It takes chutzpah to start a print publication these days, and a loose grip on reality to imagine that it could last a decade. But the biannual journal Esopus defied the odds last month when it published its 20th issue, "Special Collections," which features work by Matthew Weiner, the creator of "Mad Men." Tod Lippy, the magazine's affable founder and editor, is a one-man masthead, conceiving and executing every issue with assistance only from interns who get paid in lifetime subscriptions. Named for a tributary in the Catskill Mountains, Esopus was intended to be a kind of creative platform for artists of all disciplines to exhibit their work on their terms, without the need for an intermediary. "We don't work with handlers of any kind," Lippy emphasizes. No publicists, agents, managers, or lawyers. He got in touch with the artist Richard Tuttle, the first contributor to Esopus, after finding his number through 411. These days, Esopus carries the imprimatur of the Warhol Foundation (one of several financial backers), which makes it easier for Lippy to catch the interest of artists like John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha, both of whom have appeared in the magazine's pages. But much of Esopus's content is by artists whose names come over the transom. Mark Hogancamp, a photographer from upstate New York, appeared in its pages after a friend who lived next door told Lippy about the fantastical world Hogancamp had constructed in his backyard. "He showed me some of Mark's photographs, and I told him not to show anyone else," Lippy recalls. As a general rule for every issue, two thirds of contributors to any given issue are unknown or emerging talents, like the autistic collagist Alex Masket and the illustrator Alex Brown, whose vivid drawings of war scenes were published when he was only 13 years old. A decade in, Lippy still refuses to leverage the integrity of Esopus and its contributors, eschewing ads in favor of sole support from grants and donations. "A big art fair approached us about a collaboration recently," he explains. It was a very exciting prospect, but then they insisted on putting an ad in the magazine. So that was the end of that.