Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

Interesting points from both Jay and Brad.

Aside from issues of Jason Ford's derivativeness (though I feel that it's facile to damn him by listing his influences), I have to say that I don't know how anyone can mention Daniel Torres in the same breath as the great Line Clair illustrators (Herge, Swarte, Chaland, Avril, Clerc). I don't mean to be dismissive myself- I've been longing for Torres to justify his reputation for a while- but all I see is awkwardness: his line work has little caligraphic fluidity and in comparison to the masters his work often seems mannered and lifeless.

No, there's nothing wrong with having influences. We all have them. There is a fine line between being influenced by someone and outright copying their style, though, and I'm not sure where Jason Ford stands on that line. He's obviously a very talented cartoonist, but maybe he should try to forge his own way a bit more. And by that I don't mean "working in" shades of Seth. As an example I'd cite the work of Philipe Dupuy and Charles Barberian as two cartoonists who took their influences from la Ligne Clare and transended them. Or even, dare I say it, your own work Jay...

And I'd take exception (albeit with a smile) to your comment that Torres 'stole' from Chaland. He did no such thing. He may well have been influenced by Chaland, but in the end Torres is as different from Chaland as Chaland is from Hergé.

This is just my opinion of course, and should be treated as such :)

Nothing at all wrong with those influences, is there, Brad? Great place to start, don't you think? The image I chose is pretty Torres-ish, I suppose, but I think Ford is off onto his own turf with many of the other images I linked to... did you see the snowman illo at the end? Or is that too 'Seth' for you? Anyway, Torres stole from Chaland, Chaland was looking at Herge and so on and so on...

This isn't the first time I've read a "looks like so-and-so" remark in the comments. Let me clue you all in... everybody's drawings "look like" somebody else's style at least a little. Even your heroes. It's not that big a deal.

I agree! Jason is GOOG! Err... meant to type good. He's good.

I'll stop now.

Yeah, and he's got quite the collection of Serge Clerc, Yves Chaland and Daniel Torres books...

Beautiful!