Review

Drawn to New York in Illustration Voice

Drawn to New York: An Illustrated Chronicle of Three Decades in New York City

by Anne Telford
Illustration Voice
October 2013

This beautiful illustration diary is Peter Kuper’s love letter to New York City, his home for the last 34 years. He captures the city in various media with his vibrant and colorful art showing every facet of the ever-changing city from the bankrupt days of the late 1970s to its present state, chronicling and celebrating it. “The city is change,” Kuper writes in the book’s preface. “That’s its glory-it’s a perpetually unfinished canvas, offering up possibility to each successive wave of artists.”

From quick sketches of jazz musicians in the Times Square subway to comic strips of New York as “Jungleland” to pen-and-ink and watercolor renderings of a market in Chinatown, a visual guide to city smells to a moving portrait of the city as a hand composed of landmark buildings with two missing fingers, shown as ghost twin towers, Kuper captures every conceivable angle and nuance of life in this most dynamic city.

Alan Moore, author of Watchmen and V for Vendetta calls Kuper, “One of the strongest and truest radical voices to emerge from contemporary America.” Kuper’s illustrations and comics have appeared in Time, the New York Times, and MAD where he has written and illustrated “Spy vs. Spy” every issue since 1997. The award-winning illustrator is the co-founder of the political commix magazine World War 3 Illustrated and has been on its editorial board for over 33 years. He is the author of over two-dozen books. He will have an exhibition opening at the Society of Illustrators/MOCCA to coincide with the book’s publication, on display through October 5th.

Back to Peter Kuper’s Author Page