City & State’s best covers of 2019

As the one and only weekly magazine focused exclusively on New York politics, we take pride in our eye-catching covers. New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson as a cat? Ride-hailing cars writing “asshole?” Gov. Andrew Cuomo in drag? We’ve done it all in 2019.

So at the end of his first full year as City & State’s art director, we asked Andrew Horton about his favorite covers.

The Exorcists (Jan. 21)

“If any organization has worse publicity than Albany lawmakers, it’s the Catholic Church. This is a riff on the poster for the 1973 movie “The Exorcist,” which has a priest standing outside the house of Linda Blair in stark lighting. That is a stained glass window from a church in Europe.”

Cuomo as Thanos (April 29)

“(City & State Senior Graphic Designer) Alex (Law) did that (cover). It took him about three days. Someone had drawn a typeface that resembled the Avengers logo, so we had to track that down online as well. It just came out at the right time, because the power list coincided with the movie becoming the No. 1 movie in the world.”

Ruben Diaz Jr.: Son of a Preacher Man (Sept. 16)

“The smirk is great. You try to portray politicians as real people in portraiture, and it’s increasingly difficult because they’re media paranoid. That captures Diaz, and has a sly wit to it.”

The Least Powerful Man in New York (Sept. 30)

“It is not hard to find photos of (New York City Mayor Bill) de Blasio looking dorky. It’s actually very difficult to find photos of de Blasio looking presidential, let along mayoral, because he’s such a doofus. Everything about him is so outsized. Everything about this cover looks dumb. It’s a shockingly stupid cover. Dumb works sometimes.”

The Upstarts (Nov. 11)

“We could have put any of the six (congressional candidates) on the cover, and they would have looked like New York City. They looked like a great representation: nonhomogenized personalities. Who knows whether or not they’re going to succeed, but it’s nice to capture them at the beginning of a potential political career.”

OK Bloomer (Nov. 25)

“I think I saw someone online use the headline “OK Bloomberg,” which is fine, but it doesn’t quite reach the level of the meme’s snappiness. Sometimes the universe just gifts you with the perfect phrase for the moment, and everything about the “OK boomer” meme – suggesting that they’re out of touch and control too much money – that’s Bloomberg!”