“David Levine’s work has appeared in most of the major publications: Time, Newsweek (once, as covers on both publications the same week), Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, The Nation – you name a major magazine, he probably appeared there.
He was once questioned about his work for Exxon’s magazine published for shareholders, The Lamp. ‘Now what’s a left socialist doing drawing for something like that?’ an interviewer asked him. Levine responded, ‘What’s a left socialist to do in a capitalist society? When he puts his money in the bank it’s immediately invested. There’s no way I have a way out from being involved and accepting, in some sense, some of what’s happening.’
But he drew the line at advertising. ‘I don’t do work in advertising because that’s where you run into ‘Hey, the client says it’s not such a nice picture, can you make it a little…’ The minute you run into that, forget it.'”
— R. O. Blechman on illustrator David Levine