This Year’s Christmas Cover: And The Winner Is…

A very Merry Christmas to all my friends, fans, and followers! If you don’t celebrate Christmas, I wish you a very happy holiday season. Thank you for supporting my blog.
I’m a lucky guy to know so many wonderful people.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of my favorite jobs every year is a Christmas cover for the Inland Register, the monthly publication of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane, Washington. It’s a great match for me: I’m a Catholic, I love Christmas, and it’s one of those happy occasions where my vocation allows me to proclaim my faith.

I must confess, however, that the assignment would not be nearly as much fun if Eric Meisfjord weren’t the editor of the Inland Register.

I’ve known Eric for many years now, and it’s a little scary: it’s almost like we’re twins separated at birth. We both love pop culture and trivia: the more obscure, the better. We also love puns, jokes, and witty repartee. Our senses of humor are almost identical– and that’s more than a little scary.

What this means is, I have some extra leeway when it comes to cover ideas and rough sketches. I’m always careful to include some fairly conservative ideas, but I’ll also include some that are a little zany. And there’s usually one that’s way out there.

I submitted the following six ideas this year. I’ll describe them briefly. See if you can guess which one Eric chose.

The Star of Bethlehem? It was really a hot-air balloon guided by an angel, who reported to Heaven on the progress of the Three Wise Men.

A city street scene, with a church on the corner of a busy intersection. A lone Christmas shopper has stopped to say a prayer at the creche at the top of the church steps.

A packed church, filled with parishioners singing the opening hymn. A woman in the front pew is sporting a hat crowned with a manger scene, complete with Wise Men and camels. I probably should have included some palm trees on the right side to balance things out.

Catholicism spans the globe, and here we have people of every nation, race, culture, ethnicity, etc., forming a human Christmas tree, with Mary, Joseph, and Jesus as the
base. The presents under the tree spell out the Good News.

A luminaria is a paper lantern– usually a white paper bag anchored with sand, with
a lighted candle inside. One often sees them lining church walkways for the nighttime Christmas Vigil Mass.

Here we see a guy sitting at a church luminaria control board, watching the monitors. A crisis has arisen: the board shows that two of the luminaria have gone out. Time to call luminaria security.

And finally, here’s this year’s way-out entry: a giant hand has picked up an entire shopping mall, and is emptying it like a salt shaker. Shoppers, packages, and shopping carts are falling into a church, whose roof is conveniently propped open. Shop ’til you drop, indeed…

Those were the six cover concepts. Can you guess which one was selected? Place your bet, then scroll down for the winner.

#2 got the nod. I think it was a good choice. City street scenes make appealing covers. This one shows a lot of familiar Christmas images: trees, wreaths, shoppers, falling snow, etc. It also shows a church and a creche. It juxtaposes both sides of Christmas, the commercial and religious.

It doesn’t say the commercial side is bad: the man kneeling by the creche has clearly been doing some shopping. But it does suggest that for the Christian, the primary focus should be on Christ’s birth, and God’s intervention in human history.

Here’s a detail image. I like the kid walking through the puddle.

It’s funny: I’ll sometimes omit certain details when I ink my pencil drawing. It’s a subconscious thing. I don’t catch the omissions until I’m done.

If you look at the #2 rough sketch, you’ll see I have some traffic signs and a pedestrian crossing signal box. I put them in my final pencil drawing, but “forgot” to ink them.

I’ve learned not to correct these “mistakes.” My subconscious is smarter than I am. It’s telling me I’m trying to cram too much into the illustration. That less is more.

Here’s another detail image.

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Did you guess Eric’s pick? Which one did you like best yourself?

Ever had an experience where things worked out better because you “forgot” to do something?

Are you a luminaria fan? Ever been dumped out of a mall or other public building???

Hope you’ll leave a comment.

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