Scott Campbell - This is one of my all-time favorites. His art is actually kind of similar to Pen Ward's, now that I think of it, but it's so awesome, with his silly sense of surreal visual humor. Plus, PSYCHONAUTS. C'MON.
C.H. Greenblatt - He worked on Spongebob, Billy & Mandy, and created Chowder. Need I say more?
Genndy Tartakovsky, Craig McCracken, and Rob Renzetti - I put these guys together, because they're basically inseparable. They all worked on Dexter's Lab together, then went on to all work on Powerpuff Girls, and so on. They all always seem to help each other out on each other's projects. Another reason for putting them together is that they all have a pretty similar style, based off of old Hannah Barbera and such. Plus, they all have mad BGing skills.
John K. - This guy's art is always something good to look at, especially if you need guidance in how to do traditional cartoons. If anybody cares, I'll go ahead and say that it's a VERY good idea to learn basics of drawing before just going in and making silly simplistic stuff like the last two guys I named. You need to LEARN rules before you try to BREAK them.
Dr. Seuss - As you can see, I have a crush on surrealist cartoonists/illustrators. But there's no denying that he certainly was good. A lot of people won't give him a second look, being that he's best known as a children's author. Those people deserve to be poked in a very annoying manner. Seriously, if you catch one of those fuckers, give a bunch of oddly timed jabs in the liver. That'll teach 'em.
Jhonen Vasquez - As much as I hate to admit him as an influence (what with the whole "goth" crowd drooling over him), but his style is too prevalent in my own stuff for me to even TRY leaving him out. The guy practically taught me to draw. And he IS good. I know that it's hard to say, since he's one of the big "spooky" crowd idols, but if you actually try looking at his work, you should be able to at least SLIGHTLY appreciate it. Go on. I won't tell anybody.
Matt Wilson - The last on the list, and also another one that I hate putting up here. I love his animation. I hate that Bonus Stage was so far ingrained into me that the first few animations I did were basically rip-offs, even though I had a story already set up to base it off of! But still, if it wasn't for this guy, I probably would never have gotten past the nasty uber-detail of my attempts at Jhonen-style stuff. I learned to simplify drawings to make them easier to animate. Also, I would never have even thought of pursuing animation as a career, if not for this guy. I would never have gotten into researching all sorts of cartoonists, and would probably have been doomed to trying to copy one or two styles all my life. WHAT FUN.
