Illo Watch

"Life at the Top," 2/27/05

Since starting this blog I've praised several illustrations for the way they pictorially mirror the nuances of the articles they accompany. Today's illo by Michael Klein proves that that isn't always necessary. Both Klein and author Michael Marmot begin with the statistic that the average Oscar winner lives four years longer than the average nominee who doesn't win. Marmot goes on to write comprehensively about the impacts of status, autonomy and social participation on human longevity, presumably digesting points from his book. Meanwhile, Klein constructs a simple, elegantly-drawn gag on just that one statistic. Though it barely scratches the surface of the article, it makes me wonder what's the article's about, and thus it works.

"Field Trips," 2/26/05

As an illo-watcher I could frankly stand to see less of Bruce McCall. His frequent New Yorker covers have an accomplished, period sameness about them: panoramic cityscapes recalling the '30s New Yorker covers of Witold Gordon, pronouncedly Hopperesque interiors. Each illo is rendered with the same miniaturist's attention to detail and premised on a weak joke, some mildly absurd conceit that never quite justifies the effort. Yesterday's Op-Art is McCall Lite (or perhaps McCall on a Tight Deadline), but as usual my issue isn't with the quality of the art, but with the lack of imagination. He depicts "alternative" strategies for getting the maligned West Side stadium built: Float it in the Hudson! Bury it under a nature reserve! Build it over Zabar's--or better yet, over the post office in MSG's backyard. It not that these proposals aren't funny, they're just nowhere near as funny as some the urban designs that have been seriously considered in Manhattan over the past century. Hell, floating sports facilities (pools, to be exact) actually operated on the Harlem and Hudson Rivers until 1935! If McCall wants to portray comic fantasias of New York, he should take care not to be outdone by reality. (P.S., because you must be dying to know: If I could choose a New Yorker cover artist to bring to the op-ed page, it would be Lorenzo Mattotti or Gahan Wilson.)

"Take A Walk on the Wild Side," 2/24/05

Jim Doherty's op-ed on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge doesn't do much for this environmentalist. I don't believe that the high-end, bush-piloted adventure tourist is the best public voice to put forward in favor of conservation, and his "Are you man enough to sleep in the wilderness?" argument is a complete turnoff. On the other hand, you can't deny the abiding power of Doherty's Alaskan experience, just as you can't deny that it's fun to open the Times and see a really cool picture of a bear. Joseph Hart's illustration is an Expressionist tangle of light and harsh shadow, massive shapes and skinny lines. With its huge body, sharp little teeth and one weirdly proportioned claw coming out of the black water, the bear carries a tension that rarely comes through in the lush, Edenic photographs that usually accompany writing about wildlife.

"The State of Iraq: An Update," 2/21/05

I'm sort of baffled by designer Amy Unikewicz's approach to today's illustration, which lays out the key statistics on the state of Iraq that her co-authors allude to in their op-ed. I understand the symbolism of showing the numbers in an open ledger book, but graphically, it's a poor choice. To make the graphic "read" old-fashioned, Unikewicz uses a digitally roughed-up serif typeface (in a ledger book?) run obscurely across a weave of fine grid lines. This produces what information graphics guru Edward Tufte would call a low data-ink ratio, with very little compensatory gain in attractiveness. Then she anachronistically shades the data cells a la Microsoft Excel. Given that this is the op-ed page, I would have expected the authors to use the shading to editorialize, i.e. to communicate what they feel is good and bad news in the data. But it appears that all they've done is make high numbers dark and low numbers light, depressing the data-ink ratio further. That's without even counting the picture of the pencil at the bottom, which is just silly given that all the numbers are in type, not handwriting. If this piece really needed an infographic, as it arguably did, the authors should have just produced a good, clear infographic. Instead, they made a styled-up novelty and called it "Op-Art." Harrumph.  

"Winning Back Europe's Heart," 2/20/05

The advice today's roundtable of European commentators gives President Bush is none too surprising, and neither is Craig Frazier's illustration. He does this conventional theme stylishly, though. I especially like the exaggerated length and curvature of the right figure's right arm, subtly suggesting the extra effort that the authors would like to see Bush make to connect with their governments.

