Childhood cartoons

I forgot that as a child I used to watch massive amounts of cartoons. The realization came to me as I was looking through some of these illustrations online. I was immediately overjoyed at the discovery, and it triggered a memory of my childhood addictions.

I was initially raised with Looney Tunes, I have a memory of waiting until 8PM certain nights of the week to watch it. I had a tendency to gravitate toward the stranger cartoons, even at a young age. I could go through the entire list, but it would be a partial waste of time in my opinion. So I'll go through some of the highlights.

At some point in my childhood I watched a ton of Ren and Stimpy. It surprises me as an adult to see certain episodes of this show, as I often marvel at how they managed to get some of the content on television at that time (what was that, fifteen, maybe 20 years ago?). I found the detailed stills hilarious. I was engrossed and horrified at the strangeness of the scenarios the two characters found themselves in (ex: "Marooned" was a good one, I felt like I was suffocating as I watched it). Many of these cartoons shaped what I consider the darker side of my sense of humor. And my vivid, mostly unhealthy, imagination probably stems from this. Unfortunately, the episodes got so gross that I eventually found myself nauseas as I was watching them. Kudos on pushing the envelope, though.

In my teenage years I moved and stumbled upon Cartoon Network. Granted, this was eleven years ago, so the cartoons were a bit different. But I found a great deal of joy from shows such as Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, Courage the Cowardly Dog, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. There are probably others, but none come to mind right now.

That being said, here are the visual inspirations for me in a nutshell. Ren and Stimpy and Courage the Cowardly Dog's uses of background. I am influenced indefinitely by the character development of Courage the Cowardly Dog, and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (specifically the imaginative side of the different characters and their personalities). The flatness of The Powerpuff Girls and Dexter's Laboratory is turning into a definite influence in terms of screen printing.

And while I'm on the subject of screen printing, here's a few more links:

Scott Benson: who I've mentioned before. I have this print specifically hanging in my home.

Papertrail Prints

..probably a few others, which I will post as I find. Oh, and another interesting link on Iso50's website:

Design, design, design. The St. Vincent poster is my favorite. Beautiful.