'The Truth And Other Lies', for the New York Times

I've got a new piece in the New York Times Book Review, this time it's about Sascha Arango's new crime novel The Truth And Other Lies. 

The "sociopathic antihero" of this crime story is a famous writer who lives a rich life, but he has a secret: All his book are really written by his wife, who despises publicity and just wants to write.
He's not a good guy. When his mistress reveals she's pregnant, he decides to murder her, as not to jeopardize his comfy arrangement.

Joseph Finder, the reviewer, is also a best-selling novelist and I recently had the pleasure to illustrate a review of his latest book, The Fixer. I have to admit, I do enjoy working with crime and noir in these assignments!

Many thanks to Art Director Nicholas Blechman, who's about to leave the Grey Lady for greener pastures… always to pleasure!

New York Times Book Review: The Fixer

Here's my latest piece for the New York Times Sunday Book Review, illustrating a review of Joseph Finder's new thriller, The Fixer.

In a mundane setting, a former investigative reporter looks into the mysterious past of his father, after finding a pile of money in his home's crawl space.

After my the initial scribble, I added the flashlight effect, which really made the image. The final consisted of two drawings overlaid.

You can read the whole text on the New York Times' website.

Many thanks to Art Director Nicholas Blechman!

New York Times Sunday Business Cover

Had the pleasure of illustrating a cover and interior spot for the Sunday Business section of the New York Times. Art Director Minh Uong, with whom I've worked since his time at the Village Voice, asked me to do something sequential.

The story is about Shanesha Taylor, who was arrested for leaving her children in a car during an important job interview. It's written by Shaila Dewan and you can read it here.

The challenge with sequential editorial pieces is that the image is a bit fractured and cannot be as bold as one single image.

After a first round of sketches, we tried to increase the graphic impact by using one large panel and a few smaller ones.

As the project progressed, we rearranged the panels several times, till everybody was content with the flow of the story.

For the interior, we did a simple comic-strip of 3 images. For the cover, we used one large, loud image and and four smaller panels.

Thanks again to AD Minh Uong and the New York Times!

New York Times Sunday Business: A Friday Night Of Bartending, Without The Lights

 I had a new piece in the New York Times Sunday Business Section, a gripping text written by Nicole C. Kear about her experience bartending at the Village Idiot in NYC while partially blind.

I sent in quite a few sketches and this one made the cut. Right from the beginning I pictured the fuzzy vision / tunnel vision visualized with a water color separation.

After getting the piece approved, I tightened up the drawing with pencil, before going into the final with pen / brush and ink. The watercoloring was separate, and all was assembled on the computer.

Art director on the piece was Minh Uong, who's been a supporter of my work for many years now! Thanks Minh!

New York Times Op/Ed: The Forgotten Virtues of Tammany Hall

I had the great pleasure doing an Op/Ed for the New York Times last week, which ran the past Saturday. The article dealt with the landmark status for the Tammany Hall, the building that hosted the notorious and highly influential "political machine" that was synonymous with corruption in NY during the 1800s up until 1930s. But this article made the case that Tammany Hall actually helped some of the poor of New York City.

Op/Ed Art Director Matt Dorfman encouraged me to check out some of Thomas Nast's cartoons of that time, often ridiculing "Boss" Tweed and picturing him as a massive, over-sized figure, so I went from there. The first sketch shows the actual building and and a self-righteous Boss Tweed, as well as one of his underlings feeding the poor.

In the second version, I managed to make him more involved and boil the idea down better. And we got rid of the building altogether. All along, Matt and I went back and forth with layout screenshots, as this image plays with the page design in a subtle way, it's kind of open and not boxed in which is fun.

Here is the final result. Thanks again to Art Director Matt Dorfman for the great project and awesome collaboration!

Guantanamo Bay for The New York Times

Got a new piece in the New York Times today, on the letters page. It's about renewed calls to close Guantanamo Bay.

The finished piece is partially inverted and I worked with a separation to make the borders uneven. So some assembly was required in photoshop, but in the end it's just a simple drawing.

Read the letters that go with the article here. Many thanks to AD Alexandra Zsigmond!

Uncle Sam for The New York Times Sunday Biz

I had the pleasure doing another piece for the New York Times Sunday Business section, this time it was about the budget deficit and questions about national debt. I've never done an Uncle Sam so I was kind of excited to pay homage to Montgomery Flagg's iconic character. For that, I used multiple ink wash overlays to create a painterly effect. 

It took a while to tweak the visual till it was just right. Uncle Sam is carrying the burden of national debt, but he's still managing.

Below are the final pencils for the piece. Last minute, I changed his stance to give him more strength and energy.

Many thanks to AD Veronic Ferre, our first assignment together was great fun!

