Unmasked

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The incomparable Chris Ware delivers a Halloween-themed cover and comic for the New Yorker. (Cover, first page, second page.) All the Ware-isms are in evidence.

  • Not 1mm of wasted space
  • The flatly modernist feel of isometry
  • A wintry desolation that savors of Chicago
  • Pools of Hockney cerulean + a southwestern palette of pink-gray-browns
  • Keen visual wit (viz., the children’s masks = the iPhone-lit faces of the parents)
  • The quick frissons of loneliness, neglect, and distrust
  • Patterns of intergenerational friction and inertia