Blitt This! Other New Yorker Covers By Suddenly-Controversial Artist Barry Blitt

Further to the giant kerfuffle over this week's New Yorker cover (and further to Nico Pitney's interview with Barry Blitt, regular NYer cover responsible for the controversial image, Glynnis MacNicol at FishbowlNY has collected a number of his covers for your perusal and/or enjoyment and/or outrage. (Nico has some additional covers here.) I'm not going to steal the images — click through for that — but I did include the cover image one more time, just in case you missed it on morning television, the blogs, the news, or The View.

Barry Blitt: A Modest Retrospective [FishbowlNY]
Yikes! Controversial New Yorker Cover Shows Muslim, Flag-Burning, Osama-Loving, Fist-Bumping Obama [ETP]
Barry Blitt Defends His New Yorker Cover Art Of Obama [HuffPo]

Comments

[mlaiuppa]

#1 rule of satire. If you have to explain it.....you've failed.

Blitt failed miserably and the New Yorker should have caught it before it was published.

[thatvisionthing]

Good God, the more I read comments like this the funnier the cover gets. It was ok the first time I saw it and now I think it's hilarious. Way to hit a target! Nailed it!

[XCITIZEN]

I hope Barry Blitt goes down in history as the guy who threw incendiary, hate-fueled racist and xenophobic imagery into the most important presidential campaign of the century.

This was no "giant kerfuffle" - (Rachel Sklar - why are you making such light of this?) - this was a pathetic attack. There is NO way the anti-Obama cover could have been put out naively as an attempt at satire with NO consciousness of the incendiary nature of it. Even more sickening is the glee with which so many Hillary devotees are heaping derision on Obama - clearly a reaction of the most primitive part of the brain to the appearance of a scapegoat - exactly the kind of primitive response the Right Wing elicits from their ignorant minions with their hate-fueled Fox-News propagandizing.

Like others commenting here, I agree that this was not satire, it was the PERPETUATION OF A SMEAR.

How sick it is that this smear is perpetuated from the 'liberal' side of the aisle. Kind of makes me think of Hillary Clinton on her way down and out of the running for the nomination.....Rachel?

[GallopingCat]

That must have been a lot of work, collecting those covers. It's not like you could just go to a free website, say, Newyorker.com, and see the dozens and dozens of New Yorker covers Blitt has done...

[thatvisionthing]

Cartoon Bank has all the New Yorker covers, including Barry Blitt's:

http://www.cartoonbank.com/search_results_category.asp?sitetype=1&section=all&keyword=barry+blitt&advanced=0&x=14&y=13.

Kudos to NYr, CB and BB. Getting a bleak and way too heavy world to lighten up, one cover at a time...

[LaFilleEnRose]

Rachel, didn't you write a few years ago about the New Yorker editor's article re his long overseas friendly trip with Bill Clinton entitled Remnick on Clinton. Well, from your commentary they do sound chummy Bill and David. And guess what I heard a caller saying on air america today. Caller was convinced that the cover was done in support of and perhaps at the behest of the Clintons with intention to hurt Obama. this caller noted that even though Hillary has come round to stumping for Barack she's still not criticizing McCain. And isn't she sending out letters to donors asking if she can transfer their donation to her Senate (ahem) 2012 campaign. My mouth dropped opened as I listened because it rang true. This caller was absolutely convinced that Hillary has plans still to thwart Obama at the convention; failing that she's doing subtly what she can to not let Obama win. Slyly helping McCain...getting FOB's and of her own to help sabotage Obama's campaign. Anyway after hearing that, when I got home I goggled Remnick and Clinton and I got your own story of 2006. From your blog they DO sound chummy.

Sooooo Rachel, do you think there's anything to this?????

[mlaiuppa]

It's certainly within her character.

She is totally clueless isn't she?

[XCITIZEN]

Scary as SH*T, ain't it? When you think of what the Clintons have already done to drag this campaign down........

[America08]

NO COMPARISON.

[America08]

The problem I have with TNY's cover is I don't see ANY other cover, in their history, that shows ANY other Presidential candidate and his Wife in a negative manner such as this. I don't see one with Bill and Hillary, Laura and George, John and Cindy, Nancy and Ronald, etc. This so called satire is not fair and balanced. I am not a subscriber to the magazine, but if I was, I would cancel it.

[maxwellinformed]

Why will John McCain be our next president? I have 3 words:

Low Information Voter

[uvymopkq]

Freedom of speech....Obama hates it!

[thatvisionthing]

Remember all that fuss about the Time Iwo Jima cover with the Marines raising a tree? How come no one's picking up on Barry Blitt's retake on Iwo Jima from last year, which I think is terrific:

http://www.cartoonbank.com/product_details.asp?mscssid=MG0K7RVXHANG8NXL42G1349KS1A32DK7&sitetype=1&did=5&sid=124001&pid=&keyword=barry+blitt&section=all&title=undefined&whichpage=27&sortBy=popular

Whenever John McCain says we can win in Iraq, this is what I think of. Win what. Suits my mourning.

