Jeff Willis - Creator of Gutsy McDivot

One of the best cover artists in the Northwest spoke to Cartoonists Northwest members October 19th.  Jeff Willis has created artwork for such character titles: Looney Toons, Rugrats, Garfield, and much more.

Jeff is now a full time artist with Seattle-based Big Fish, a casual-based gaming company. As previously mentioned he started his career creating a lot of excellent cover art, but now he has moved on and is better known as the creator of Gutsy McDivot. This is the mascot for Fairway Solitaire, the most successful title that Big Fish has produced.

Jeff recently spoke about his start in the illustration/cartooning industry and how he also began working with video game design. He had a brief stint at Microsoft Casual Games, where he designed the user interface for their Texas Holdem Game.  This led him to Big Fish, where he has worked for seven years.

It was an honor to hear him speak at CNW.  The CNW site has much more information about his recent interview.