Hi there.
This page actually details how I got into cartooning properly.
Probably my first foray into the world of the cartoon was drawing Pomples. Enough said, really. (Picture to follow soon)
It all really started when I got my first Asterix book way back when. I discovered a world of a depth greater than any cartoon I'd ever seen before but of a bizarre nature which only a medium like the cartoon could create.
I didn't draw anything yet, though.
Pretty soon I was taking French lessons at school and our family went to France on holiday. I bought some French Asterix, as did my younger brother. He wasn't yet learning French but he picked up some phrases (as did I) because we both knew all the stories in english by now…
Then a couple of years later I was in France on an exchange visit, wanted something to read in the evening, saw what looke like Asterix in a bookcase and went to investigate. In fact it turned out to be a series of books called Gaston, centred around a character called Gaston Lagaffe (his name basically means what it sounds like). This character was so daft that I got a couple of books to take home. As it happened I had to do a project on what I'd learned on my stay, and as I was on holiday with the family I was staying with rather than going on the preplanned events, I had a fairly free rein…
So I got Gaston to introduce my project.
Pretty soon after I asked for a set of watercolours to colour cartoons with— I still have these today. I tried a number of pen styles and so forth, but really gave up the cartoons during exams…
…until I discovered another cartoon strip— Calvin and Hobbes.
Bizarrely, I also discovered this one in France. I stayed there for five weeks in my lower sixth year (age 17) to study various subjects in French to improve my grasp of the language. (It worked.) In the evenings, though, I decided that I'd work through the family's extensive Asterix collection before I went to sleep.
About week three I ran out, and searched around and found Revenge of the Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons (I think that's the exact title) which I read.
Five times.
In a row.
When I got home I immediately bought The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes. In this way I got my brother hooked as well. Between us we notched up a sizeable collection pretty quickly. One Christmas I got my brother The tenth anniversary collection, and when I read it I discovered in it a real cartoonist's view of what it meant to draw a cartoon strip. The bug had bitten me (and my brother) again, and I have been drawing on and off ever since.
I have also started re- reading Peanuts more seriously, and discovered depths to it I had previously missed.
My strip probably forms a mixture between the French school of cartooning (the style of André Franquin, co- creator with Jean De Mesmaeker (whose nom- de- plume is Jidéhem— the phonetic representation of J. D. M., his initials) of Gaston, is a particular influence) and the style of Bill Watterson. I love the way the French strips, particularly Franquin's, are so richly coloured and the way that the simplest of background objects is so beautifully rendered. I would love to be able to draw that well. With practice I hope I shall. By contrast, I love Watterson's ability to capture mood— the hectic motion of some of the cartoons and the simplicity and serenity in others makes for an emotionally complex and versatile style. I suspect my faces owe more to Watterson's style than Uderzo's or Franquin's, but there are weirdnesses all my own, too, especially the noses…
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