[ebanks84]

It seems the Huffington Post members are much more smarter than The New Yorker that's for sure. They had the exact way the cartoon should have been presented, as a bubble coming from maybe McCain's mind for instance. That would have been funny as hell:)

Stupid New Yorker was just trying to express their point, smash Obama any way you can! Buttholes!

[YankeeCanuck]

The readership of the New Yorker would see that image exactly as the cartoonist intended--a preposterous interpretation of the Obamas. True, if you look around at the attitudes in other areas of the country, it could be taken as bashing Obama.
But not to New Yorkers!

[XCITIZEN]

"The readership of the New Yorker" - yeah right.

So many who have posted here and commented on the airwaves are now CANCELING THEIR SUBSCRIPTIONS to the New Yorker.

This is the problem when someone decides they think and speak for an entire demographic or group - we get lame SH*T like this.

[deepintheheartoftejas]

I don't know why Bin Laden is on a segway, but that's easily the most awesome of them all.

[thatvisionthing]

Cartoon Bank has all the New Yorker covers, including two pages of Barry Blitt's:
http://www.cartoonbank.com/search_results_category.asp?sitetype=1&section=all&keyword=barry+blitt&advanced=0&x=14&y=13. A feast!

[DRaymond]

I too see a difference between making fun of a current situation and giving credance to lies.

[ebanks84]

That's the whole point. It isn't making fun of even a "correct" situation. It's making so-called fun of a bunch of lies.

[popecorvo]

You can certainly make fun of "a bunch of lies."

The problem with this cover is that the liars are nowhere to be found.

[filo]

A lie told often enough becomes the truth - Lenin

There are many well meaning,low information people out there who still think Obama is a Muslim.

I'm sure the GOP LOVED the cover.

[thatvisionthing]

And it worked. Now it's way out in the open and everyone's talking about it and learning the joke.

It doesn't seem to be Obama's thing, self-deprecating comfortable-in-my-skin humor, but tell you what this is a perfect chance for Obama to say something nice and true and obvious about Muslims being good people and that black is just another skin color to enjoy and to quit the hysteria. If you really want to end the terror, quit treating Muslims like enemies. And what a great time too for Keith Ellison to speak up about being black and Muslim and swearing in on a Koran -- Thomas Jefferson's Koran -- and again say why being Muslim is a good thing. I'm sick of the fearmongering and slurs. I bet billions of Muslims are too.

[Nofuzzydreams]

Clearly the cover is wild - sattire or not! However, one does not have to unenlightened to question whether Obama holds some Muslim values. After all his father and step-father were muslims and he spent time studying in a muslim school in Indonesia in an early age. Again he is not a Muslim but may harbor some muslim values. Next question is, if so, is it good, bad, ok? Don't know. But it is a fair question for someone who will be President. Otherwise we may end up with another "Bush" who avoided all the tough questions and vetting.

[YankeeCanuck]

Wellll, nofuzzy... your dreams may be clear but I'm not too sure about your waking life!

[SpencerCat]

Wow, Nofuzzydreams, what are you talking about?

Obama did not attend Muslim school, in Indonesia or anywhere else.

Neither his father nor his stepfather practiced the Muslim religion.

See? This cover just reinforces the ignorance and false beliefs about Senator Obama.

[LeftLeanWing]

Listen up everyone ..... Again ....

Obama DID NOT, I repeat, DID NOT attend a Muslim School.

Obama for two years attended a public school in Indonesia, that was focused on an academic educations.

Secondly,

Obama father was an non-practicing Muslim ( probably an atheist ) and Obama only saw him once after he was two years old, so unless Obama Sr. was capable of some sort of Vulvan mind meddle to implant .... our nevermind. His step-father was a non-practicing Muslim as well; otherwise, he wouldn't have married an unconverted white atheist with a mixed-raced kid.


Yes, this was a fair question a year ago; but now it's just plain fear-mongery; by implicating that Obama is secretly indoctrinated to an Radical Islamic Movement that didn't even exist in the 60's when he was briefly exposed to either of these men.

[thatvisionthing]

Obama VULCAN??? Oh. my. God. I. always. wanted. to. vote. for. Spock.

Begin drool...

[sporcupine]

Thanks for these. All but one are classic satire, an intensifying twist on what's not great in what someone's actually been doing. The anxious candidates both reaching for the phone was especially good at capturing a moment in our shared life.

The "Kiss" is I take as enjoying a familiar delight in its slightly altered form: it's mainly about the people portrayed. It may also imply a backhanded jab at those who wouldn't enjoy the sight. With or without that, it offers a great angle on our place and time.

This week's cover is not about anyone or anything shown in the picture. It's also not about the likely foibles of those likely to see the cover. Instead, to get the point, the viewer has to imagine some third party who imagines the Obamas do that stuff. Apparently, we're supposed to chuckle at the implied foibles of the implied person we don't see. We're supposed to get some insight from thinking of them shuddering at the burning flag, but not shudder because we ourselves are seeing it.

If this was gymnastics, it would be an attempted triple back flip. Not gold medal. Not silver or bronze. Not even good enough to qualify for the next round. Belly flop on the mat in front of thousands who emit an audible groan and don't clap even when the guy pulls himself painfully up from the mats afterward. Ugh.