DANNY SHANAHAN, a cartoonist,
currently lives in Rhinebeck, New York.
His illustrations have appeared in The
New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,
TIME, Newsweek, Playboy, and Esquire,
among many others. His cartoons are in
the permanent collection of the James
Thurber Museum, and have appeared in
dozens of collections, including four of
his own. Shanahan has done ten covers
for The New Yorker, the first in 1990. For
him, doing covers for The New Yorker
is “challenging, fun, and a great way to
make complete strangers mad at you.”
OWEN SMITH was born in Cali-
fornia, where he still lives. His work
has appeared in numerous publications
such as Rolling Stone, Playboy, GQ, and
Esquire, as well as on book jackets and
in children’s books. He designed mosaics
for Brooklyn’s Thirty-Sixth Street subway
station. He illustrated Aimee Mann’s
album The Forgotten Arm, which won
a Grammy for best packaging. Since
1993, he has done seventeen New Yorker
covers. “It was always a dream of mine.
When Françoise first called, I put on my
most calm and professional voice. But
when I hung up, I began screaming and
jumping up and down like an idiot. If
she’d seen me then, she would have had
her doubts.”
ART SPIEGELMAN, the Pulitzer
Prize–winning author of Maus, was
named one of Time’s 100 Most In-
fluential People in 2005 and received
the Angoulême International Comics
Festival’s Grand Prix in 2011. He has
done thirty-nine New Yorker covers. For
him, doing covers for The New Yorker
is “a source of great pride—it’s amazing
to see one’s work under the same logo
as Addams, Arno, and Steinberg!—and
an ongoing frustration, since it involves
submitting work to editors (including my
spouse!) . . . and I just don’t submit to
others easily.”
BOB STAAKE was born in 1957 in
Los Angeles, and currently resides in
Cape Cod. He is a frequent contributor
to The Washington Post, The Wall Street
Journal, and the Los Angeles Times,
among other publications. He has
written and illustrated many children’s
books, including The Red Lemon, which
was chosen as a New York Times Best
Illustrated Children’s Book. Since 2006,
he has done twelve New Yorker covers.
For him, it is “like playing Carnegie
Hall: I’m always relieved if I didn’t play a
false note—or spill ink.”
MARK ULRIKSEN is a former art
director turned illustrator. Born in 1957
in San Francisco, he has been living there,
in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, for
the past twenty-five years. His drawings
appear in numerous publications such as
The New York Times and The Washington
Post. He has received gold and silver
medals from the Society of Illustrators.
Since 1994, he has done thirty-eight
covers for The New Yorker. For him,
doing covers for The New Yorker is “the
best, coolest, and most lasting thing that
has happened in my career.”
BOB ZOELL (HA) is a fine artist and
designer who has had a forty-five-year art
career in Los Angeles and now lives in
Pasadena, California. His work has been
shown in Japan, France, and throughout
the United States. He’s the recipient of
the Pollack-Krasner Foundation and the
Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation
grants. His work “BFILRYD” (Bird +
FLY) was installed at the San Francisco
International Airport in 2010. He’s
currently involved with many public art
projects. He has done seven covers for
The New Yorker, the first in 1994. For
him, doing covers for The New Yorker is
“a lot of fun.”
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