Illustrations of Steve Jobs: Is Jobs in Heaven?

There have been quite a few illustrations depicting Steve Jobs at the pearly gates of heaven, including the famous cover of the New Yorker (above). I thought this was very ironic because Jobs is not Christian, he’s Buddhist, so he would probably believe in reincarnation rather than an after-life. Indeed I found that a Christian newspaper reported on how these cartoons may be offensive. Personally, I don’t think they’re offensive, because they’re depicting him in a positive light. However, it does reflect how closely Western culture is tied to Christian values. The illustrations and other cleverly titled obits (e.g., “Steve Jobs takes iWay to heaven”) are really creative but I wonder, if they really wanted to pay homage to Jobs, they could have thought of something more consistent with his beliefs. One illustration by Nik Scott critiques this phenomenon:

Nik Scott/ Australia

Interestingly, you will see that the portrayal of Steve Job’s death is somewhat different in countries where Christianity is not the majority religion. You may notice that they are more neutral in terms of religious connotations.

Osama Hajjaj / Jordan

Paresh Nath/ National Herald (India)

Luo Jie/ China Daily

Oguz Gurel/ Turkey

Jeremy Nell / The New Age (South Africa)

Illustrations of Steve Jobs in Heaven
Not all illustrations from Western countries depicted Jobs in heaven, but all illustrations with a heavenly theme were from Western countries. Coincidence?

Patrick Chappatte/ International Herald Tribune

Randy Bish/ Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Joep Bertrams/ Het Parool (The Netherlands)

Peter Broelman/ Australia

Paul Zanetti/ The Sydney Daily Telegraph (Australia)

Gisli Lee Gudjonsson/ Boston Herald

Mike Luckovich/ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Steve Sack/ Minneapolis Star Tribune

David Fitzsimmons/ Arizona Daily Star

Jeff Darcy/ Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH)

Frederick Deligne/ Pelerin (France)

Design-savvy tributes
Of course, not all of the illustrations paying homage to Jobs have religious themes. Many are more stylistic and minimal in nature, incorporating imagery from the Apple logo and products