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Back to Featured Interviews >> MEET DOUG CUSHMAN
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| Doug Cushman |
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing or drawing pictures. They both have been a part of me all my life. I created my first picture book at eight or nine years old, titled SPACE CAT. I wrote and drew it with colored pencils on lined notebook paper with a green construction paper cover lying on the floor in the living room in at my home in Springfield, Ohio. Many years later I actually published SPACE CAT (at least a version of it) as an I Can Read book for HarperCollins. Things haven’t changed. In high school I wrote and drew comic books for my friends, charging them a nickel per issue. I lampooned my teachers in the school newspaper making them goofy superheroes or animals in a jungle (all heavily influenced by the great comic strip POGO by Walt Kelly, one of my heroes).
When did you start pursuing a writing/ illustrating career?
After art school, I pulled together all my best drawings, shoved them into a portfolio and schlepped it (and myself) into New York City, presenting it to any art director that took the time to look. In the meantime I took any illustration job I could get- insurance brochures, spot illustrations for text books, illustrations for film strips- anything. I apprenticed with a book illustrator as well. In between all these jobs, I wrote stories and submitted them to publishers. After five years or so I received my break; a publisher offered me a book. Five years after that I published the first book that I both wrote and illustrated.
What kinds of things inspire you to write?
I’ve always been a fan of mysteries. I grew up on with the Hardy Boys, Sherlock Holmes, Alfred Hitchcock’s THE THREE INVESTIGATORS, and of course Agatha Christie. The first book I wrote and illustrated, AUNT EATER LOVES A MYSTERY, was a spoof and homage to Christie’s wonderful Miss Marple. MYSTERY AT THE CLUB SANDWICH is my tribute to the great film noir movies of the forties like The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep and Farewell My Lovely. The art was executed in pen and ink with black watercolor and lamp black washes, to capture the look of those great old black and white movies. For the final printing of the book, the printer added an extra layer of a thin sliver ink to make the illustrations sparkle a bit more, not unlike the flickering screen in a movie theater. And of course I loved the play on words; in printer’s language, the extra layer of silver ink was called a “silver screen”, just like the affectionate term for old movies.
Have any of your books earned special recognition?
I’m flattered to have MYSTERY AT THE CLUB SANDWICH to be a part of the 2009 California Collection. Thank you so much for this great honor. In the past, THE MYSTERY OF KING KARFU was in the Elementary California Collection from 1997 to 2002; INSPECTOR HOPPER in the 2006 and 2007 Elementary California Collections; and DIRK BONES AND THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED HOUSE in the 2008 Elementary California Collection.