Max Cannon Quotes

Even as a kid in drawing class, I had real ambition. I wanted to be the best in the class, but there was always some other feller who was better; so I thought, 'It can't be about being the best, it has to be about the drawing itself, what you do with it.' That's kind of stuck with me.

I gravitated to New York City in the late '70s to pursue a career in visual art, which is what I trained in at university.

Art has been good for my soul. And it's been good for my brain. I think I'm a better painter now than I was a musician growing up. You struggle to see things and translate an image through your hands to a canvas.

In middle school, I started to draw, and my pencil sketches were huge. They were these 4ft by 3ft drawings, and I got a lot of attention for that, so that was very validating. But I didn't start cartooning until I was in college.

In my youth I dreamed of being an illustrator.

I wanted to become an illustrator as a child.

I began as a boy with artistic talent... as a visual artist... I thought that was what I'd become and in my late teens drifted into reading serious literature.

I started doing cartoons when I was about 21. I never thought I would be a cartoonist. It happened behind my back. I was always a painter and drawer.

People still think of me as a cartoonist, but the only thing I lift a pen or pencil for these days is to sign a contract, a check, or an autograph.

I hope to actually get back to painting someday... soon. I sort of transitioned into cartooning from painting.

The writing process isn't something I'm in love with. I'm an illustrator who writes.

I can't imagine anybody who ends up being an artist who didn't pass through a time of geekiness.

I've been attracted to imagery and occasionally I've drawn from it, but I never thought I'd be painting these paintings. I didn't have any desire to. I didn't think there was any reason to.

I did cartoons for four high school publications and then and there decided I wanted to spend my life at the drawing board.

I drew as a child, they tell me. I can vaguely remember doing it. And then I drew again in the late years at high school.

I've always liked writing. Even when I was in art school and thought I was going to be a gallery painter, I liked to pair my artwork with writing. And so that naturally led to drawing comics.

I did freelance cartooning off and on from college graduation in 1991 through ABC News hiring me in 2003. I did a weekly comic strip for 'Roll Call' for about nine years. I sold cartoons and caricatures to 'The Los Angeles Times' and 'The Washington Post.' I drew as much as I could. It's really tough to make a living doing it.

An artist conscientiously moves in a direction which for some good reason he takes, putting one work in front of the other with the hope he'll arrive before death overtakes him.

A photographer is like a cod, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity.

I went to college as a theater major. But after about three weeks of that, I changed to the school of fine arts as a painter.

Growing up, I enjoyed drawing, but it was always in the service of an idea. I drew all the time, and I enjoyed making.

The more you draw, the better you get.

I just wanted to paint and sketch and tell stories by drawing.

I really want to continue doing art. I would love to go back to doing paintings one day.

I was a magazine illustrator for many years before I became an actor, and I used to think, 'Oh, God, all those wasted years!' But now I think it's just been one big enterprise of illustrating. I used to do it with colored pencils, and now I do it with this voice and this set of limbs.