The first comic he illustrated himself, Volton, about a hero with electrical powers, was published when he was 16.
He was known in particular for more than a dozen picture books he wrote and illustrated himself, most famously "Where the Wild Things Are," which was simultaneously genre-breaking and career-making when it was published by Harper & Row in 1963.
The first title he wrote and illustrated himself, "Kenny's Window," published in 1956, was a moody, dreamlike story about a lonely boy's inner life.
But he can't draw himself a human companion, nor illustrate himself out of the room.
He will not illustrate to order, increasingly depending on himself as the writer, and, when he illustrates the texts of others, choosing only those that seem real to him.
He illustrates his struggles to provide for his daughter, describing himself as "discouraged, hungry, and malnourished".
He illustrates this with the example of what Jones knows when he knows that he himself is in the hospital.
He illustrates orgiastic scenes.
He illustrated them all himself and the book, like Beale's, became a key source for Moby-Dick.
