Blown Covers

…Or should we say just say reading? There’s been a lot of concern these past few years about the decline of the book as an object.  What does it mean, in our modern times, to get lost in a story? How would you capture this moment in an image? Sharpen your “pencils”, find some of that “paper” and send me your cover idea sketches on this week’s contest theme (full submission guidelines at the bottom of this post, first time contributors very much welcome)

Oh and did I mention? There’s a prize! The winner and first runner-up of the contest will win FREE tickets to this event at the 92Y in NYC with Francoise Mouly, Art Spiegelman, Barry Blitt and Roz Chast and get to meet the artists. 

Here are some past New Yorker covers for inspiration:

- By Adrian Tomine

— By Daniel Clowes

— By Roz Chast

- By Eric Drooker

To enter each week’s contest, please send sketches on this week’s theme. Use the submissions page or email submissions to blowncovers@gmail.com. I prefer sketches to finished work and good ideas to good drawings.Please send files in as jpegs under 1mb, and label the file with firstname.lastname. The deadline is Thursday at noon (NYC time). The themes on the Blown Covers website closely mirror what I suggest to the New Yorker artists I already work with. This blog and contest are informal and not affiliated with the magazine but I’m always on the lookout for ideas. Please keep submissions confidential in case they are selected for later publication. The winning sketch (according to my own subjective whims) will be posted here on Friday.