In my youth I dreamed of being an illustrator.
After that I jumped, especially being in art school, to the illustrators.
My greatest passion has always been connecting with creative people, appreciating the artistic and discovering fresh perspectives on the world. I came on board to use my experience in building an international community of photographers, illustrators and video artists at iStockphoto who learned, grew and sold their work to millions around the world. Building a community that large requires personality, a keen sense of what both the contributing artists and the buying audience need, and an ability to balance both. I wanted very much to transfer those skills to the fine art world.
Cartoonists are untrained artists, while illustrators are more trained.
I don't relax. My main relaxation is meeting illustrators and publishers in restaurants and bars.
I used to draw and illustrate, but I don't do that anymore because I just like to write. I like to leave the illustrations to actual professional illustrators.
I wasn't a very good illustrator so I became a designer.
Illustrators are usually illustrating something big or commercial if not outright advertising. It's a form of prostitution, but that's cool because we don't have any moral hang-up about it.
For a while, I just thought that I wanted to be an illustrator because that's all I wanted to do. I also did some sculpting. It was always very artsy and very feminine, everything that I did.
The illustrators work so much harder on the books than the writers do. I mean, that's so much work doing what they do, and it's terrible for them.
Coming from the world of comics, I was very surprised that writers and illustrators, for the most part, don't talk, and they don't collaborate.
