One of my busiest and most lucrative years to date. I picked up the investment client A.G. Edwards, who assigned me several illustrations every quarter for an internal company newsletter. Similar in subject matter to what I was doing at the Wall Street Journal, this client would stick with me over the next 6 years before going out of business.

Also this year began a ten plus year gig at the Wall Street Journal, doing weekly (or sometimes bi-monthly) spots for a regular column called ‘aches and claims’. These would usually involve dubious health fads and I had a 2 inch by 1 inch space to fill nearly every Monday for the coming decade. This, combined with my frequent appearances elsewhere in the newspaper gave me an almost steady flow of reliable income for the first time in my career. I loved doing those spots, and even though they were always same day turnaround, it was nice to have something you could count on every week.

Another nice development was that Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, whom I had been working for since 1989, was starting to use a larger format for its magazine, and the illustration sizes grew as a result. I started to really enjoy the extra space.

I was really starting to feel comfortable with my scratchboard style, and was making some good strides in the techniques I was using, and as a result of AG Edwards, and some of my regular clients, it started to really become my number one selling illustration style.

That’s not so say I completely left the other styles by the wayside, and would continue to experiment with different tools in my arsenal.