Illustrator Tomer Hanuka, best known in comics circles for projects like Bipolar, The Placebo Man and Meathaus S.O.S. (not to mention numerous covers), makes his New Yorker debut with the lovely, and surprisingly warm, cover for the Feb. 10 issue. Surprising, I say, because "Perfect Storm" deals with the winter weather, if from a different perspective.

“I moved to New York in my early twenties, after being in the Israeli Army for three years,” he says on the magazine's website. “I have this image of myself in my first rental apartment, sitting on the edge of the bed and staring at the window. You encounter the world as an adult for the first time — I think that’s what the story was about. That’s a powerful thing. Every window you stared through before was your parent’s world, and now, suddenly, you’re in a city. You’re washed with optimism and a sense of freedom — you’ve just been liberated and that’s amazing. And then you realize you can do very little, and it’s terribly disappointing. But the heartache and all that, that comes later.”