ABSTRACT
The concept of author-illustrator is part of a wider discursive field that extends beyond print texts and is embedded in a complex, commodified, and digitally shaped public sphere. This chapter considers some of the key issues that arise from the work of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault, namely, the irony of the death of the author and changing notions of authorship and readers, and how a multimedia public sphere contributes to the evolving notion of author-illustrator. Authors and illustrators and their works are part of a multimedia network that produces and distributes an extensive array of media products that often have their origins in a book. How an author-illustrator develops a picturebook – from a written outline or a storyboard – is part of the idiosyncratic creative/artistic process. The designation 'author-illustrator' suggests an implied hierarchy – the elevation of writing over illustrating.
