Chris Ware's "Last Days"cover for The New Yorker

The New Yorker's cover editor Francoise Mouly interviewed cartoonist Chris Ware about his cover for the Sep 21 issue.

You've titled this "Last Days," and at some point you considered a slight variation, "Last Days. . . ." What did you want to evoke with the title?

I mean, first of all, it's September, and the weirdest summer ever is almost over. My original title, "Democratic Party," I rejected as too ambiguous and unintentionally pejorative. Besides, those of us who remember eighth-grade social studies know that we actually don't live in a democracy but in a republic, so I could have just as easily titled it that, too. Which I guess would've been even worse. The small-letter versions of these words are supposed to represent everything that we constitutionally revere, right? Not spark the flames of conflict or prompt a lock-and-load.