What Inspired Your Comic?

[alakotila]

Spidersilk is the product of years of processing. I knew I wanted to start another comic, and not in the same slice-of-life kinda goofy sitcom way of my first comic. So I let it simmer on the back burner and put a couple of characters through some terrible story ideas, like a vampire romance. OTL

I had been playing with the idea of returning to the fantasy genre, but was hesitant because I thought my drawing ability wouldn't do it justice. I just played around with drawing characters and stuff. Previously I had only written fantasy.

But then … a series of excellent games sealed the deal. First, I got interested in comedy fantasy again by playing Radiata Stories II. The beautiful storybook presentation in parts of Valkyria Chronicles nearly made me do an illuminated manuscript/ storybook, honestly…. And last, Dragon Age: Origins. That was that! I dove into fantasy again! I spent nine months journaling, researching, scripting…. Spidersilk started out as a sort of parody comic where I poked fun at random happenings/ glitches/ etc in games. As I scripted, the story took on its own life and is now almost completely removed from those first ideas. There are some easter eggs that refer to games on varying levels of subtlety, though!

And as it so happens, I have this cool picture meme that shows what inspired Spidersilk (and probably still does). Check it out if you like. If you have some spare time, make one for yourself! It was fun and I still look at it when I need an extra dosage of inspiration.

[VermillionWorks]

What inspired DANIEL was mainly two things.
First off it was inspired by early European vampire mythology/hysteria. The story of Petar Blagojevich probably started it and I've been madly researching old vampire mythos and lesser known vampire stories ever since.

And of course, before I started Daniel I had gotten into old films, particularly taking inspiration from ones with stark shadows and eerie atmosphere - Night of the Hunter is one example. I also listened to old music and radio shows. Actors like Peter Lorre and Dwight Frye really inspired Daniel himself, sort of going by the idea of "what if the creepy Renfield character was the main vampire"?

I went with a '30s setting because it was less common than a '20s setting, and the characters seemed to fall into place in that time very well. Plus I just never hear about vampire stories set in the '30s often. XD

I just love these sort of things so much it made Daniel SO fun to work on. ^__^

[chiharu_j]

Well, that's kind of a tough one, my story for Kami Element sort of started out as a typical short little comic idea. Initially it would have been less than ten pages with the two main characters being mostly featured. At the time I had most definitely been inspired by comedy anime with some romance and of course otome games.

As I worked mosre with the characters though I discovered that they had turned into something completely different and so began my little manga adventure with Mitsuki and her shikigami Yuki.

[globuline]

For A frog's life, the everyday life. Every strip is a true story I lived or someone closed to me has lived ^^. I almost never need to exaggerate or re invent anything.

[henrikkublick]

I was inspired by Berlin and its environment for the scenery in my story
The plot and character was inspired by my life and my own search for 'the path'

its called
The Tower Expedition

thanks for starting the topic

[xxcelestialangelxx]

A trippy dream i had of a cat and dog fighting pinata zombies. I was doing a dragon comic at first for university but switched to this one cuase it sounded better in my head lol.

http://tapastic.com/series/Nommie-Zombies

[ErithEl]

@alakotila I like the direction you decided to finally go in Sounds like you're got some really strong points of reference and inspiration, there (and yeah, if I ever have any spare time, I will totally make a list like yours!). I can see the game aspect in your comic - and I hope you're still not doubtful of your artistic ability, because from what I've seen of your comic it is very good!

@VermillionWorks Very cool. I like that you've chosen a setting not normally used (I haven't heard of a vampire story set in the 30's until yours!); the characters definitely do seem to just fit perfectly in that time period And you've really captured a great atmosphere for this type of story - very suspenseful, dark, and creepy - yet still with a very human element of hope and love. I really hope it doesn't play out badly for Christine later on...

@chiharu_j anime is a great source of inspiration...and even better when you take aspects of it and turn them into characters and a story all your own, as you have done with your comic

@globuline it doesn't happen for everyone, but sometimes you don't even need inspiration...just the realization that your life is such great source material, that's all you'll need to make a comic! That's awesome

@henrikkublick No problem! Your comic sounds interesting, would you be able to link it?

@xxcelestialangelxx Wow...that does sound like a super trippy dream! I can definitely see why you'd want to go with that story idea instead...sounds just too good to pass up!

[glennsong]

The inspiration for This Mortal Coil came in early 2010 when I was exercising on the treadmill. I had finished Death Note and I was reading through the first volume of Sandman and a bunch of ideas gelled together including the high contrast art style. I got to test out my ideas when we did an ashcan comic in Oct 2010 for APE, and I later tried to flesh out the story during NaNoWriMo. Aside from comics and anime, I also drew inspiration from literature, mythology, and religion -- mostly eastern. The art style, might be reminiscent of Frank Miller's Sin City, but I thought of the Tao Yin/Yang symbol first and wanted to play with doing the entire comic as a balance of white and black. Obviously the comic's title comes from Shakespeare's Hamlet. The first story I'm drawing entitled The Rabbit and the Moon is based on the Chinese myth about the woman, Chang'e, from the moon, and also Jade the rabbit from the moon (who is mixing the elixir of immortality if you're Chinese or rice cakes if you're Japanese or Korean). When I wrote Jade, I also mixed ideas from one of my favorite novels, Watership Down into his character. As for future Mortal Coil episodes there's a lot to play with in terms of folklore, fairytales, and mythologies from all over the world, so I intend to bring it in and mix it up with my own storytelling.

