How About That of the Day: La Bougie du Sapeur (Sapper’s Candle) — named after a French comic-book character born on Leap Day — is a satirical newspaper founded in 1980 which is published only once every four years, on February 29th.
Jean d’Indy, editor of the quadrennial newspaper, says he and his writers gather at a restaurant ahead of Leap Day, and down a bottle of bubbly before getting down to brass tacks.
“We try not to be naughty; we just try to be funny,” d’Indy says. “But we are not funny. Life is funny. So, it’s the way of seeing life which is funny.”
Whatever that means.
The paper sells for $5 a copy, and all proceeds go to benefit charities. With a circulation of 150,000, La Bougie du Sapeur easily outsells all other French papers published today.
D’Indy says at one point he considered offering subscriptions, but dropped the idea when he realized it would too difficult to track down subscribers every four years.
[npr.]