“There’s a uniform quality to the design of kids—they’re so simplified,” says Carter Goodrich, this week’s cover artist and a character designer for feature animation films. “I enjoy drawing children more than adults—they’re a different species, new and fresh, like a tray of just-baked cookies. There’s a playful quality to their bodies: even when they’re standing still, they’re never completely static. Maurice Sendak is one of the artists who got it best: he caught the theatrical quality of kids, always there even when no one is looking. The other day, I was at the supermarket checkout counter. Everyone was bored and glum and then I saw this young girl. She was doing pirouettes, inventing them as she went along, completely lost in her own world. It was magical, and that’s what I mean—I just love watching kids.”
See below for more kids on the cover of The New Yorker over the decades.
