Valentine to the Wisconsin Uprising

Note: For two years, I had been knocking at the email door of my favorite magazine illustrator in the world, Guy Billout (of New York via Decize, France). “The heart is not a heart, Guy,” I would write him, as one mylar heart dwelled in the Wisconsin State Capitol oculus for months after an occupation against Gov. Scott Walker's union-killing legislation. “It has become a force, maybe even an avatar, in the Wisconsin Uprising.” He appreciated that I remembered the visual power of his New Republic covers from the 1980s and then The Atlantic magazine series of featured, stand-alone illustrations (such as: man-hailing- NYC-cab’s shadow morphs into a Statue of Liberty in blue). So last night, after I sent him another photo-laden file, he stunned me with an illustration in response. A gift to Wisconsin, he said, for Valentine’s Day, for the Second Anniversary of the Wisconsin Uprising. Merci, Guy!
--Jonathan Rosenblum

Guy Billout