Early Influences. The sunday paper cartooning page, with Peanuts and Garfield and others, led me to love drawing cartoon characters. It is interesting that I never once can remember putting captions on my drawings. The serious endeavor was to make the copied characters look well-drawn. My parents were quite supportive in my drawing exercises and even put up Ziggy wallpaper in part of the house for me to enjoy.

Teens and College. Matt Groening's television masterpiece, The Simpsons, has kept me amused since its development in 1989. Gary Larson, of The Far Side, is a cartoonist whose sense of humor I can appreciate too. Although my historical background and material tend toward the philosophical and less toward the scientific, I can still somewhat enjoy the themes and characters of Larson's excellent work.

These Days. My style aims at a psychological effect that minimizes sarcastic violence to the audience and maximizes their ability to connect with the content, especially the ideas, in a way that alleviates some of the unnecessary tension of the chosen topic. My cartoons are not always this innocent. Early on in my active cartooning (c. 2011), I found myself reproducing stupid and callous stereotypes way too much and decided consciously to alter my cartoon style of humor away from such a cynical extreme. I also aim to avoid the superficial glossing of philosophy. These are the great difficulties - staying away from superficiality and harming the audience. I do want to learn the works of philosophy that interest me to a masterful level when time permits. This could have been done in college, yet I am afraid to report my interests ranged closer to women and drinking in those days. However, my research in philosophy has been renewed in the recent years. It is instructive that my highest goal in fine art was history painting wherein events and ideas can be linked and portrayed. I did not accomplish this feat too often, preparing instead many studies and less cerebral pictures. The aim remains the same however and in my cartooning, I can quickly match idea with picture to create an intellectual experience akin to history painting, yet without the painted rendering.