Self critic in my work

I never really realised until recently that I did quite a lot of self-critic of my work in my work. I didn't realise this because I did most of these self critic comics to express my insecurities about my work. It's also my way of being honest and saying "I'm no artist, but Hell, I'll keep doing this until someone stops me." Apart from my deep sense of insecurity, I like admitting most of my work is poor on an artistic scale, mainly because I'm aiming to explore the design perspective of comic books and not become a comic book artist.

I don't know why, but honesty about my work seems to drive me forward. For me, being honest and constantly criticising my work allows me to move forward and mainly not to become one of those artists I despise so much because they have lost all links with reality. I've been very inspired by the philosophy of Harvey Pekar and Robert Crumb, especially their work in American Splendor. "Bob and Harv" constantly critic not only their lives but also their work and life and even author/artist relationship.

American Splendor cover with Robert Crumb and Harvey Pekar discussing record trades, both being jazz and blues record collectors.

One of my first insecurities and main critics is my simple use of stickmen. I have to admit that I have evolved and widened the array of expression of my stickmen, but it took Jean Louis Mourrier four volumes of Trolls de Troy to draw trolls the way they look now.

As it can be seen on the cover, every artist's style evolves with time. Mourrier admitted his style evolved and has compared his trolls to Tarquin's original trolls from Lanfeust de Troy. I met Mourrier twice at the Angoulème 2009 festival and asked him about the evolution of his style. He said that the more you work on your character design, the more they fall into shape naturally.


Stickmen comics have become more and more natural, especially the one I have done from a graphics tablet.

I have made comments on every aspect of my work, from the format of the paper, to the pickles from outer-space and different details in stickmen as well as my general narration methods.