Drawing a good figure doesn’t make you a good artist. I can name you ten men, right off the bat, who draw better than I do. But I don’t think their work gets as much response as mine. I can’t think of a better man to draw Dick Tracy than Chester Gould, who certainly is no match for Leonardo Da Vinci. But Chester Gould told the story of Dick Tracy. He told the story of Dick Tracy the way it should have been told. No other guy could have done it. It’s not in the draftsmanship, it’s in the man.

Like I say, a tool is dead. A brush is a dead object. It’s in the man.

If you want to do, you do it. If you think a man draws the type of hands that you want to draw, steal ‘em. Take those hands.

Dear James is several books in one: it’s an informal autobiography, a guide for becoming an illustrator, as well as a commonplace book. But really it is a nifty volume that should be read by anyone who is engaged in a freelance career in the arts, because it is really about how to survive in a commercial environment while holding on to your artistic integrity

…these letters weren’t written for Karlin or anyone, but rather composed as a book at the suggestion of his other son, Max: “Why don’t you write something like Rilke’s ‘Letters to a Young Poet,’ but for illustrators?”

“Dear James” is, thankfully, nothing like Rilke’s book. Where Rilke, whom Blechman calls “that ultimate dandy,” constantly urges his pen pal poet to look “deep within” and shun outside opinion, Blechman advises young James to “meet people” and take all graphic work that comes his way: “I look forward to your next letter — and I want it written on Young & Rubicam letterhead.” Funny.

Blechman pooh-poohs the Rilkean test “Ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: Must I write?” and counters it by reeling off a list of artists who didn’t give up their day jobs: Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Anton Chekhov, Peter Paul Rubens. Yes, even the liveliest spirit, Blechman says, can be killed by “the grinding anxiety of worrying about when you’ll see your next check.”

Love this bit about constraint:

It’s tough work starting your own engine without an external push, and Blechman tells how other gentlemen have done it: by stroking red velvet (Wagner), “dipping feet into hot water (Turgenev), drinking noxious quantities of black coffee (Balzac) and smelling rotten apples (Schiller).” What’s Blechman’s poison prod? Boundaries. Tight deadlines. Little spaces. Before he does a spot drawing for a newspaper, he photocopies the whole page, leaving a blank space for his drawing. He likes the push and pull of terrible constraints.