Chuck: All right, Mr. Kark, what question would you like to ask us next?

T-Bone: Chuck, he’s not interviewing us, we’re interviewing him! Mr. Kirk, When we left off, you were telling about how you moved to New York to become an artist!

Daniel Kirk: in New York I found a gallery to show my paintings. It was a weird place. There was one artist there who painted nothing but pictures of fried eggs. Another painted only Victorian cottages, another just painted cats on pillows. That kind of artwork seemed very boring to me, as I liked a lot of variety. So I found an agent who helped me get illustration work, and I built a career painting illustrations for newspapers, magazines, books and advertising.

T-Bone: Did we ever see your work in Dog Bone Digest?

Daniel Kirk: I’m afraid not! But my illustrations appeared on the covers of Newsweek, Business Week, Sports Illustrated, New York Magazine and many, many others. I made posters, postage stamps, billboards, grocery store packages, CDs and book jackets by the score. My illustrations helped sell stereos, cell phones, postal services, fertilizer, gourmet coffee, salsa and soda. But all the while my pictures were being used to express other people’s ideas, sell other people’s products and tell other people’s stories. I had stories of my own to tell!

Chuck: Would you tell us a story right now?

Daniel Kirk: How about a love story? I got a call from National Lampoon magazine, and I was asked to paint a picture of a giant, throbbing heart to illustrate a scary piece of fiction. When I came by the office to drop off my finished artwork, I met a young designer named Julia Gorton. I liked her right away because she had posters from monster movies hanging above her desk. We became good friends, fell in love and got married. We lived in a big old loft building down near the seaport, overlooking the ships on the East River. Pretty soon we had a daughter, named Ivy.

T-Bone: Did you read picture books to Ivy when she was little?

Daniel Kirk: Oh, yes! I had collected picture books for years before my daughter was born, so we had piles and piles of books on our shelves. My mother had also saved all of the picture books I enjoyed as a child. We went to England one summer and I discovered the work of Raold Dahl. My daughter preferred stories about little mice who wore dresses and drank tea, but I really enjoyed children’s books by Sendak, Van Allsburg, and Gorey. I got the idea that maybe I could make books for children, too!

Chuck: I’ll bet you could, if you really want to!

T-Bone: Chuck, he’s already made books for children. Remember?

Chuck: I was just trying to encourage him, T-Bone. Tell us about your first book, Mr. Danny!

Daniel Kirk: I wrote a couple of little stories, and made dummy books with sketches of the illustrations inside. Then I went to the bookstore and wrote down the names and addresses of some publishers who printed books I admired, and I sent my sample work to them.

T-Bone: And then they published your books? That was easy!

Daniel Kirk: Well, it wasn’t really easy at all! I went on appointments and mailed my stories and book dummies to many, many publishers, and got very little positive response. I was a very successful illustrator in the adult market, so I thought it would be easy to jump over into children’s book illustration. I was wrong! Months went by. Years went by. No one seemed interested in my work. I had pretty much given up on the idea of being a children's book writer and illustrator when I happened to meet an editor named Howard Reeves, who was starting up a children’s division of Rizzoli Publishers. He liked my style, and published my first book, Skateboard Monsters(1992)

Chuck: Is it a scary book? I don’t like monsters.

Daniel Kirk: No, it’s a fun and silly book. My wife Julia is an excellent designer, and she helped me make Skateboard Monsters look really great.

Chuck: How do your children like living in New York City?

T-Bone: Chuck, we’re here at Mr. Kirk’s house in New Jersey. He doesn’t live in New York any more!

Daniel Kirk: Not any more! After the birth of our second child, Raleigh, we decided to move to the suburbs. Out here we could be close to the hubbub of New York, and still have a decent environment for our kids to grow up. And the pet dinosaurs are a lot more relaxed when they can look up and see the sky!

Chuck: Did you say dinosaurs?

Daniel Kirk: Sure! Take a look for yourself!