Blown Covers

When we ran this cover in 1996, there was an angry outcry in the press. “If the Internet had existed, I think my ‘sailors’ kiss’ cover would have become a scandal as big as my White House fist-bump cover,” says artist Barry Blitt. Now, what was once is a shocking image is just another part of our reality. We have evolved.

05/10/12

Here’s a cover sketch by Bob Staake, who says there are “certain parts of the female body I just like to draw.” I showed this on stage at the New Yorker’s Big Story event Tuesday night.

(any messiness is due to my hastily editing out the New Yorker logo)

05/10/12

A cover sketch by the artist Harry Bliss [excerpted from Blown Covers]

04/19/12

A proposed New Yorker cover by M. Scott Miller that didn’t run. [excerpted from Blown Covers]

04/19/12

Harry Bliss submitted this sketch in 1997 in response to Mayor Giuliani’s reluctance to investigate the police who tortured Haitian immigrant Abner Louima — but, unfortunately, this picture stands the test of time and still resonates clearly today. [excerpted from Blown Covers]

04/5/12

Art Spiegelman proposed this idea for an MLK sketch during G.W. Bush’s first term. [excerpted from Blown Covers]

04/5/12

An MLK day cover sketch by Barry Blitt [excerpted from Blown Covers]

04/5/12

A dangerously funny rejected cover idea by New Yorker cartoonist Danny Shanahan
[excerpted from Blown Covers]

03/29/12

Another New Yorker cover sketch by Zohar Lazar, submitted to mark the end of
“Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell.” I like this image because it functions as a rorscharch test: we are free to think either that this is a celebration of tolerance in a repressive place or an example of America imposing its values where they’re not welcome — or both. [excerpted from Blown Covers]

03/29/12

A sketch by Barry Blitt [excerpted from Blown Covers]

03/29/12

A sketch by Zohar Lazar of Afghan soldiers looking at photos of their wives…fully covered
[excerpted from Blown Covers]

03/29/12

After a year of fighting, Obama finally pushed a comprehensive health care bill past the reluctant Republicans. Here is Barry Blitt’s proposed image for the occasion. [excerpted from Blown Covers]

03/22/12