I have many sources of inspiration for my ideas while drawing and writing. Most of these sources are from comic books, comic strips, cartoons, and animations. I want to cite some of my major sources, just so you know where to look for inspiration if you want to draw like me, and perhaps better than me.
I have to mention my primary source first. Krazy Kat, or Krazy & Ignatz, by George Herriman was my primary inspiration source growing up. I had several of Bill Blackbeard’s excellent books compiling the full-page tabloid Sunday funnies of this comic strip from 1916 to about 1924. This strip went much further, though, when it went into color in about 1935. I had seen several of these full color versions of his work in the library on Saturdays when I was about 10 years old. These had somewhat a formative influence on my development as a person, and as a writer, and as an artist.
I really wanted to follow in George Herriman’s footsteps. I wanted desperately to draw surrealist funnies, and this made its mark on me in many ways. I started looking for other surrealist strips of that time period, but soon realized that his only competitor was Windsor McKay, who was an admittedly better draftsman, but a much less skilled writer and his creativity suffered a lot from his blatant bigotry and racism.
So I cannot in good conscience recommend Litle Nemo in Slumberland, which was Winsor McKay’s comic strip. But its art style stuck with me as much as George Herriman’s. So I mention it in passing, as something of an inherited guilt from the early 20th century.
I was influenced by Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, which I collected in book form and in cut outs from the newspaper. I was influenced by The Tick by Ben Edlund in comic book form, but only the first 12 issues really were any good to me, which were the only ones that Ben Edlund did himself. This comic was very profound to me, on many levels. It was the first work of satire I had ever found to be completely funny, and it was a parody of superheroes in comic book format. This made me take comic books as a serious art form worthy of literary as well as art criticism. And the books he made were literary and art criticism of other books.
I was influenced by Prince Valiant, originally penned by Hal Foster, but in my time was illustrated by John Cullen Murphy, his son-in-law. It was this strip that taught me that comics was a narrative form of art, not just about dialogue. It made me want to try my hand at serious stories that accompanied realistic pictures of fantastic worlds.
I liked Sam and Max, Freelance Police by Steve Purcell. It was here I realized that comics could be made to serve no other purpose but humor, in a completely silly and ironic jugular vein. There was nothing funnier to me than spontaneous human combustion for months after reading the first issue. If you want to know why, it has something to do with ancient rituals invoking the authority of an ancient lava monster by a cult. It’s in the first issue, which you owe yourself to read, so please buy and read this excellent comic book.
Those are my formative influences. I later got into Manga and Anime from Japan. I rented almost every anime available from the video rental place I went to. I eventually bought Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo, all six volumes. Was a superb artist! There’s nothing quite like it. I have to say, it is something I’ve always aspired to, to match that stylistic statement with something that does for American social life what Akira did for Japan.
The two major influences I have are still George Herriman, and Katsuhiro Otomo. I have tried combining these influences, to no avail. Perhaps a very surreal dreamscape version of Akira would be a worthy effort on my part, one that chronicles the events of contemporary culture in America today. Perhaps that will have to wait, though, until it is written. Or maybe, as the last line of the movie was perhaps portending, “It has already begun.”