Interesting. I'd like to see an actual paper copy. They tend to have a different feel than just flipping through the PDFs. I actually liked the Post's tab a lot when I was flipping through it every day.

For a 5-minute read, those are some heavily art directed covers.

It's also the first one I've seen with comics in it (and the right ones, too: Get Fuzzy and Boondocks skew way young).

I still don't see how they're gonna get a core market without a mass transit system to speak of. That's what the northeast and chicago versions use as their core readership.

I lived in DFW for five years and worked at the Star-Telegram. You're absolutely right about the lack of density. everything is a commute, although they keep talking about high-speed commuter trains. Maybe the DMN is forward thinking. As for the art direction: it's only the first one. Let's see a few weeks' worth to see if the artwork maintains that high level.

And I wonder what the Dallas Observer thinks of all this?

Looks like they're being, well, snarky about it. But then that's pretty much the job of alt-weeklies. To snark about the dailies:

"... it’s not, generally speaking, the sort of product likely to boost morale among serious reporters, though it might cheer the homeless. The bound bundles of untouched copies of Quick we saw lying near downtown buildings will make nice toasty fires under overpasses this winter, assuming the paper lasts that long."