Comic Fury Webcomic Hosting - What was your comic inspiration?

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I have written many comics in the past but my inspiration for the one that is currently posted is from awkward conversations I have on a daily basis. That is how I come up with many of my ideas. Someone will say something and I will reply and realize how ingenious it is(lol). Yeah...I just realized how weird my conversations are....

Scott McCloud, and Art Spiegelman.

Scott, because this book showed that a) you could do non-fiction graphic novels which b) had relevance, c) could be academic, and d) sold:



Art, because this book showed that a) you could mix biography with very different styles, b) have a biographical graphic novel that made an impact on a lot of people, and c) have it in more than one part:

My first strip was called Little lost island, I was 12 at the time. It was pretty awful. The one character I had was stuck on this tiny little island with one palm tree. I ran out of ideas really fast.

I've been doing single panel joke stuff off and on for a long while. Since I had/have a rough time drawing the same character twice, single shot stuff seemed like it was my best bet.

I did a lot of cartoons and some character art for the D&D games I ran and played in and started a funny little one panel strip called "In the Dungeon" which I still think I did pretty well with. Then I realized that being funny on purpose, every day, wasnt easy. That sort of killed my gag-a-day format.

Sometime around 2003 or 04 I came across a strip called The Noob by Gianna, and it was about the same time I was hip deep in mmorpgs. It struck a cord with me and thats about the time I first thought of doing a comic strip online.

It took me a really long time to come up with a story that I wanted to tell, I knew I wasnt that funny, but if I could mix in some good action, some drama, and some comedy, I might be able to pull it off, and put out something that at least I would want to read.

Im finally doing it, but I have so much still to learn that it can be a little daunting.

I would say my inspirations are:

Steve Martin, Charles Shultz, Gary Larson, Bill Watterson, Alina Pete, Gianna, Howard Taylor, Rich Burlew, Kevin Smith, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Brian Michael Bendis, Warren Ellis, Peter David, Garth Ennis, and Mark Millar.

Not in any partiular order and some more than others. Im sure Ive missed a few.

I get my inspiration for Nanny Coozy from my nan, but she is the complete opposite of what Nanny Coozy is like in the comic. My nan has the really curly hair though, and all the other characters are just made up by me really. I just searched my imagination and I came up with this.

It varies from comic to comic naturally, but usually I just have an urge to tell a certain type of story. In the case of B.A.S.O. I wanted to create something that could incorporate a lot of disparate ideas, even though I have yet to include more than a handful so far.

"Hey, Alena, you wanna do a comic?"

"Meh..."

"You get to draw zombies!"

"...Ok, I'm in."

That's... basically what inspired the comics I'm working on right now.

Ed: Hey Mlai, want to draw a new comic together?
Me: Uhh... sounds like a lot of effort.
Ed: Just a few episodes/chapters. It's for this monthly online showcase (now defunct). Just make some crazy stuff up.
Me: I get to go crazy on some weird ideas? You don't care what I come up with? Okay I'm in. But I'm only going to do 20% of the work, you do 80%!


We should get back to drawing... our collective slump has lasted long enough....!

.... I saw Felicia and I spazzed.

I LOVE Darkstalkers.
Awesome work btw. x]

My first comics were biographical one-page strips in my school notebooks about the awkward encounters between little 13-year-old me and my crushes. Then I made a short story about a girl in love -obviously a semi-marysue haha. Later I began to sporadically make comics of the stupid things my friends and I did, and kept doing so until I bought myself a tablet....then I kept doing the same, but digitally and for facebook.

It was until a few years ago that I had these super amazing nightmares that resembled blockbuster terror films, and that strangely enough didn't leave me frightened but excited. And after I told a friend about them she said: "you should write a novel". Which of course I started, but then I decided that drawing the story would be better at conveying the scenes that keep playing in my mind. (:

That's how Deliree was born, and there are other potential-comic scripts in store ;)

If I drew a comic based on my dreams... I'd be drawing a teenage vampire dressed in black who flies around like a kite, in the daytime, can turn into a Chinese dragon, freeruns through the city when chased by tanks, fights mobsters, fights zombies, fights ninjas, fights UFOs, fights Satan in a cemetery, and preyed upon slasher flick actresses in his spare time. Oh and the world is ending because the planets are slowly crashing into each other. Saturn's a pretty nice view at night.

That sounds... pretty nonsensical.

Yes I really did fight all those things.

Well, what got me into comics was anime. I was extremely fascinated by anime in my youth but now it's just mainly my friends and my family who keep me drawing comics :).

What inspired my story Devil Masters was an old story I made that was GREATLY influenced by Diasaga. I just thought the characters in that game were so cool and I wanted characters similar to their designs. That old story died and gave birth to Devil Masters. Devil Masters gone through so much changes I'm not sure what really inspired the current story...(I think was my great need to draw cool looking demons ' 3' and monsters...)

My comic inspirations are New York City/Brooklyn, my husband and the things we create, and my need for a legal outlet for my overwhelming emotive states.

Yeah I also got into a demonology phase for a while, because the demons/devils you find in anime are so evocative. At that time it felt to me as if the Jpnese really understood the undiluted aesthetics of demons (basically I think what is going on is they just took Carpenter's The Thing and ran with that whole design direction).

Oh, oh, oh, I scribbled a guy with an awesome pose, and created some kind of prequel-scenario to why he was posing.
Then i couldn't stop continueing the story.. :I


These days I take inspiration from pretty much everything so, yeah.. everything.

hahahaha, dreams FTW!!!!

I wanted to write a story about a person that went on a quest because I love those types of stories. Then script frenzy came and I decided to write my first comic script based on the whole quest idea. Most of the setting for it, as the world is rather fantasy based as the story goes on, was inspired by pictures my family has been sending me for years of things like rocks that look like faces, really odd plants, weird optical illusions in nature, things like that. As for the actual story, I really wanted to write a character that was a bit crazy, so I wanted to try to show the character slowly getting a bit less stable.

When I was a kid, I saw this amazing cover by Jack Davis, and that's all I wanted to do.

FUH. YES. THIS. Honestly, I used to read manga and avoided all other forms of comics simply because I wasn't that interested in more cartoon styles or superheros. But after reading Maus, my whole opinion changed. I've always had a fascination with Holocaust survivor stories, and just human nature in general, so this book was the pinnacle of what I wanted from comics.

also, Mccloud is pretty good too. I've only recently read his book "Understanding Comics", but I found it very involving and inspiring.

My friend also introduced me to a series called Frank.

I think that finally pulled me out of my manga craze, and into more abstracted options.

I'm not too educated in the world of comics, but I've come to really enjoy it since I've gone to college this year. Originally I wanted to major in animation, but I think I'm pretty set now.

(Actually, the other day I went to this sequential art portfolio review by some big name artists at this career fair. and holy mother of GOD. All the upperclassmen's work were so beautiful ;___; not just in detail, but overall page flow and dynamics, perspective, line weight, black placement. It really gave me a perspective on how far I still need to go.)

My whole life's been filled with comics, TV, and movies, and I've always loved reading, playing pretend, and making up stories in some form or another. I like writing AND drawing, so a comic was the perfect way to combine both. ^^

Bits of myself, my family, and friends all come out in my characters. It's a way for me to express myself and say things I don't have the courage to say outright.

Best of all, it's FUN. :D