Peter and Maria Hoey are a brother and sister illustration team. Peter lives in Northern California; Maria lives in Brooklyn. Together they have created a giant body of work for countless magazines and newspapers, including editorial illustrations, infographics, maps, portraits, and comics....and a lot of icons and spots, too. Their latest comic book, Coin-Op #6: The Last Great Time was published in May 2016. Peter and Mary are also highly skilled animators, explaining that “our work really lends itself to motion.”

OUR LIFE:
Peter and Maria: We’re brother and sister illustrators. Peter is the oldest and Maria is the youngest of six kids, 13 years apart in age with four brothers in between.
Peter lives outside the town of Arcata in northern California; Maria lives in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

We’ve been working together since 1997. 

Peter: My first job was as a “Bulletin Boy” delivering the Philadelphia Bulletin: 48 Dailies, 52 Sundays, delivered seven days a week. After getting out of school I worked in newspapers, doing illustrations, informational graphics, and art direction. In 1993 I went off on my own to be a freelancer, doing illustrations for newspapers and magazines. It felt kind of lonely after working in hectic newsrooms for 10 years, so when Maria graduated art school I asked her to work with me.
Maria: My first job was at a Dairy Queen at 13. It had all the makings of a pop song, a very sad pop song. I went to an art school where career was a dirty word. For the past 19 years I’ve had the best job in the world.

OUR WORKSPACE:
Peter: My studio is in the house I share with my wife Sylvia. It has large windows that look out to the redwood trees. I like the tranquility.
Maria: My office is also at home, although it’s an interior room in a loft apartment, so its only view is what’s on the screen—which suits my wandering mind. 

HOW WE MAKE OUR ILLUSTRATIONS:
Peter: I start with pencil sketches, then use those as a template to do the basic line drawing in Illustrator. Maria does the coloring and photo collage in Illustrator and Photoshop.

HOW WE WORK TOGETHER:
Peter: I generally start the process and Maria finishes it. We send drawings back and forth until we agree that they’re done.

OUR FIRST BIG BREAK:
Peter: For me, the big light bulb was when I first encountered Macintosh computers in the early 1990s. I had been doing ink drawings using templates and French curves to get a smooth line and was always frustrated that it was never smooth enough. Problem solved.
Maria: When Dwell magazine called in 1999. They saw one of our comics that we had done for Blab! magazine. They liked the collaged abstraction of our four-page comic story about heartbreak, and wanted us to do something similar for a piece on gentrification. The resulting illustration made it into American Illustration that year, and was a good indicator to me that we were doing something right. 

INFLUENCES:
Peter: Maria and I went to see a show of the Stenberg Brothers film posters at MOMA in 1997. We were both knocked out by how beautiful the drawings and designs were. The fact that they were brothers was not lost on us. Siblings have a special connection when doing something creative together.

MOST ADMIRED CREATIVE PERSON:
Peter: I’ve been listening to a lot of Bill Evans over the last few years. He played with such feeling and inventiveness, I’m always hearing something new in his arrangements.
Maria: Food counts, right? I’m going with David Chang of Momofuku. We used to go to his noodle bar when it first opened in the East Village—and it always had the vibe of something great. I find his career really inspiring. It’s not just about being creative, it’s about locking in and going for it. And if you are really lucky it works.

CREATIVE INSPIRATION:
Peter: Maria and I go to a lot of comic shows and I’m always amazed at the incredible work I see there.
Maria: The Bruce Conner show that was up at MOMA. I’ve gone to see it three times since it opened. He’s inspiring because his work is great regardless of media (film, collage, painting…) and it’s all mesmerizing.

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE OF WORKING ALONE:
Peter: With the publishing industry going through such tumult, just trying to abreast of the changes is challenge enough.

A MEMORABLE ASSIGNMENT FROM THE PAST YEAR:
Peter: Our latest 40-page comic: Coin-Op #6: The Last Great Time was published in May 2016. and we're very excited. Some of the stories were worked on for over a year and others came together in just a week or two.

DREAM ASSIGNMENT:
Peter: Coin-Op #7
Maria: Bumpers for Turner Classic Movies. The short promotional animations that run on TCM are always magic. They show that even if you have just five seconds, you can make something pretty memorable. If they had a channel just for their promos, I’d watch it. 

FAVORITE ART DIRECTOR:
Peter and Maria: We’ve really enjoyed working with the art directors at the L.A. Times: Wes Bausmith, Michael Whitley and Kelli Sullivan. The deadlines are tight, the layouts are fluid and they’re all great at steering it to a happy outcome. Earlier this year we worked on a NCAA brackets package with Michael Whitley. It showed fans racing onto the court wearing the colors and logos of all 68 teams. All the team choices rolled in while we were drawing the whole scene so we did it live. It was a lot of fun.

SOME FAVORITE ILLUSTRATORS:
Peter: I’ve been seeing David Suter’s Facebook posts of his many, many drawings from over the years and they’re just beautiful. Starting from the optical illusions of M.C. Escher and fashioning them into political metaphors was such a giant step. You can see echoes of his work everywhere but nobody does it with his wit.
Maria: Our fellow illustrators at RappArt, in particular, Marc Rosenthal, Robert Neubecker, JD King, and Allison Seiffer. If you’re working as an illustrator, and doing your own thing, you deserve admiration.

OTHER WORK:
Peter and Maria: In 2008 we started Coin-Op Books, and began publishing our own comics, flip books and one-off art books. We enjoy the DIY of small press publishing.

HOW WE STAY CURRENT:
Peter and Maria: From the start we’ve also been making animations, from commercials for broadcast to creating book trailers, and gifs of our own work. Our work really lends itself to motion and it’s a wonderful extension to our print work.

HOW WE PROMOTE OURSELVES:
Peter and Maria: Our agents at RappArt are very good. For promotion we mail cards, letterpress prints, and books—to clients and “potential” clients. Nothing beats a well-thought out and produced physical object.

In addition, posting to social media is an immediate way to share our current work. It’s good to keep people aware of what you’re working on and that you are still drawing air without beating them over the head. Bragging in any form wears thin.

ADVICE FOR SOMEONE STARTING OUT:
Peter: As Bob Dylan said in “Subterranean Homesick Blues”: “Don't believe in leaders, watch the parking meters.”
Maria: Skip grad school.

See more Peter and Maria Hoey illustrations, new work and updates:
Peter and Maria Hoey website
Coin-Op Books
Instagram: @coinophoey
Tumblr
Facebook