This Week's New Yorker Cover Reflects On Newtown Tragedy

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jan 4, 2013 4:00PM

Chris Ware’s artwork for this week’s edition of The New Yorker was inspired by the Newtown, Conn. shooting and also serves as a contrast to Ware’s artwork September artwork that jokingly played on the free time parents have on their hands with the onset of a new school year.

Ware also wrote an essay on The New Yorker’s website where he details what he was doing when the shooting occurred Dec. 14 (he was chaperoning his daughter’s on a field trip to a performance of “The Nutcracker”); his thoughts on the shooting and the subsequent batshit-crazy news conference by National Rifle Association vice president Wayne LaPierre where he said the shooting could have been avoided if schools allowed armed teachers; and expressed everyday concern for his wife, a high school teacher in the Chicago Public Schools system.

(T)hough there has never been a shooting in her school during her tenure, there have been fights and thefts. Shootings have occurred outside and near her school, and one student died last year. A metal detector cowls the single student entrance. Such a safeguard, including two real guards—Chicago police, with guns—have been put in place (as at most Chicago public schools) because of gang unrest from within, not Playstation-style nightmares from without. Needless to say, rarely does a day pass where I don’t pray to my vague, atheist-default Supreme Ruler of the Universe that everything go effing well for her.

Ware’s words strike as deep as his artwork here and the entire essay is worth bookmarking and sharing with friends.