 Hired by Tina Brown as a contributing artist in 1992 , Spiegelman worked for The New Yorker for ten years . Spiegelman 's first cover appeared on the February 15 , 1993 , Valentine 's Day issue and showed a black West Indian woman and a Hasidic man kissing . The cover caused turmoil at The New Yorker offices . Spiegelman intended it to reference the Crown Heights riot of 1991 in which racial tensions led to the murder of a Jewish yeshiva student . Spiegelman had twenty @-@ one New Yorker covers published , and submitted a number which were rejected for being too outrageous . 
