Here are some of Tom Hunt's influences that he's been willing to share with us in an interview from a previous post. "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."
As for how much time it takes to make a single comic, Tom said that"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."
When it comes to inspiration,"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."
Creative disciplines such as this one cause a lot of burnouts, so we asked how Tom deals with his.
"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."
#9
"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.
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."
