☛ The New Yorker: “Fall Library”, cover illustration by Tom Gauld, October 20th, 2014. The same image on the artist’s blog.

The New Yorker website provides this additional detail about how the illustration came to be:

When Tom Gauld sent the first sketch for this week’s cover, “Fall Library,” we discussed a variant where the woman was holding an electronic-book reader. “But I decided against the e-reader,” Gauld says. The image “ended up having too much going on, which made it less interesting. I think the fact that she’s holding one of her millions of books is what’s nice.”

Over at the illustrator’s personal blog, the original drawing can be compared to the final illustration:

The act of reading and literature in general are certainly two of Gauld’s recurring themes. He often illustrates with wry humor how they are both affected by the current technological developments. Below are only a few of the most recent examples he has produced in that vein.

Anyone interested in seeing more like those definitely should check You’re All Just Jealous Of My Jetpack, a 160-page selection of the weekly cartoons the British illustrator does for The Guardian.

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Previously: all posts featuring Tom Gauld.