Bryan Lee O'Malley Quotes

Well, there are better cartoonists now than there ever have been. I firmly believe that. There's some amazing work being done.

When I was a kid, I could draw, and my ambition was to be a cartoonist. I wanted to draw comics. But I also liked newspaper comics.

There was a manga boom, so I read 'Astro Boy,' 'Osomatsu-kun,' and such. But what influenced me the most were things like 'Popeye' and Disney animation.

I always idealized the mainstream cartoonists and the packed schedule they worked under.

For whatever crispness and animation my writing has I give some credit to the cartoonist manque.

I do what I do because of Walt Disney. Goofy. Mickey Mouse. I never forgot how their films entertained me.

I love illustrating for other writers because I am given stories I never would have thought of, and my work as an illustrator is always in support of the story.

Cartoonists' dirty secret is that we tend to come up with stories that involve things that are really fun to draw.

I definitely think my work comes from things that I liked as a kid, and things I still like now. Monsters and magic and museums and movies, a lot of things that start with 'M' for some reason.

I was influenced by Ray Harryhausen and Lotte Reiniger, with her twitchy, cutout animation, which I happened to see at a very young age, but also by the Warner Bros. cartoons, 'Tom and Jerry,' and of course Disney. And also by Fellini's 'Giulietta of the Spirits' and Kurosawa's 'Ran.' And by other American illustrators and painters.

If you're a kid wanting to be a cartoonist today, and you're looking at Family Guy, you don't have to aim very high.

I think more influential than Emily Dickinson or Coleridge or Wordsworth on my imagination were Warner Brothers, Merrie Melodies, and Loony Tunes cartoons.

Old cartoonists never retire, they just erase away.

I've always said that what cartoonists do is create friends for readers.

I never sat down and said, you know, what the world needs is a good, sick cartoonist.

I'm just a guy drawing comics. Guys knocking other guys through buildings. Guys flipping tanks over on each other. I'm just trying to be true to what I liked as a kid.

I grew up loving cartoons, comics, magic, and writing.

As a kid, I was obsessed with 'Calvin and Hobbes' and 'Bone,' and I'm certain that I've unconsciously ripped off ideas from both, wholesale.

When I was very young, even before I went to what you call elementary school, I used to read and watch Japanese comic books and anime all the time. These were the seeds of my future.

I am one of the lucky ones, to work with comic giants.

When I am working a book, I go through my library and take a look through some of the great cartoonists of the past, like Cliff Sterrett, who did "Polly and Her Pals," or Winsor McCay who did "A Little Nemo in Slumberland," and Herriman - and I just looked through these guys and looked for somebody to steal. You know, looked for who I could swipe, or turn into - who's work I will turn into my work. And I still use, after all these years, these artists as inspirations. So, here in my eighties, I go back to when I was eight for my inspiration.

Carl Barks and Don Rosa are two of my favorite cartoonists ever.

I'm just trying to tell a good story and make thought-provoking, entertaining films. I just try and draw upon the great culture we have as a people, from music, novels, the streets.

I like to write books that I would have liked as a child, that would have got me thinking and imagining beyond the words on the page. In a way, my audience is always how I remember myself as a child.