Rolling Stone Is Going 3-D for No. 1,000

Rolling Stone, which produced the best magazine cover of the last 40 years, as judged by its peers, is already working on its cover for May 2006.

The date may seem far away, even for a business noted for its long lead times. But that month is special in Rolling Stone's history: the magazine's 1,000th issue.

For the occasion, Wenner Media is planning what appears to be a first for the magazine: a cover in 3-D.

Will Dana, the magazine's managing editor, said it would "celebrate the history of the magazine" by showing a collage of about 100 people who have been central to the nation's music, politics and pop culture since Rolling Stone's first cover, which was dated Nov. 9, 1967.

Inside, the magazine will offer various self-referential features, like pictures of 100 of its covers that its editors deem the best. Presumably, one of them will be the January 1981 cover photo of a naked John Lennon wrapped around Yoko Ono, which was recently voted the best cover of the last 40 years by the American Society of Magazine Editors. (The magazine's first cover in 1967 also featured Mr. Lennon.)

The 3-D cover is the idea of Jann S. Wenner, the magazine's founder and editor, and is being put together by Amid Capeci, the magazine's art director. Steve DeLuca, the magazine's publisher, said that as the editors contemplated their 1,000th cover, they wanted something that would grab the attention of readers and advertisers and be considered a breakthrough.

He said the 3-D cover would probably be the most expensive in magazine history, but he would not specify how much it would cost. One reason for the expense is that the 3-D process, technically known as lenticular, involves hand-feeding material into the presses. Lenticular does not require the use of special glasses.

"As far as expensive covers go, and we have done a few of our own, the major cost is building sets, organizing helicopters or going to an exotic locale to get the perfect photo," Mr. DeLuca said. "If a magazine spends $100,000 to do a cover, that would be a huge, astronomical amount. This cover will be far, far, far in excess of that because lenticular is very expensive from a production standpoint."

For the special edition, the magazine is raising its rate base -- the number of copies it is guaranteeing to advertisers that it will sell -- to 1.5 million from 1.4 million. The newsstand price, which will be higher than the regular $3.95, has not been set.

The special cover for the issue will be published only for the domestic version of the magazine, although Rolling Stone is published in 10 other countries and is starting an 11th international edition, this one in mainland China, early next year.

Mr. DeLuca said that the international editions typically reproduce 50 percent to 80 percent of the American version of the magazine, in their own languages, and supplement the rest with local content.