Influences

As far as story telling goes Frank Miller is my biggest influence. The grim and gritty, realistic style he used on "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" is probably what influenced me the most. I love the internal dialog of Batman and how it really gives you a into his psyche and internal struggle. Frank's work, and especially the work he did on Dark Knight Returns, has greatly influenced comics today. In fact, it was this comic that changed the face of popular comics when it was released in 1986. No one had ever put a popular comic book character in such a revealing and realistic light. Though Lynn Varley's Watercolors are epic, the graphics in the book are adequate at best but it doesn't matter. This book is a perfect example of how writing is far more important than drawing when it comes to telling a story.

As far as art goes I really love Jae Lee. His first work on Namor really caught my eye in the nineties. His use of dynamic light and extreme shading has a very dramatic quality that really brings the characters and thus the story to life. I love the mixture of detail and simplicity that Jae brings to the table with his art. The extreme use of black and negative space gives dimensionality and form to an essentially flat media and is amazing. I also love the implied nature of things in his art.

As far as design and coloring goes The Red Star is amazing. What I really love more than anything is the use of multi-media and coloring on the computer. The mixture of hand drawn with computer made images and coloring opens many doors of ideas in my brain.