"Cannery Row (top) and The Moon Is Down (bottom), are two of approximately twenty-six cover illustrations commissioned by Penguin Classics, for their entire catalog of John Steinbeck books. Landing the assignment was a dream job for me. Steinbeck's stories have such a strong sense of place, a down and moody atmosphere and are filled with big, iconic personalities—ideal illustration material and wonderful to work with. Handing this project to me also showed a certain amount of bravery on the part of Paul Buckley, Penguin's brilliant designer. I'm pretty sure he felt like it was taking a leap. Anyway, it was a large, high-profile project for me, and there was flop-sweat involved. Paul worked through it very thoughtfully and really helped shape it into a pretty sweet collection."