Clifford began as an art sample, not any thought of it being a book. I was looking for work as an illustrator, and I’d made some sample paintings to show to publishers. And one of the paintings I did was of a little girl with a great, big, red dog. And I took these samples around, and I showed them to a lot of people, and I got rejected everyplace I went. Nobody liked the art.
One lady at one of the publishing houses said, “Well, you’re not very good. Nobody would ever want you to illustrate a book.” She said, “Why don’t you try writing a story?” And she said, “Maybe this is a story here,” and she pointed to the picture of the little girl with the big red dog.
I went home, and I took the dog and the girl. I made the dog bigger. He was about horse-size in the painting, and I made him house-size. And I was going to call him “Tiny.” I thought that would be a funny idea. And my wife thought it was a dumb idea. She told me it was a stupid name for a giant dog, so she named the dog “Clifford” after an imaginary playmate from her childhood. So, that’s how he got his name.