New York Times Sunday Biz Cover

I have a piece in today's New York Times, on the cover of the Sunday Business section. It's about nutritional supplements and the lack of oversight over them; and the responsibility that retailers such as GNC have towards their customers. You can read the whole article here.

Below you can see my sketches and how the piece evolved. Sometimes it takes a bunch of drawings to get to the core of it. The idea to break the border came to me just before I started inking.

Many thanks to Art Director Minh Uong!

PEANUT reviewed by The New York Times

“A smart, affecting graphic young adult novel… Sadie’s allergy may be fake, but the sentiments in ‘Peanut’ are not, and that’s what matters. For adolescents, reality is often more about how you feel about things than about the facts themselves. “
--Pamela Paul, The New York Times

The New York Times reviewed PEANUT on January 23rd, 2013, on their website. It's a very thoughtful and, thankfully, positive review that made me and everybody who was involved in the book very happy. Read the full article here.

I'm especially thrilled about the kind words Pamela Paul had to say about my artwork:

"[…] Hoppe’s panel illustrations are done in a loose, black-and-white pen-and-ink style. Only Sadie’s omnipresent shirt, which goes from tank top to polo to hoodie, according to season, is cherry-red. This highlights her sense of physical and emotional isolation. Hoppe also illustrates Sadie’s thoughts and emotions in inventive ways. A sequence in which she imagines various people’s reactions to her confessing as thought bubbles above her head — each one going pop! as the imagined dialogue sputters — is especially brilliant. […]

I have to admit the "bubbles" sequence was already thought up in author Ayun Halliday's manuscript, and it was one of my favorite parts from when I first read it. I'm glad that the reviewer liked it as much as I did.

Many thanks to Pamela Paul, and once again to Ayun, Rebecca, Ann an Lee!

New York Times Letters Page

I did a Letters Page a new piece for today's New York Times, it illustrates letters in response to an article in last weekend's Week In Review. The writer shared the story of his friend who's battling prostate cancer while having no insurance. It's a somber and serious topic and I tried my best to do it justice.

You can find the letters and my illustration here. Many thanks to AD Alexandra Zsigmond.

NYTimes Book Review: Triburbia

I have a new piece in this weekend's New York Times Book Review, illustrating a review of Karl Taro Greenfeld's new book Triburbia, which describes the life of people in Manhattan's district Tribeca. You can read the full review here.

Many thanks to Art Director Shannon Robertson for the fun assignment and the great collaboration!

New York Times Sunday Business

I have a new piece in today's New York Times, about behavioural scientists and how they can help inform political decisions. Many thanks to Art Director Minh Uong! You can read the full article here.

NYTimes Arts and Leisure Cover

Today's New York Times Arts & Leisure section features a cover by yours truly, it was a great project and I'm very happy with the result. Many thanks to AD Shannon Robertson and the friendly people at the NYTimes who came up with the pop-up idea. Below are my sketches, where you can see how the final piece evolved and some of the other ideas we played around with. You can read the article (about NYU's expansion plans in the city) here.

New York Times Sunday Business

This is for the Career Couch column in the Sunday Biz section of the New York Times, illustrating a Q & A about workplace etiquette regarding personal electronic devices.





















Here are some of the sketches that I submitted to Art Director Minh Uong, who guided me along to the best solution. I still like the guy under the table, but the finished piece suits the article best since it's more about obnoxious behaviour.

In the finish, I went for a bit of a bolder line this time around, done entirely in brush. Also, it was decided not to have the phone in front of his crotch, hehe…

New York Times / Science

I did this one for Peter Morance for today's New York Times, for whom I tend to do comics instead of one large illustration. It's fun to come up with a visual story that goes with the written text.

The article talks about the linguistic stylings of teenage girls and young women and how they influence common language. The latest trend that some linguists believe to have found is the "vocal fry", when you lower your voice at the end of a sentence.…

Four Economic Horsemen for the NYTimes

Here's my latest for the New York Times, Sunday Business section. The image is illustrating an opinion column about recent economic crises and problems, pointing out the economies of Zimbabwe, Greece, Japan and France as cautionary tales for the United States. It raises serious points, but I couldn't help but being a little amused about the French example, whose economy apparently mostly suffers because the French like to enjoy life too much. That is the most harrowing of the four horsemen, for sure!

AD Minh Uong

New York Times Illustrations

I have two (!) pieces in today's New York Times, one for the Sunday Review, about a ghost city entirely populated by robots (AD Rodrigo Honeywell), and the other one for the Sunday Business page, about the challenges of several generations working together at the workplace (AD Minh Uong). Thanks very much to the Art Directors, it's always an honor to be in the Times!

New York Times OpEd Page

In today's New York Times: Thoughts about an energy-efficient military, as fuel transports in war regions are very dangerous. Many thanks to Art Director Aviva Michaelov for working with me on this!