Cartoon influences

One of the nagging problems with the craft of cartooning (in my experience, anyway) is the never-ending quest to develop a style of humorous drawing which is both attractive and quick to execute. Whilst I believe I have studiously tried to avoid copying the work of fellow practitioners throughout a long stint at the game, it's inevitable that, from time to time, influences do sneak into your own work.

Happily, when I look back at archived out-put from earlier periods, I can see traits that I didn't develop personally ... but perhaps adopted because it seemed to be de rigueur at the time. I have since largely eradicated most of them from the stuff I am scribbling now. However, it has been interesting to try attributing the sources of earlier drawing characteristics with a dip of the lid to those doyens of the craft whose work probably influenced me.

• Big heads on little bodies. I reckon this came from my admiration of US syndicated comic-strip artist Mell Lazarus' work on Miss Peach and Momma.

• Big feet, Many cartoonists of today use variants of big foot school. I think my adoption of it mainly in the 1970s was the influence of Jay Ward's style made famous in the Rocky and Bullwinkle animated cartoon series. It enabled very quick cartoon depiction of feet without any regard for detail.

• Thick black line-work. Tho' not really evident in the accompanying 'toon, I've always loved thick Black! Celebrated Italian cartoonist Emanuele Luzzati also liked it and intimated that he, in turn, was originally smitten by the painting style of the impressionist Georges Rouault.

 • Three fingers. I believe I got this from the work of Walt Disney's gallery of 'toonists, who claimed it saved time and ink! I still do it today, in the belief that it better suits fore-shortened cartoon human figures ... and, probably very few viewers notice anyway!