Citizen Conn

"Citizen Conn," The New Yorker, February 13 & 20, 2012

My first full page for The New Yorker illustrates "Citizen Conn," a new short story by Michael Chabon. I'm a big fan of Chabon's—The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay inspired my senior project at Pratt and a while back I did a few illustrations that ran in "The Escapists," a Dark Horse comic series sequel to Kavalier & Clay. This short story is a return to the world of comic book creators for Chabon.

I had longer for this piece than a typical NYer illustration and much of the time was spent conceptualizing. Here are the thumbnails:

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Four of thumbnails were chosen and developed into rough sketches:

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There was some debate among the editors as to whether to go with a literal scene from the story or not. As a result, two of the roughs were asked to be developed into final inks.

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The literal direction won out in the end (although I went back to the drawing board one more time!).

"Citizen Conn" appears in this week's issue of The New Yorker.

Read an interview with Chabon about the story here.

Thanks for all the great direction, Jordan!