That is what many people say when I hand them my business card:

To which I cringe, because while I love and have been greatly influenced by anime and manga (see my Inspirations post), I am actually trying hard to make my comic NOT look like anime! I'm trying to emerge my own unique style, and I don't like it being categorized like that when I know there are differences between my style and anime style.

"What about it looks like anime?" I sometimes ask. The character's eyes aren't showing on the card, so it can't be huge typical anime eyes. People are usually stumped here and say "Um, it just does!" One guy said "The mouth looks like anime!"

When I invented my AER HEAD characters years ago, though, the style was VERY anime:

Those eyes are GINORMOUS! Now THAT looks like anime, no doubt about it! That's a screen cap from an animation I did in 2004 called "Cute but Deadly." Btw, the character on the left in green (Andy) is the same one on my business card.

But even now, when I sketch characters really quickly, the style tends to look anime-like, maybe because it's more simplified:

But to me, my final comic pages these days don't jump out at me and say "anime."

There is probably the underlying anime drawing style still there, and as much as I try to change it, it still shines through. One of my professors said that sometimes you just have a certain style, and nobody can beat it out of you. But hey, maybe the anime-like style will attract some anime fans :)

Many animations, comics, tv shows, movies, places, people, and other things stirred around in my brain to form AER HEAD. My main inspiration is Daft Punk's animated music video of their Discovery album - "Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem."

I already loved Daft Punk's music and was totally amazed when I saw this anime-like music video in 2003. I can't even begin to describe it's awesomeness, so watch the animation here. I love the style of the characters and how colorful everything is! The film was produced by Daft Punk, Cédric Hervet and Emmanuel de Buretel along with Toei Animation, under the supervision of Leiji Matsumoto. Interstella 5555 © Toei Animation 2003.

Another influence is Colleen Doran's "A Distant Soil" graphic novel series. Isn't that picture so beautiful and sparkly? I LOVE Doran's work! I'm mainly inspired by her vivid color schemes, fluid coloring style, and collage-like page compositions, where panels can be any shape and meld into one another. I even got to meet Doran one time at last year's New York Comic Con! I totally geeked out :) A Distant Soil is published by Donning/Starblaze © Colleen Doran 1989.

Another visual inspiration for AER HEAD is the light of late afternoon summertime. Not quite sunset yet, but like 5 in the afternoon. When it's super hot out, the sun is blazing and casts a golden light over everything, reducing objects to wavy silhouettes. This is why I love to use so much yellow and shadows in AER HEAD! It definitely gives that summertime feel.

Also, I took this picture looking at Coney Island from Brighton Beach. That old Parachute Drop ride even influenced some buildings on page 1 of AER HEAD. That structure looks so sci-fi! Doesn't it look like a space ship that just landed there?

AER HEAD's story is greatly influenced by Lost, or the first few seasons anyway. I got busy with college and work and stopped watching all TV, and just never got back to the series. However, I was very intrigued by what I did see early in the series. For those who don't know, Lost is a sci-fi drama of plane-wrecked survivors' mysterious encounters on an island in the middle of nowhere. I loved all the bizarre things that would seemingly happen without explanation! Like the random polar bear on the tropical island and the mysterious hatch. The writers of that show were excellent story tellers that mastered the art of suspense. In terms of AER HEAD, let's just say that things are going to get weird. Very weird :) Lost © ABC Studios and Touchstone Television 2004-2010.

Those are the main AER HEAD inspirations, but there are many others like outer space, manga creators Rumiko Takahashi and Osamu Tezuka, the movie Inception, and even Scooby Doo! And I already mentioned San Diego's influence in my second post.

Oh, there is another major influence... but I can't reveal it yet because it may take away some of the surprise later on ;)

This week I've been drawing page 5, which you'll see next week!