You Know What this Looks Like?

First off, let's drop some Hype-age.  If you haven't been there yet, head on over to the Main Site at www.torcpress.com.  I've redesigned the site, slapping up new artwork to go with the Links.  One of the latest Links is the new Cast Section.  There's listings for Octopus Jones and the Puzzelor, which contains new artwork and a brief listing of basic stats.  Eventually I will add a section for Powers/Abilities and a section with Appearances.  But I'll do that later.  If you want a better view of the artwork for Octopus Jones and the Puzzelor, check out my TUMBLR at http://torcpress.tumblr.com/.  Other than that, we'll have a new page of SDF on Monday, and a new page of Pulp Horrorshow: DirTown on Wednesday.  Now, on with today's column.

People like familiarity.  We're afraid of that which is alien to us.  When we encounter something new, we often times come up with some sort of comparison to something else.  Guess we find it comforting.  I do it myself.  When I see a new artist, I oftentimes ask myself, what does this remind me of?  I've seen a lot of artists lately that appear to be heavily influenced by Paul Pope, an artist who, in turn, has been influenced by dozens of artists from America, Japan, and Europe.  Now, me, I got me a weird style.  Like everything I do, it's kinda mainstream and kinda not.  There's bits and pieces of all sorts of stuff floating around in my work, from comic strip style art (Peanuts, Bloom County, and Calvin & Hobbes are probably the biggest influences) to 60s comics art (Kirby, Kirby, and more Kirby) to 80s art (Frank Miller, and I have to have been influenced by Ron Lim, considering how much Silver Surfer I read) to 90s art (Liefeld and McFarlane) to Underground art (R. Crumb and Gilbert Hernandez) to Japanese Manga (Akira Toriyama and Eichiro Oda).  But even though all of this informs my work, I feel like the end product is ultimately just...Joseph Morris.  Still, I've showed my work to hundreds of people by now, and I've gotten some interesting comparisons.  Here's a few:

Jack Kirby/Mike Allred-  This was one of the nicest compliments I've received, from Comic Quest Owner Jim Jones no less.  I'm nowhere near the level of either of those greats, but it was still nice.

Superjail!-  I've gotten this comparison A LOT lately.  Given that my work predates the debut of Superjail by several years, I'm not sure I get the comparison, but whatever.  On the bright side, I am a big fan of Superjail, so it's not such a bad comparison.

Brian Chippendale-  A gal in Chicago (she was cute, too) thought my work reminded her of Brian Chippendale.  Again, I don't really see the comparison, but considering how much I love Chippendale's work, I'm not complaining.

Skeleton Jelly-  A fellow artist thought my work reminded him of a comic called Skeleton Jelly.  After some research, I discovered this was a reference to one of Chippendale's contemporaries, Matt Brinkman.  Again, having read a bit of Brinkman's work, I don't really see the resemblance, but I like Brinkman's work, so it's not so bad.

What do you think, anonymous computer reader?  What does my work look like to you?