Getting ready for Thanksgiving week. I’ve just finished another of the ‘What was’ books for Penguin, and worked up sketches for another one. (I’ll likely share some more samples from older books in this series sometime in December) On Thursday I made a trip down to Kendall College of Art and Design to do a lecture on ‘Freelance Illustration’ to a group of third year illustration students (thanks again to Mike for inviting me down, and to the great group of students who shared their portfolios with me at the end of class – you were all very inspirational to this old man). I was reminded of my favorite quote from the movie ‘Chinatown’, where the villain Noah Cross (played by John Huston) talks of ‘respectability’: “Politicians, Ugly Buildings and Whores all get respectable, if they last long enough.” — so this old Kendall dropout was quite tickled to be doling out advice to the young illustrators of tomorrow. Meanwhile, the work continues … On Friday afternoon I finished up the above illustration for Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, one of my longest running clients (my first assignment for them was in the fall of 1989). Next week I’ll be starting on sketches for another book project, which will likely be taking up most of December.