I Make Comics Inspired By Classic Cartoons But With A Modern Twist (20 Pics)

My main work is a comedy series I call “Whistle Stop” which follows the everyday lives and shenanigans of roommates Sam Squirrel and Fifi Fox, as well as their neighbors in the titular small town of Whistle Stop, USA. The series is largely inspired by classic unfiltered 1930s “funny animal” cartoons like Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat, and more specifically the work of Ub Iwerks and other golden age animators and cartoonists. Other inspiration comes from cartoons and comics from the '90s and 2000s, with my main drive being to create a character-driven comedy series that captures the essence of a classic Saturday morning cartoon.

Other strips I do explore a wide variety of characters within the same fictional town, including Henry, an extremely introverted mole who can’t seem to grasp the point of life and why anyone would want to go outside. As well as a separate series about the everyday struggles of work and what happens when you have to manage your favorite sentient childhood toy (Dali & Floofy).

For my creative process, I tend to try and work from my characters outwards. At the core of each of my comics are characters I create, mold, and develop over time. They are a mix of archetypes, exaggerated parts of my own personality, and people I know or have met throughout my life. Once I have a strong personality and feeling for a set of characters, I like to put them together in situations that create conflict and, more importantly, humor. Most concepts start out as a brainstorming session with a conversation between characters in my head, others are inspired by personal experiences, or stories and news I read or heard.

My personal sense of humor is driven by heavy sarcasm, irony, hypocrisy, and general satire. Once I have something I believe is funny, I try to boil it down to a 6 to 4-panel format, capturing the necessary factors of the concept to make the humor work. I usually write two or three drafts of a script before feeling it’s ready to move on to making the physical comic.

While my comics take a great deal of inspiration from classic animation and comics, newer media is also an influence as well as my personal experiences and life. My goal isn’t to try and recreate classic cartoons as they were but to try and envision those types of worlds now through my own personal lens. What does a world of inkblot “funny animals” look like in the modern age, both in terms of visual updates as well as writing and humor? Personally, I believe it’s a world that’s a lot more cynical, less magical, less innocent, and more ironic than its 1930s counterparts. I’m not saying I’m the first person to try their hand at something like this, but I hope to bring my own personal spin and voice to it, and hopefully, that shines through in my work.

Going forward, I would like to stick with the series and projects I’ve been working on. I have so many ideas and concepts I haven’t gotten to use yet for these characters, and I could see these series being around for years as long as I find the time and have the passion to continue doing so. I have already experimented with longer-form storytelling in the past, but this is something I want to implement more in the future since it would allow me to dive into my characters more and explore what makes them tick. In time, I want my characters to have some arcs and development, this may bring some more serious and introspective as well as hopefully relatable elements to my series, but never with the intent of overriding the humor.

Outside of these series, maybe someday I’d like to tackle something less comedy-driven and without cartoon animals. Maybe a horror or thriller project of sorts, as those are my two favorite genres outside of comedy. But for now, I’m content with the projects I have.