The Nation, Spring Books

The cover of The Nation's spring books issue doubles as an illustration for the lead story about "Literary Evolution" by William Deresiewicz. The editor and I decided that it would be good to poke some fun at the notion that reading, or art, is an extension of biological evolution. I wanted to give the illustration a vintage feel, as if this were something out of a science text book. I did the type by hand to loosen it up and make it less mechanical. Click on the image to get a closer look at the figures.
I also did a piece for an interior story of this issue called "The Kundera Conundrum" written by Jana Prikryl, which takes a look at the controversy around Milan Kundera's possible involvement in informing the Czech communist regime in the 60's about a suspicious fellow student.
Editor: John Palattella