Revolutionary People Illustrated
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Cartooning is a big interest here, but there are other diversions. The American Revolution being one. Bonus is when the two merge.
The November 2025 issue of The Atlantic (more specifically here) gets an early jump on the 250th anniversary of The Revolution. And the issue starts off with a wonderful gatefold cover by Joe McKendry featuring characters, real and imagined, from that period of American history.
The Atlantic’s November 2025 issue commemorates the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. For our cover image, the artist Joe McKendry painted a tableau of figures drawn from the stories in the issue.
The Atlantic gives McKendry props in “Behind The Atlantic’s November 2025 Issue Cover.”
Some of the figures will be instantly recognizable—Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson—and some of the depictions are based on historical portraiture…
Other figures will be less familiar. Standing beside George Washington is a man he enslaved. Like thousands of enslaved people, Harry Washington abandoned the plantation when the war began and fought for Great Britain. No image of this Washington survives. For such figures, McKendry imagined their visages, taking cues from written descriptions when possible…
One figure existed only in a work of fiction.
The page offers a guide to the characters depicted.
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