American Illustration Profiles: John Cuneo

My latest American Illustration Profiles interview is with illustrator John Cuneo:

John Cuneo loves to draw. Go to his website homepage and you’ll see a heading that says “John Cuneo Drawings” (as well as a monkey with pens and coffee at a drawing table…). He’s a masterful illustrator, artist, humorist, and visual storyteller whose work has appeared in just about every major magazine, and most of the smaller ones, too. Cuneo’s ink and watercolor drawings are brilliant explosions of line and color with a chaotic edge, filled with smart and funny attitude. You’ve got to love an illustrator who has not one but two sections of his website devoted to work that is by his own description “offensive,” “vulgar,” and “lacking merit” (and frequently NSFW).

Cuneo explains that he creates his work “digitally,” by which he means with his hands and fingers (digits). For many years his funny, sexy, and seriously twisted illustrations appeared in the monthly Esquire Sex column, and a book collection of his personal work, nEuROTIC, has been published by Fantagraphics. Cuneo is also as passionate about other people’s illustration as he is his own. Just look at the amazing stream-of-consciousness ode to his favorite illustrators in the interview below. And Cuneo’s Drawger page is a delight of sketches, killed assignments, and showcases of illustration work, by both him and his pals.

Read the full John Cuneo American Illustration Profiles interview here.

(Above): The New Yorker, August 5, 2013. Illustration by John Cuneo.