Just starting out I wanted to do a steampunk comic, but one that was more about street urchins than genius inventors and adventurous explorers like most steampunk I've seen. Apart from that I wasn't really sure what to make it about, my friend suggested that I put in an alien. After that I got an idea for an E.T. sort of story. I got ideas from the Flight anthology series as well, and from Metropolis, and from documentaries about the 19th century labor conditions and articles on the history of Anarchism that I've read.

Nadya was inspired by several questions.

What happenes to us when we die?

What happens to the Einsteins, Alexenders, and even the Hitlers when they die? Are they taken to a new place so they can continue doing good or evil?

I combined this with a creative writing exercise with my girlfriend, and voila.

I was also inspired by Riverworld, Highlander, and a lot of other things...

Old jazz! That may sound alittle wierd, but i saw a couple of old jazz films and the idea popped up from there! Miles Davis was always one of my biggest inspirations for polo!

The two eras that influenced me the most are late 70s/early 80s Marvel and DC because that's what I read as a kid, and early 90s Image because that's what got me back into comics (and reading American imports) as a teenager. As far as the tone, the look and the characters goes, Wildstorm and Erik Larsen's stuff have probably left the biggest mark on me. Superpatriot: Liberty and Justice is something like my bible when it comes to how to do it right.

The conspiracy/corporate angle in Bulletproof comes from the first two Robocop movies and more recent comics like Checkmate or Millar's Ultimates run.

But mostly, I'm just inspired by an overwhelming urge to do comics. I do this because I can't help it. I'd go insane if I stopped.

Yeah, life in general inspires me, but the main thing is the years of being a regular at some great comicbook and roleplay gaming stores, and having worked in and managed one, as well.
The characters obviously wound up being based upon myself and those who I have known through-out my life, so far.

Also, you see some really bat-sh*t crazy stuff at the comic-cons that winds up going straight into my strips. I never intend to make fun of certain fanboy crowds, but there are some whose behaviours just scream out for retelling in a strip or maybe even a movie based of said comic strip (did I hint that I'm considering a live-action spin off of my strip?)
Add to that when you have marathon roleplay gaming sessions that go on over twenty-four hours non-stop, weird things start forming in minds and coming out in the campaigns, which also become some great strip fodder.

But for strips that inspired me, I always confess that they are PVP, Penny Arcade, CTRL+ALT+DEL and Starslip Crisis.

My brother, the famous Carlton M. Renfroe, Jr (what, you never heard of him? you should get out more) actually came up with the Kung Fu Rabbit concept. I have fleshed it out a bit more, but the whole project is full of Carlton's soul if you know where to look.
The main thing that has changed is which rabbit I identify with. When I was younger, it seemed the older people in my life were always trying to temper me a bit, even in the ministry. Now I'm at the stage of life where I am trying to temper others, and allow some of the young men I know to develop wisdom without losing their zeal. So I started out as the young Kung Fu Rabbit, but now I think I'm more like the old Kung Fu Rabbit.
There is a lot to their relationship that I look forward to exploring more in the future.

My comics aren't always based off the happiest of things~
Katch was pretty much a mush of things, goodness, she was my first RP character. Also the fact that i like badgers,demons and all sorts of monsters got thrown in there. My own personal life (meaning the dad is always the villain and the main character is always a girl with some sort of emotion/thing eating her from the inside out)

Sooo, it's just my life in different genre~

Fox Face is pretty much my ony exception to this ^



=D presto~

My inspiration, eh? Well, I've always been a fan of time-travel-style stories, such as Back To The Future, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Quantum Leap, not to mention I grew up on Choose Your Own Adventure books (of which the first book was "The Cave Of Time"). That, and the fact that at one point in my life I wanted to start a comic strip with as unique a premise as possible, led me to conjure up "Times Like This". And if you go to my FAQ section on the TLT website ( http://www.timeslikethis.com/faq.html ), you'll see some of the first drawings I did for the comic 12 years ago.

The Divine Comedy by Dante and Quantum Leap. Hence the name, Divine Leap.

My inspiration comes from people, places, situations and details I recall and I'm at a safe distance away to see in a more interesting way.

Lack of interesting comics to read during my childhood years drove me to produce my own comics that suit my taste.

Rocketship A Go-Go seems to me to draw a lot from sci-fi movies and comics of the late 50s and early 60s. There's a sort of "Monolith Monsters/Forbidden Planet" vibe there, and a touch of Gold Key comics. And of course, the overall format of a daily, sci-fi adventure/humor strip is terribly 1940s.

But then again, the overall tone feels rather modern to me, I think it has ended up with the sort of "adventure with a light tone" that I tend to associate with Buffy or the latest versions of Dr Who.

But generally, I think it's hard to say what our "inspirations" are - we're too biased. In the end, the readers are a better judge of such things.

For my comic/s my ideas/inspiration come from friends, music and ALL the anime I watch and all the manga I read..=P everyday things do it for me too. Just depends.

Art books are a good way to get inspiration.

Old slasher films, especially Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street and Sleepaway Camp, and folklore were big inspirations for my comic Guys 'n' Ghouls.

Ethereal was based on the characters in another story I wrote (might be a comic soon too) And it was inspired by my mom who's going through cancer treatments now, the pediatric cancer patients I've met and a show I saw in Japan about a children's hospital. That and its a subject I don't see very much in comics as a main story plot.
Everyone has such different inspirations. What an interesting topic :)

I've almost always written for fun, so inspirations come from here and there. A "what if" notion, a video game, a song...

