Mike Allred

excerpt from the first Madman book, that shows the dark quirkiness of the character that I miss so much.

Mike Allred. I think that he's a great illustrator. I got to read the first series of Madman around the time I was becoming very bored with mainstream comics and it really stuck with me. I knew that it was a great comic and it looked really fresh to me. I finally dug my heels into these comics and have always aspired to reach that very human quality of his line work. But I also wanted to read more comics like this.
Even now, I don't know of any comic books that are like the first Madman series. I just wish that he would have stuck with this type of story telling.
Mike Allred was hugely influential to me when I was do The ANT at first. His pop culture references and obvious love of classic superheroes lead me down a path that was similar to where Madman went. I eventually played with other styles and moved away from those interests and his work.

Bernie Mireault

from my personal collection, a comic that help change my life

Bernie Mireault entered my comic book life in a not so flattering way. I was searching through a $1 bin of comics at a local shop and I found The JAM Super Cool Color Injected Turbo Adventure From Hell No. 1.
Nearly ten years after it was published by Comico this comic flipped my comic taste upside down. I was so happy that this comic was about people, and people who were normal. Such a simple thing to think about now, but back then in the small town I lived in this kind of comic was rare. So The JAM helped me get away from hollow superhero comics, and more towards superhero comics that had people in them and behind the costumes.

Bernie Mireault's artwork in black and white as well as in color was a huge inspiration when I was drawing The ANT comics.

Shannon Wheeler

When I was 16 I ordered through my local comic store a comic that would help change my life. That comic was Too Much Coffee Man #1.
That comic along with a few others, snapped my brain open and lead me to make my first mini comics. I've come a long way since then, but I still find so many good things in Shannon Wheeler's comics. Thanks Shannon.



P.S.
Here's a low quality Youtube of a Converse commercial that has Too Much Coffee Man in it. The lack of quality takes away from the insane amount of cross hatching that was done for this.

Jeff Warner

Jeff Warner AKA: Jilf inspired me to start blogging my daily comics a few years ago when he lived in Seattle.

Ever since, we've hung out collaborated on some street art and talked tons about art and toys.

Currently he's living in Minnesota and is working really hard on his art style.

I had to photograph this painting from my collection because he's taken down all of his old art from the internet.

Charlie Burgoon

exerpt from Quasioctix

Charlie Burgoon is a long time friend who I've gladly collaborated with on comics. He and I first met when I awarded him with the prizes for a cover contest he won for my comic the ANT.

Charlie is an amazing illustrator who has been working on an autobiographic comic that has his blunt opinions and feelings about living with E.B.N.

Tom Dougherty

Tom and I met through the Friends of the Nib meetings at the Cafe Racer. We've now become pretty close and plan to collaborate on some projects here in the future.

He's really encouraged me directly and indirectly by being so damn good.

With the Pencil..? I'm telling you!

Ben Lyon

I've known Ben otherwise known as ART FINK for years now and have always been a fan of his. He's an expert chameleon, able to adapt his style from Sailor Jerry tattoo art, to Big Daddy Roth hot rod monsters, to twisted outsider art collages.
I know he has passion and drive, he's no faker to me.

Matt Biolchini

Matt is another long time friend who I went to High School with in Michigan. He was inspirational then and while we lived in the same town years ago we drew together and it was a happy time.

Levi Bailey

Levi Bailey is a long time friend and collaborator on many drawings, musical experiments, videos, and the other 99% of a music distribution website that we have called Self Satisfied.

The art that Levi makes is darkly cartoonish and draws you into a sinister and brutal world. A world that you can understand whether you want to or not. Faces and objects might be iconic, but that just helps to ease your mind as you recognize the depressive and uncomfortable ideas he's casting out at you.

Simply...

I'm an artist and my biggest resource for inspiration is art.

The people I chose to post, will be artists who have inspired me in one way or another.

Most of these posts will be of current artists doing things I wish I could be doing. Or they're doing something I can't even imagine doing, but greatful that they're doing it.

All artists need some help getting exposure and word of mouth is the best.

I will appologize now, if I post an image that I didn't ask permission to post. Forgive me and know that I'm only doing it for the best possible reason, to show your work off.

Marc Palm
http://marcpalm.blogspot.com
http://swellzombie.blogspot.com