Take a look at a proposed Fortune magazine cover, and see how many financial jokes are in there. Can you find Helicopter Ben Bernanke dumping money into the economy? How about the proverbial slow boat to China? Can you find the houses that are underwater in their mortgages? How about the survivalists who expected this Great Recession to turn into a Depression and thus stocked up on food, water, and ammo. Take a closer look and you will see the FDIC closing banks, the United States Treasury being raided, the Tea Party blowing off steam with an elephant (Republican) tea kettle, and Detroit being pictured as a pile of wrecked cars.
There are a few things I did not understand while looking at the cover, such as the guy on a hill doing a painting just east of Hollywood. Overall though, I love this cover, and I wish Fortune had gone with it.
Chris Ware is a graphic artist with a specific style and a very specific point of view. He was asked to create a cover for the May issue of Fortune, specifically about the Fortune 500.
Surprise! Fortune rejected the cover. (What a bunch of wimps!)