[AnnaLandin]

Grassblades is basically me throwing everything I like in a blender and turning it on high. It's a bit of Blade of the Immortal, a bit of Vagabond, a bit of Zaraki Kenpachi and Yachiru from Bleach (my favourite bits of Bleach, and also they are basically a more bubblegum-coloured version of Lone Wolf and Cub), a bit of Hellboy and a lot of other less defined things, with my own spin on it.

I wanted grim wandering swordsmen, demons and monsters, kickass ladies with swords (who haven't shown up yet, but they will!), lots of neat landscapes, the occasional bit of a laugh and enough elbow-room to dive into more serious, emotional topics.

[carloswebcomic]

What inspired my comic?
Stupidity and misguided confidence. What a fool I was.

[purrlpankras]

For Likho it was a friend who said I should do a gore comic, because I draw horror/gore stuff alot.
Plus alot of metal and evil thoughts.

[davidgallaher]

High Moon was partially inspired by a dream -- and partially inspired by the Celtic legend of Cuchulain. It's a western, but we've tried to keep it pretty epic.

The Only Living Boy was inspired by the Paul Simon song, the Only Living Boy in New York, and my time working for the NYPD on the set of 'I Am Legend'. It evolved a lot since it's original pitch of boy vs zombie monsters, but I'm much, much happier of where it is.

[ippotsk]

To be honest, I felt like writing Trash Talk after seeing how lazy and uncaring people can be when it comes to dealing with their own rubbish, typically in the place where I live. I find it sickening! To be honest.

But after realizing that a lot of young folk here grow up with comics and manga, I thought; "what better way to spread your thoughts, than by having sugoi manga characters reenacting them out?". I wanted to promote eco-friendliness, starting from as small as the classroom. And I hope it pays off, even if just a little bit. :")

[williamjbowles]

As for my comic, Outcast Kingdom, it went a little something like this:
I'm a fan of tabletop games and role playing games. One day, I started working on a variation of a popular RPG system, but replacing traditional fantasy elements (the sorts of things from mythology and ancient folklore) with things from classic monster movies, urban legends, and literature from within the past 2-3 hundred years. So instead of things like elves, wizards, and rangers, there are mummies, headless horsemen, vampires, etc.
Although the game was never completed, I liked the world and history so much (as well as some of the plot elements I had planned) that I decided to draw a comic of it. And that's how it happened.

[Jrej]

Hello everyone,
My comic Shades Of Men follows the story of Lev and Ricky, two long-time hobos living in Paris.
I found inspiration in every day life while I was living in Paris.
I've seen specific scenes happening and I wonder what were the events leading to this.
I started building from this including my own characters and experiences.

I hope this brings a layer of realism to the whole story.

Let me know what you think.

See ya

Jrej

[nolightmangaka]

Well, for me a funeral inspired me. I didn't want to have any regrets not having my stories out of my head and to do what I love, telling stories and art.

[sarahrebecca58]

Had to make sure I didn't answer before. The trag-a-day strip started out as a poetry book I was working on as a diary about how I feel. Then gradually I began to get the idea for a poetry comic, and it kicked off from there.

[ErithEl]

@glennsong I like the stark contrast of black and white, with those other highlights of colors here and there (totally reminds me of Sin City!). It helps accent key aspects you want the reader to pay attention to, where this would be more difficult in a full color comic And yeah, you've got a lot to play around with, taking inspiration from folklore and mythology.

@AnnaLandin Sounds very interesting (and I can totally see the inspiration from those anime...at least the ones I have watched). Kenpachi was always one of my favorites from Bleach

@carloswebcomic

Stupidity and misguided confidence.

Well, I guess they really paid off, then, because your comic is awesome!

@purrlpankras7 Well your friend was right! Definitely creepy and gory...

@davidgallaher Both look pretty awesome. I always liked the idea of taking inspiration from a song because (I may be old fashioned in this, but) I always thoughts songs should tell a story on their own.

@ippotsk That's actually a very good idea. Every story you read has an effect on your life, and you never know which ones are really going to stick and make you want to live your life a little better. And yeah...where I live there is trash everywhere you go.

@williamjbowles That's a cool idea for a game! And role playing games are always a good source of inspiration – especially for world and character building!

@Jrej Interesting idea for a story. Many homeless people have amazing and/or sad stories to tell, themselves. It's terrible that where I live most of the homeless population are actually mentally ill, and were kicked out on the street when the institutions got too full...

@nolightmangaka Definitely all for living without regrets! Good for you

@sarahrebecca58 That's an interesting idea. Do you have a link?

[goenn]

MMMmmmm what inspired HERO.SYN.... the cyberpunk and dystopia-ish elements are inspired by Tsutomu Nihei's works, especially BLAME.

As for the otherworld elements... it was always weird to me how the main character knew how to communicate with the other world inhabitants, even though the language was completely different. So I decided to build on that concept, instead the language barrier and culture difference is what is the major hurdle for the boy to overcome.

A serious story has adults in it, but I wanted to see how different a world like that would be if it starred a child instead.

[FromFinn]

Among other things.