Françoise Mouly takes us behind the scenes at the New Yorker and reveals how the magazine creates its signature covers commenting on the most urgent political and cultural events of the day. She shows the shocking and hilarious sketches that didn’t make the cut and explains how these are essential stages in the evolution of a cover that stands the test of time but retains its edge. Her book captures contemporary history—from the farce of Monica Lewinsky to the adventures of Michelle and Barack to nuclear meltdown in Japan—in images that are as acute as they are outrageous. More than that, it shows how the magazine that exemplifies journalistic excellence in America also dares to cultivate a sense of humor when grappling with complex moral and political issues.

About Françoise Mouly

Françoise Mouly is an artist and designer. Since 1993 she has been the art editor of the New Yorker, and she is the publisher and editorial director of TOON Books. Together with her husband, Art Spiegelman, she edited the groundbreaking comics anthology RAW from 1980 to 1991, as well as Abrams’ TOON Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics (2009). She lives in New York City.

‘Blown Covers’: Not Ready For The Newsstand

NPR Book Review – May 1, 2012 (Excerpt)

This week’s cover of the New Yorker magazine is a witty drawing by artist Chris Ware of a playground full of young children and their watchful parents. One woman wheels her son in a stroller, only to see that all the other parents are men. The image is called “Mother’s Day.”

But for all the memorable New Yorker covers out there, an equally large number of covers didn’t make it to the newsstand. They were not quite on the money — or were sometimes a little too coarsely on the money.

Francoise Mouly, the magazine’s art editor, is also the author of a new book, Blown Covers: New Yorker Covers You Were Never Meant to See. Mouly generally has a stack of rejected covers in her office, and she tells NPR’s Robert Siegel that finding just the right image is the cornerstone of her work. “The one that will provoke discourse,” she says.

One of the rejected covers comes from the era of the Diet Coke and Mentos Internet phenomenon, when viral videos showed the explosive results of combining the two products. [Read the full article...]

THE SABRINA STRONG SERIES by LORELEI BELL

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A Novel by John Patrick Doyle

A Peeping Tom Goes Nuts Over A Blind Girl

Paul Kirk is a librarian and one of his town’s quirkier residents.  In a childhood home lacking parents (his mother dying of MS and his father an alcoholic) Paul had imagined himself a member of the neighboring family. Now in his late twenties, Paul vicariously participates in the households of his community. His peeping-Tom proclivities express his awkward need for social bonding. [Read more...]

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