like the effect buy it. If you don't like it don't buy it.

Here's the thing about the marker, when I use and just about every magician I've ever seen do a trick involving a marker, it gets put away after it is done being used. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, because holding the marker needlessly gets in the way of anything else that you have to hold, touch or manipulate. Secondly, it muddies up the performance area or framing of the trick and it unbalances the performers hands visually. When something is marked/signed, the function of the marker has been fulfilled and it is of no further use in trick, so it is completely natural to put it away, which is what the vast majority of magicians do (that's how I got it). When I perform QB 2.0, my motivation to put away the marker is a glance at my hand while I think and try to project a "why am I still holding this" look?

Now whether holding on to the marker would matter to an audience of laymen is a different argument. I would imagine the percentage is small, less than 5% at least. But it is a small and willing trade off to make to do a, how shall we say, handout-able version.

The tradeoff to the handout is that you can only do one smaller sheet and the restore has to be the unfolding variety. I perform Newsflash 2.0, which allows for two of any size newspapers to be used, where the reveal is a more visually impressive flash restoration. But as mentioned earlier, the setup is more time consuming, though if one performs it regularly, it would only take 2-3 minutes to set one up.

To me, holding on to a marker feels wrong when performing any type of manipulation, but many may be willing to make that small tradeoff for the examinability of the restored sheet. Since I am not a stage performer, I don't know how valuable handing out one newspaper sheet would be in that setting. I don't know if people would expect to examine the restored newspaper sheet at the end or not? I can only state that I wouldn't expect that in a stage show. IMHO, your mileage may vary...

Just to set the record and history straight, and because my method was mentioned on this thread, here is the history of my own Signed Torn and Restored Newspaper.

Back in the early 90’s, I was hired by The Hartford Insurance Company to film a promotional video for their sales force around the country. They came back to me with their agenda and one of the things they wanted was for me to rip up and restore a newspaper that had a special headline on it about their CEO! They, of course, had no idea of the actual methods used for the effect and just figured I could do it!

They had a fake front page created and they only had 2 copies for me to play around with. Obviously I had to figure out a way to do it without destroying the paper. I worked for a long time to figure out a workable method. The final result looked great and it was one of the highpoints of the video.

Afterwards, I sent a copy of the finished video to Jeff Busby and we talked about the newspaper and how, with my method, it could be signed by a spectator before ripping it up. Then he said, “Now if you could hand it back to them as a souvenir afterwards, that would be the ultimate effect which has never been done before!” My immediate response was, “Oh yeah. Right!” and shrugged it off. He just said, “Well, work on it.”

I did work on it, on and off, for about a year. See, since the original method was for a video, there was no reason to end with the paper clean. All it had to do was “look clean” which it did. Finally, after experimenting with all kinds of special folds, glues, etc., I came up with a method where the signed, restored paper could be handed out to the spectator at the end and the magician was left totally clean. I could now do what I had thought impossible a year before.

I added it to my show and performed it constantly for about a year, working out the small presentational points. I featured it once at a magic convention in Connecticut and the magicians in the audience had no idea how it worked. It was very gratifying to hear the gasps!

One of the major breakthroughs I had during this time was the idea to prepare a whole newspaper so I could offer a choice of a page when I began! Not only did this add tremendously to the effect, but it also allowed me to do it 3 or 4 times in a row before I had to add back the pages used. At the time I was on the road constantly and often had 3 or more shows a week. I needed material that could travel easily and pack a punch. Doing it this way allowed me to always be ready.

I decided to give away the secret and performed the effect as the finale on my DVD series, Mind Mysteries. Although it was picked up and used by a number of working pro’s, it was largely overlooked because the series was directed more to mentalists than magicians. Shortly after that I showed the effect to David Copperfield who really liked it. The only thing that stopped him from using it himself is that I had just released it on DVD.

As far as I know, my Signed Torn and Restored Newspaper was totally original and ground breaking 20 years ago. Although many T&R versions had appeared before that, none allowed a free choice of a sheet of paper, had the spectator sign the paper in their own hands, then had the paper cleanly torn in half 5 times and finally had the paper visually restored with the signature intact and the ability to give it to the spectator as a souvenir.

The paper can be prepared in minutes and will last indefinitely until you need it. It can also work with any size newspaper.

Here is a link to the performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjTR6RbqhDI

Thanks,
Richard

LOL. I have no dispute. Feel the same way. If you like it, bbuy it. If you don't. Then don't. But a lot of people on here that don't like something seem to go out of there way to see that everybody feels the same way. Just let it go already.

Richard...love the effect. Without tipping it...do you need to wear a jacket to end clean.

Randy,

Thanks for asking. No, the jacket doesn't come into play. You can do the effect wearing anything, even just shorts. The only limitation is if you work nudist camps!

Cool!then my thought on method was wrong...this is added to my wish list...very strong...and the marker is small too 😉 lol

Well I for one, after watching the video, wish that I did not have to buy so many volumes (dvd's) to learn this one effect. How about releasing it as a single?

Barry, you could go to penguin magic and buy volume four of Mind Mysteries for under $27 and get six other great affects with the newspaper tear. I always thought my material was quite reasonable.

Osterlind's "Signed Torn & Restored Newspaper" , or Karrell Fox's version ("Limited Edition") is probably a cleaner version of the "examined newspaper" . Yes, it involves a ditch , but ditching to a jumbo marker held in your hand the entire time you're tearing and restoring the paper is also a ditch.


Great quote I recalled from Billy McComb in “The First Book of William” (1947) about the Torn & Restored Newspaper , which he refers to in that era (in 1947) as “the old torn newspaper trick” -