For a long time, cartoonist and illustrator Kevin Cannon said, he didn’t have a distinctive style. He was too busy drawing things exactly the way customers wanted.
But along the way, perhaps when he started working on graphic novels, Cannon developed the clean, simple style that prompted the folks at the Minnesota State Fair to choose him to illustrate their 2021 map. And, from that, the 2022 St. Paul Winter Carnival buttons.
Q: You have a pretty distinct style.
A: I feel like I do now, but for a long time I didn’t have my own style because people would say “I want you to do this in the style of Dr. Seuss, or make it look like an old ’40s poster” or something. So, I was constantly faking other styles to get jobs.
When I started to draw my own comics, I feel like I started from scratch.
The Star Tribune interviews local cartoonist Kevin Cannon.