"Do Not Let This Cup Pass," 2/18/05

I love the folk art feeling of David Brinley's work, which is well suited for today's illo. The Stanley Cup is such an over-the-top object—it looks like a beer keg with a loving cup sprouting from it. To see its image is to think of the display of pagan-like ritual abandon that happens when a team wins it. Brinley reverently paints the cup with other hoary symbols of hockey (the rink markings, the helmet, sticks and puck, Lord Stanley I presume... as a non-hockey fan I'm sure I don't know the exact signficances of these icons, but that's kind of the point), matching the sentiment of Anil Adyanthaya's article asking the trustees of the Cup to award it to the winning AHL team this year. Adyanthaya makes me wish more sports had objects like the Cup, owned by no one person, passed around by winners, with a patina of wear and stories that have accreted over decades. I have no idea whether the Cup has the power to make hockey transcend the NHL's economic paralysis, but Adyanthaya's argument is impressive. As he puts it, "Hockey has a prize larger than any league. What other sport can say that?" 

"My Career in Bumper Stickers," 2/13/05

Posting belatedly on an Op-Art that appeared on Feb. 13: It's rare on the op-ed page to see a real collaboration between author and illustrator, but that's what we got in Sunday's Op-Art. The art in this case is multimedia—a combination of the poet Sparrow's playful article and an illustration by Art Chantry that incorporates Sparrow's texts. Chantry, a storied veteran of the Seattle punk poster scene of the '80s and '90s, is a natural choice for this assignment. With years of graphical slogan-shouting under his belt, he knows how to have fun with the bumper sticker format. (For more of Chantry's work see Julie Lasky's wonderful monograph, Some People Can't Surf.) Anyway, not only are the individual stickers covetable ("Honk If You Love Honking," "I'm Already Against the Next War"), but the whole premise is funny and original, an uncommonly good use of the Op-Art featurespace. P.S. There's been no op-ed illustration online since Sunday, but today for the first time I saw an illustration "above the fold" on the home page—you can see it here.

"More Projects for Christo," 2/12/05

I hate to be dismissive, but I don't know what else to say: today's Op-Art is just lame. As a lighthearted graphic take on contemporary culture, it fails by making the obvious joke about Christo that's been done over and over, with no significant variation, since, I dunno, probably the wrapping of the Reichstag. The piece is hardly more successful as illustration: it's just blobs representing fabric-covered objects done in that muddy, ink-wash style so they look like, well, blobs. In short, this is the kind of workmanlike, phoned-in effort that rightly accrues to any art director who says, "Hey, that big, expensive Central Park Christo project that no one in the city can freakin' shut up about is finally opening today! Why don't you do a gag about Christo?" Not that I know for a fact that this is what happened. Maybe James Stevenson was just dying for a chance to draw little gray lumps. Oh, OK, fine, his idea for the Christo-wrapped I-95 is a little bit funny, if only because it looks like something Christo would actually do, as opposed to "Starbucks" and "Reality TV," which aren't even funny as one-word punchlines anymore, let alone art. But I swear, if when the inevitable Wal-Mart opens here, they bring Stevenson back to do an Op-Art called "More Opportunities for Wal-Mart"... well, he and his art director will feel the sting of my wrath. Update: I wouldn't have guessed it but it turns out it is possible to create a funny graphical commentary on The Gates.

"Biology's New Forbidden Fruit," 2/11/05

In today's art, children's book illustrator Karen Barbour brings an unfamiliar quality to the page: ornament. The overall design of the Times has gotten ever sleeker in recent years. Their most recent typographic overhaul seems to have streamlined every letterform beyond the masthead and graphic elements like tool lines have grown minimal. More and more, the paper seems to rely on color photography and illustration for visual panache, while for better or worse the op-ed page remains a black-and-white preserve. This is what makes Barbour's style here so welcome: the tendrils of the plants, the snake's twitching tongue, all those exquisite, doodly details give the eye a reason to linger. Nonetheless, this illustration could have been a lot more topically apt. Oliver Morton's article highlights the need for a wider, more public discussion among biologists about the benefits and threats of the new synthetic biology. It seems odd that the picture shows a single person facing away from the temptation before him (as most of scientists Morton mentions are not doing), the beaker in his hand a bit of an afterthought.

"Court of First Resort," 2/10/05

Aaaaandd we're baaaaack! The online illo took a powder for a couple of days (the art ran in the pulp Times only), but today there's a contribution from one of the stars of the op-ed page, Luba Lukova. Her straightforward juxtaposition of symbols—a gavel, the UN globe symbol and the coordinated efforts of many—neatly captures the gist of Samantha Power's argument about the potential power of the International Criminal Court.