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Artist Jules Hinton had a successful experience in a stop-motion animation course this semester, and is looking forward to drawing greater attention to his beloved cartoon culture next spring in a animation mini-festival he’s organizing to coincide with a show in our gallery (stay tuned!). Relatedly, here he shares a key influence on his artwork.

Looking for inspiration in the world of exciting cartooning?  The work of animator and director Tex Avery is a top influence for me and my artwork.  Starting in the golden age of animation, from 1930-1980 Mr. Avery worked on some of the most daring and risqué cartoons ever made.

“Avery had developed a distinct, signature style at Warner Bros. Studio, which had breakneck pacing, outlandish, over-the-top acting from his characters, and seemingly nonstop jokes and gags. Avery’s style of directing  encouraged animators to stretch the boundaries of the medium to do things in a cartoon that could not be done in the world of a live-action film. An often-quoted line about Avery’s cartoons was, ‘In a cartoon, you can do anything.’ He also performed a great deal of voice work in his cartoons, usually throwaway bits.” (Source: Wikipedia)

“Ms. Ma’am”

My “Ms. Ma’am” series, for example, is directly related to the Tex Avery characters of Red and the Wolf.  What Mr. Avery did better than most are his depictions of wild over-the-top violence, the exaggerated style of his characters, and frantic action of the series as a whole. 

For example, in my work when my character Hound Dork flirts with Ms. Ma’am and she rejects him using cartoonishly violent actions and items. The Wolf would use cartoon violence such as a giant wooden mallet to give the wolf a smash on the top of the head leading to a cartoon sound effect “BRRRRNNNKKK!”  Ms. Ma’am is a celebration my love for cartoons.  By extension the spin-offs of Ms. Ma’am, One random Rabbit and Ink the Cat, are also inspired by Tex Avery.

Two other favorite series I make that are also inspired by Avery are:

“Crush”, a cartoon I created this year.  It is a series of two stories about an African American woman who is discovering what she wants out of life.  By a strange twist of fate she becomes a giant, then becomes a lawyer.

“Gazebo Time” is a story about an African American man, an alien, and a witch and her talking cat, who struggle to agree on things. They all share the one space, the gazebo, where each character has their own story within the larger story of them sharing the gazebo.