Happy Mother’s Day!

I was reading an old aFar Side book last week, not one of the “Gallery” books but one of the day-by-days with every comic he did that year.

I realized two things. The first is that I had forgotten what a huge influence Gary Larson (and Bill Watterson) were on me. I had always said that Evan Dorkin and Mike Allred were my first influences because they were my favorites when I first got serious about drawing and you can still see them heavily in my work. I only just remembered how obsessed I was with The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes when I was really little. It’s harder to pick up but I think I still have echos of them in my art and definitely in my sense of humor. I may have been 10 at the time but Calvin and Hobbes is still the only comic I’ve done a fan strip of.

The second is it’s clear that Larson didn’t sweat his ideas. He churned them out day after day and the good ones speak for themselves. No-one remembers the -meh- comics. To that end, I think I’m going to try to put quantity over quality for a little while. Draw four little comics a week instead of agonizing over one big one. We’ll see if any genius shakes out. I’m just happy it’ll be easier to meet my weekly updates.