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Sempé Fi: Cover Art
Wednesday Guest Post: This Week's David Heatley Cover
Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: art, comics, covers, David Heatley, poetry
Martin Schneider, our trusty Squib Reporter, writes:
Our friends over at FLOG! (that’s Fantagraphics’ blog) are excited
about David Heatley’s cover this week. Heatley’s work is very interesting. He had a running series in the Fantagraphics anthology Mome called “Overpeck” (soon to be a full-fledged graphic novel) that was a somewhat surrealistic treatment of childhood and suburbia; it would merit the term (David) Lynchian. Heatley’s contribution to McSweeney’s 13, the vaunted comix issue edited by Chris Ware, was called “Portrait of my Dad”; it was about as unflinching and profoundly moving as contemporary comix get.
Heatley’s Achilles’ heel, if he has one, is that the drawing isn’t always very pretty. When I heard that The New Yorker had commissioned a cover from him, I confess my first thought was to wonder whether, stripped of narrative and the latitude to be so powerfully affecting, Heatley’s work would function well in that setting. Having now seen the cover, I’m happy to see that it’s very good.
A reader adds: Just a few days ago the Poetry Foundation’s website published Heatley’s comic-strip adaptation of a poem by Diane Wakoski, the first in a series inviting cartoonists to adapt poems of their choice from the Foundation’s archives.
About us
Hello! We're a small band of media enthusiasts, culture addicts, and journalists based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Emdashes, formerly a New Yorker fan site, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, politics, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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We welcome tips, questions, comments, and corrections, and are always on the lookout for ardent, obsessive new contributors. Click here to email us.
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Tell me more
Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Writing on theater: reviews (for Time Out Chicago; imperfect but workable search results)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
Blogroll highlights
- Box Office Boffo
- World of Pollux
- Jonathan Taylor
- Carolita Johnson
- Songs for blogroll lovers (more links)
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- Get a t-shirt at the Emdashes store
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