Bored Panda reached out to Tom Hunt with some questions! First, we asked the artist if he had any major influences in his life that might've helped him to develop and refine his style.
"The trio of cartoonists that opened up the world of webcomics to me were Ryan North, Anthony Clark, and KC Green of Dinosaur Comics, Nedroid, and Gunshow Comics, respectively. Anime Club by KC Green remains one of my favorite things ever made.
One of the greatest modern comic masterpieces is Pictures for Sad Children, of which I drew a lot of visual inspiration, especially early on. Recently, I’ve been enjoying Close Your Eyes Look At The Mountains. Juniper Abernathy may be making the best comics in the world right now, everything she releases is gold."
Art, in any kind of form, takes a lot of time not only to practice but also to produce, therefore we asked Tom how long it takes him to fully finish his comics.
"It depends, as I imagine it does for most cartoonists. Sometimes I tinker endlessly trying to find the right punchline. The best comics are usually the ones that come naturally on the first pass—though those are rare. I’m lucky to have a few friends I demo every comic on before posting—without them I’d be lost."
Being an artist is not easy, one can easily encounter a lack of inspiration, burnout, etc, so we wanted to ask Hunt about his ideas for the comics.
"A lot of it is having imaginary conversations in my head. Following the threads of your wandering thoughts until it unveils something that makes you laugh. Some of my comics have been called 'political' to which, sure, sometimes I’ve been overt about that. But I guess that’s just because it’s at the forefront of my mind at the moment. I try to stay honest to wherever my headspace is at."
As we mentioned before, sometimes creative work can cause quite a burnout, therefore we asked the artist how he dealt with that as well.
"Having done a lot of different types of work, it’s hard to complain about burnout for creative work. That said, every now and then I find myself in a place where I’m thinking 'I don’t really have anything to say right now'—what are you supposed to do? If anyone reading this knows, please tell me."
We also asked Tom about how people usually react to his work.
"Mostly pretty positive! Anytime someone reaches out to tell me they really like a comic or it made them laugh or it changed their mind about something—I don’t take that lightly. It really makes my day. I hope anyone who does that knows their acts of kindness make a huge difference in my world."
The creative process is not easy, but there are always some enjoyable parts to it.
"There’s a moment while illustrating when a comic crosses the threshold between an idea and a real thing. It always sneaks up on me during the process—but suddenly I’ll look up and see it’s coming to life and this is what it will look like. It’s exciting and satisfying."
We also asked about the inspiration behind the artist's Instagram account.
"When George Floyd was murdered I wanted to scream into the universe. I ended up locking myself away for several hours to draw some comics to work out how I felt, something I’ve done since I was very young. I ended up showing a couple to friends who encouraged me to post them, so I did—and not too long after I found them at the top of Reddit. So I decided to keep going with it."
Artists tend to get motivated by a lot of things such as curiosity, the search for beauty, or even meaning. Therefore, we asked Tom about that too.
"It’s hard to explain—I think part of it is compulsive. A comedian once told me they perform on stage every night because of some unquantifiable draw to it—they just *need* to do it. I feel the same way about making things—whether it’s comics or any creative pursuit. Woodblock printmaker David Bull has a great video on YouTube about how his art will live on for generations—maybe that's part of it. Through your art, part of you can live forever. Until science discovers the secrets of immortality, in which case it'll turn out I'd have wasted my time."
Digital art and art, in general, is not easy and requires a lot of patience, time, resources, and in most cases, even money. Therefore, we wanted to know how the talented artist started his own career in digital art.
"I actually had a Tumblr comics blog back in 2011 but didn’t stick with it for a myriad of reasons. But I’m glad I came back to it—there’s a great tweet from Jesse Moynihan, who was a storyboard artist for Adventure Time at the time. It said: '‘I want to make comics but I’m bad at drawing’—Draw, you dummy! Fucking work at something, you lazy pussy!'—I adored that. It was exactly what I needed to hear—not just for comics but everything. I printed it out and taped it to my wall."
