I’m not entirely sure what this terrific Dan Clowes cover for the May 11, 2009 issue of The New Yorker is supposed to be about, but I would like to think it’s making the point that makers are going to leapfrog traditional industries that can’t seem to get out of a rut that has helped cause the recession.
20 thoughts on “New Yorker cover features a maker”
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Guy sits in office making $100,000 a year designing the same old stuff, while true innovation happens at home by scruffy old guys that maybe make enough to pay for rent each month.
good cover :)
Yeah, when I first looked at it, before I read Mark’s copy, I thought it was a homeless guy in a space suit.
Still think it’s a cool cover, but yeah, that’s one scruffy ol’ dude,
It’s the “Innovator’s Issue”. I believe, about a year ago, Dan Clowes also made a fold out cover for the New Yorker in which an inventor builds a card-playing robot.
http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=2008-05-12
It seems that the most fuel efficient cars and devices come from builders at home, and not from the wealthy auto executives who can’t build a decent car no matter how much tax money we give them.
I immediately thought of the “Where’s my jetpack?” meme.
We’re surrounded by personal computers, LCD monitors, computer graphics beyond anything imagined twenty years ago iPods, and iPhones. But no jet packs.
“Leading the Way” is the cover’s title. It’s their innovation issue.
I’ll be hanging it up in my home lab.
–Mike
CAD or Video Game ?
Show me some gazillion-dollar a year executive CEO future-pitchfork-victim who can out-design my steampunk-inspired repurposed-egg-carton casemod! You know they can’t produce anything near as innovative or quality as that. They should be ousted and people like US should be put in their places!
We all know that what the auto industry REALLY needs is MOAR BRASS ACCENTS! Not a car that meets the needs and demands of the general public! As long as its chock full of shiny brass people will buy it! They won’t care that it runs on liquid hydrogen, has an extended range of 100 miles, and the nearest filling station is 200 miles away. WE CAN SAVE THE ERF AND LOOK COOL DOING IT!
I agree with Larry Y.
When I saw this cover I immediately thought of the various buttons and t-shirts with the message:
“It is the 21st century… so where is my jetpack?”
In the ’90s, I published a zine called Going Gaga. For one issue, I used a statement that one of my contributing artists had said to me one: “It’s almost the 21st century. When do we get to wear the tin foil?” (Referring to those fetching silver lame’ spacesuits from ’50s-60s B-movie sci-fi). I printed a clear acetate sticker with that statement on it and stuck it to a page in the zine cut out of aluminum foil.