Graduation

Gradual Graduates, digital (click to zoom)

Stepping In, pencil drawing, colored digitally (click to zoom)

Here are my two sketches for New Yorker covers for this week's theme: Graduation.

The bottom one was my first idea based on a recent article I read where the latest jobs report numbers were favorable and some analysts attribute that to Baby Boomers beginning to retire and not necessarily because new jobs were created. So, here's a recent graduate stepping into the retiree's position.

The top idea came just as I was finishing the graduate/retiree drawing. I was thinking about a graduate and someway to convey invisibility. The fact is that the job outlook today is still pretty bleak. Sure, we will acknowledge our family and friends who are graduating by attending ceremonies and offering our congratulations. The job market today, on the other hand, can only perceive the graduating class as imperceptible.

May the Fourth be with you

Books

Books, pencil sketch

Here's my New Yorker cover sketch for this week's theme: Books.

The theme is very general. Are we talking about the joy of reading or the conversion of readers from physical books to digital books or something else?

In this graveyard scene, the tombstones are actually books themselves. I wanted to incorporate the ghosts or souls of these books as glowing kindles or iPads but it seemed too complicated and I ran out of time before the Thursday noon submission deadline.

Digital

I did, however, submit two ideas this week. This image is an adaptation to a larger version seen here. In this concept, I'm paying homage to Johannes Gutenberg, the father of the printing press and the individual attributed with changing the world by enabling the printed word to be placed in anyone's hands. I wondered if in his day, the latest craze, caused people to walk through the street's with their noses in books just as today everyone is captivated by smart phones, iPads, e-readers, etc.