Under the Influence – O’Neill / Baxendale

I haven’t done one of these for a while and was talking to a student about personal style and looking at where it’s come from. So reflecting on my own drawing style I picked on two childhood favourites who have had subtle input into how i’m drawing.

From my early days with the Beano (I used to be a 3 comics a week man – Beano/Dandy/Whoopee and on occassion School Fun (during it’s short life) before progressing onto Look In and 2000AD) i distinctly adored the early scratchy rendition of Dennis the Menace and the abundance of Leo Baxendales work (especially ‘The Bash Street Kids’) – not quite being the master that Baxendale is it’s the scratchy little details that have stayed with me – the stubbly dots and hairy knees. This is similar to the textures also taken from the work by Kevin O’Neill.

Again another master of drawing – it’s the scratchy details that appear across his Nemesis the Warlock Strips up to his recent League of Extraordinary Gentlemen partnership with Alan Moore that i’ve adopted. The busy little textures that give shape and a ‘dirty/busy’ feel to a piece. In my late teens I did the completely geek art thing of submitting an O’Neill inspired piece to 2000AD (Geiger’s Alien as Judge) – it got published and i still brandish the enamel 2000AD badge to this day.