For "Beauty Into Beast," I stressed that it was based off the short story by Kazuo Umezu. But what made me write a re-make was the thought that similar events could happen in a modern world (Umezu-sensei reached the height of his career in the late sixties/early seventies). Plus, I had two beautiful sims lying around that were BEGGING to be used in a story.

My new project is "Angelfish," which is a comic I'm making in the MMO City of Villains. Everything in that game inspired me to write, but my biggest inspiration came from my best friend who's played that game for years. He, too, makes comics with CoH/CoV, and I wanted to try my hand at it. My first story arc is a tribute to his silly and over-the-top style where the hero of the story just can't win.

A couple of things...
FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON by Daniel Keyes...
Doc Savage novels...
BRAIN WAVE by Poul Anderson...
ODD JOHN by Olaf Stapledon...
And in general, having my brain rotted by the Silver Age comics. (I'm 54, I was there when Lee and Kirby were doing NEW stuff, rather than everybody masturbating to their stuff decades later.)---Al

Things that have inspired Dasien
80s syndicated action cartoons (Transformers, Thundercats, etc.)
80s and 90s anime (Dirty Pair, Slayers, Project A-Ko, etc.)
the work of Adam Warren and Bill Watterson
professional wrestling
Jan Smithers
Archie comics
lingerie catalogs

For what inspired my comic series. Well. There's actually quite a lot.

Pretty much any 80's or 90's Anthromorphic cartoon. (Including but not limited to, Biker Mice from Mars, Battletoads, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

Elson 'Darkspeeds' Wong
(http://www.darkspeeds.com/)
His art and everything made me start this in the first place.

I think that my comic is a big mixture of Crackdown (The Xbox 360 game), Sonic the Hedgehog, and probably Battletoads. Since that game seemed to be pretty futuristic.

Kenyagi -

Started as a dream that I had about my mother trying to cut evil out of me >.> I have mother issues... I took that and colored it with a bit of anime/manga and kinda gone from there.





Beyond the Pale -

Based on a D&D campaign I played with friends. My friend's bring alot to it beyond the origional game we played. Another inspiration is stories like Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and other fantasy epics. Though I don't plan on this being one of those type of sprawling epics.





Of Snakes & Apples -

I've always been fascinated by bible stories, even though I'm not a Christian. In fact, I know more about it then most Christians I've met. I've read the old testament, front to back, 9 times (first time was when I was 8)...but the new only 3. I've also read many other books related to it and many thoeries about the OT stories.

I first got the idea after seeing the animated movie Prince of Egypt. The thing I loved about PoE was the emotion of the characters. Like the scene after the pharoh's son dies and Moses curls up in the alley and cries...his brother that he loved so much had just lost his son. It showed how much the path he followed hurt him. And in the beginning, the playful friendship he and his brother shared. After seeing I started researching and putting ideas together. I wanted to show these stories with real emotions. I origionally planned on doing Esther, which is one of my favorite bible stories, but decided to start from the beginning. I already have two more books after Snakes and Apples planned out. I'm not going to do the whole bible but I want to do a few of the stories.

thrash metal and beer.

My current webcomic is a tribute to the Zelda games, but it has other influences (mostly fantasy).

I'll start with older influences since I began forming my comic back in 1995

The more serious anime I was introduced to in the 90s.
+ Ranma 1/2, Guyver, and Ronin Warriors

cartoons
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, XMen, Reboot, Mummy's Alive... probably whatever else action cartoon came on Saturday Mornings

comics
TMNT, Gen 13 (I got like the 1st 8 issues)

live action
XFiles, Star Trek, kung fu flicks

games
Mega Man, Street Fighter, KOF, Darkstalkers

More recent inspirations are
Above all else Avatar The Last Airbender
Law and Order CI, SVU, Samurai Champloo

HUGE DD inspirations are
http://www.drunkduck.com/FIGHT_2/
http://www.drunkduck.com/FIGHT/
http://www.drunkduck.com/j_u_x_t_a_p_o_s_e/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Love_you_like_crazy/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Para_Ten/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Prenna/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Scorch/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Shades/
http://www.drunkduck.com/signifikat/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Star_Crossed_Destiny/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Starsign/

OY, forgot the important 90s Spider Man cartoon and the Showtime show Dexter. Dexter is another show that makes me reevaluate my story telling and character writing!

LOC: think dark cronical (or in americal its called dark cloud 2), Dynasty warriors (Or romance of the 3 kingdoms...) and rangnarok online. Mostly RO but with this and that.

For future installments set in the same 'universe' as MAG-ISA:


David Icke

North Korean News (the good news)

Aswangs and other Philippine mythology

The Commies

Coast to Coast AM

Combine Satan, NWO, and Reptilians

And many others.

Inspiration? Everything I see, everything I hear, everything I read... for this particular comic? Hmm, too early to talk about that... other than the urge to get better at art :)

1960s comics generally (more DC than Marvel)
The Dark Knight Returns
The lack of decent UK super heroes who weren't either spoof characters or very unconvincing carbon copies of their US counterparts.

DAJB
1960s comics generally (more DC than Marvel)
The Dark Knight Returns
The lack of decent UK super heroes who weren't either spoof characters or very unconvincing carbon copies of their US counterparts.

And the last reason is why I totally loved Shades man.