Yes, I know; there are a lot of New Yorker diaries up here right now. But I hope you'll indulge one more, for just a few minutes, as I attempt to make some sense of why a New Yorker cover looks the way it does, and why it's unlike any other magazine on the face of the earth.
It is not my intention to rehash this week's cover; there are gajillions of other diaries available for that purpose. And I should note that I do not have any relationship to the magazine other than that of a longtime (and passionate) reader and admirer. The New Yorker is more than capable of speaking for itself; it doesn't need me.
I'll try to be brief as I attempt to clear up some misconceptions about why this magazine's cover looks the way it does...
Q: So, the cover has something to do with the content of the magazine, right?
A: Nope. From day one, way back in 1925, the magazine has never had a "cover story" in the way most other magazines do. For most of its history, the New Yorker cover was simply a nice piece of art, sometimes abstract, sometimes specific, often seasonal, occasionally humorous, but never topical. Perhaps the archetypal classic New Yorker cover was Saul Steinberg's famous view of the rest of the country from New York, published in 1976.
That began changing under the last two editors. When Tina Brown became editor in the early nineties, she commissioned some provocative covers from artists such as Art ("Maus") Spiegelman. The Hasidic Jew kissing the black woman? That was a Spiegelman/Brown cover. Under the present editor, David Remnick, the cover has become ever more topical. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have made frequent appearances, most recently as a gay couple just getting married.
As the cover has become increasingly topical, it sometimes overlaps in subject with an article inside the magazine. This never seems to be intentional, and no attempt is ever made (that I've seen, anyway) to link the cover to the article inside.
Q: So the cover is designed to attract newsstand buyers?
A: Nope, not particularly. For one thing, single-copy sales make up a tiny percentage of the magazine's circulation. We're not talking about Us Magazine or Star, here.
For another, the cover is missing a lot of the things we're accustomed to seeing on magazine covers - like, say, teasers to the articles inside. Which meant that, yes, for the first 70 years or so of the magazine's existence, what newsstand buyers there were had to decide if they wanted to buy that issue based mostly on the pretty drawing of flowers that made up the entire cover, adorned only by the name of the magazine, the date and the price.
Q: C'mon. That's no way to sell a magazine!
A: Dang tootin'! Which is why, when Tina Brown took over as editor, they added a half-cover to newsstand copies of the magazine. It's usually text against a plain colored background, listing some of the major articles inside, with a UPC at the bottom.
Q: Wait a minute - so the copies that are out there on the newsstand have the cover art obscured?
A: Yup - at least most of the left side of it, which somewhat dilutes the argument that the covers are chosen to boost newsstand sales. We're not talking about People putting George Clooney on the cover and selling 200,000 more copies here.
Q: OK, but they must at least have the name of the artist and the title of the artwork somewhere on the cover, right?
A: Um, no. That information appears at the bottom of the table of contents inside the magazine.
Q: That's kind of obscure, isn't it?
A: Yes, it is. But the New Yorker is a magazine of traditions, and that's the way it's always been done. Imagine trying to explain to a non-Kossack why we fill diaries with pootie pictures, or respond to trolls by posting recipes, or why polls usually include a "pie" choice. Now imagine that those traditions had been settling into place for 83 years, not just six or seven.
That's the position the New Yorker is in. Their front cover has been something of an in-joke for loyal readers for a long time now. It's never really mattered if anyone else got it - indeed, there are weeks when even loyal readers can't quite figure out what the cover is supposed to mean. (Or maybe it's just me!) That sort of thing worked fine for eight decades. It may need some adjusting now that anything, including a New Yorker cover, is fair game for instant, 24-hour discussion and dissection in the blogosphere and out there in the land o' cable news.
Q: OK. But it's still a business, and surely they want to sell more magazines, right?
A: Sure. The magazine has never been a charity, though its present ownership (the Newhouse family, through Conde Nast) seems to be willing to tolerate lower profit margins in exchange for the prestige the title brings to the rest of its magazine family. But the goal, in the New Yorker's case, seems to be less about newsstand sales, which are tiny even on a good week, and more to keep the magazine at the center of discussion among those who talk about such things. This week's cover has fulfilled that goal, I'm quite certain.