January 7, 2018

Klan Trump, Lioness DiFi, and Other Favorite Illustrations From 2017

Jarring and clever art from our magazine.

In 2017, we covered everything from the rise of the alt-right and Trump’s Russian connections to what doctors don’t tell you about pregnancy. Along the way, some very brainy and bold artists lent us their creativity and sweat: For instance, Pushart’s Megan Berkheiser and Mike Caldwell cut out plastic utensils from paper to reconstruct a great wave of forks and spoons. Illustrator Wesley Bedrosian created a gripping rendering of California Senator Dianne Feinstein, re-imagining her as a lioness clawing at her handler.

More than 40 illustrations were commissioned for our stories last year, and though narrowing down the picks was hard, here are our favorites. (And a quick note that these illustrations look especially great in print. You can get a copy of the latest issue here—or get a friend a gift subscription for $10 a year.)

 

Make America Hate Again
Illustration by Justin Renteria

Don’t Mourn. Fight.
Illustration by Mike McQuade

What to Expect
Illustration by Noma Bar

Heavens to Betsy
Illustration by Tim O’Brien

Rules for Radicals
Illustration by Chris Visions

Who Moved My Teachers?
Illustration by Dale Stephanos

“Some Form of Punishment”
Illustration by Gracia Lam

Trump Vs. the Law
Illustration by Morten Morland

The Lioness in Winter
Illustration by Wesley Bedrosian

Oil and Water
Illustration by Jason Holley

The Russian Connection
Illustration by Noma Bar

The Russian Connection
Illustration by Mike McQuade

The Worst of Tines
Illustration by Pushart

Here Comes the Bribe
Illustration by Zohar Lazar

Want to Boot Trump?
Illustration by Edel Rodriguez

Inconceivable
Illustration by Hanna Barczyk

Designer Genes
Illustration by arn0

Taking Pains and The Dental Divide
Illustrations by Matt Chase

Remote Controlled
Illustration by Jesse Lenz

Clean Slate Club
Illustration by Michael George Haddad

Rigged
Illustration by Matt Chase

Can We Talk?
Illustration by Gerard Dubois

Insomniac’s Little Helper
Illustration by Thomas Fuchs

You Will Lose Your Job to a Robot
Illustration by Roberto Parada

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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