Taken from Wikipedia:

Calum MacKenzie in his preface to the exhibition catalog, The Scottish Cartoonists, published in 1979 by the Glasgow Print Studio Gallery, defined the selection criteria:

The difference between a cartoonist and an illustrator was the same as the difference between a comedian and a comedy actor – the former both deliver their own lines and take full responsibility for them, the latter could always hide behind the fact that it was not his entire creation.

I began my career as an illustrator, and even though I was writing and having my own books published from the start, some twenty-three years ago, I thought of myself as an illustrator and worked mostly on other people’s stories.

Time moved on, and even though I still spend most of my time drawing and illustrating, I’m thought of now as an author. I’m often asked in schools who illustrates my books. People seem surprised when I say I do. I’m blessed with two talents – most people would be happy with one of them.

But, I go on to explain, the thing that ties the to together is storytelling, In fact I’m probably happiest in front of an audience drawing and telling stories live. Illustrators often write, writers very rarely illustrate. It’s storytelling that makes an illustrator different to other artists.

People of ten refer to my “cartoon style”. They say it in an apologetic way as if trying not to offend. Reading the quote above this morning, made me wonder – is that what I am? Am I a cartoonist, but I don’t know it? I feel that what I do write are really graphic novels or even Manga, in the Japanese sense. In the west we think of Manga as being a particular style, which should really be termed Anime. As I understand it, Manga is the telling of stories with lots of pictures and text – which is what I do.

However, authors get treated a lot better than illustrators and I think illustrators are treated a tad above cartoonists. Cartoonists tend to be dismissed as ephemeral, whimsical, cheap comedians, whereas it is assumed illustrators can probably do proper art if they tried.

Perhaps I’d better stay convincing people that I’m an author and stay in the room with wine and canapes – The artists tend to get shoved in a room out the back with beer and sandwiches!