Joe Sacco Quotes

I'm probably much more influenced by film-makers and painters than I am by other songwriters or poets.

I've always had a certain fascination. It's basically paint what you know, and this is what I grew up with.

'The Nightmare Before Christmas' is my number one biggest influence artistically in every way.

My sisters were going out with artists and poets, and eventually it was the creative world which attracted me.

The paintings by Van Gough and Chagall had a big influence on me.

Picasso is still influencing me. Of course, I haven't got that kind of energy, or skill.

Music is very influential to my writing, as are theater and film.

Crumb was such an influence on me. He's such a visionary, such a great artist, that he so shaped my artistic sensibilities on a certain level that I do owe everything to him. The way I see the world is largely changed by him.

Their films would probably be better if they'd seen a few more films, which runs counter to this idiotic theory that you run the risk of being influenced if you see too much.

Great art inspires great art.

If you're a designer, there's got to be some films that you've seen that have inspired you creatively. There's no escaping that.

Part of being an artist is being able to write about the world you live in and the times that you've been a part of.

I only learned about Darger a couple years ago, when I kept seeing his name in reference to my artwork, so I looked him up. I wouldn't consider him an influence because I'd already established my current style before learning about him, but I enjoy his work a lot.

The one artist who actually had influence over me was Bo Bartlett.

I'm glad Wu-Tang was able to inspire other producers and artists, but I would never want to be erased or removed.

I believe in the relation between photography and music; And thats my inspiration.

As an artist, you take things from your environment, and there's going to be a style coming out of your environment.

You know, artists are influenced by other artists. We're all deeply influenced by what's around us; we don't make anything cold. Sometimes we think that we do. But within that, the most important part is that even though we're influenced, what are the levels of invention that we carry forth even as we've been influenced by something that's come before?

If you think a man draws the type of hands that you want to draw, steal ‘em. Take those hands.

The best visual book I can think of is Lynda Barry's What It Is, but although I refer to it all the time it's not a creative writing book per se.

How much the work of an artist owes to an art movement to which he belongs can never be determined exactly, if only because the movement derives its character from the individual creations of its members.

My reason for writing stories is to give myself the satisfaction of visualising more clearly and detailedly and stably the vague, elusive, fragmentary impressions of wonder, beauty, and adventurous expectancy which are conveyed to me by certain sights (scenic, architectural, atmospheric, etc.), ideas, occurrences, and images encountered in art and literature.

I'm usually the last to see my influence in other people's work. People give me stuff and say "Oh look, this guy's ripping you off," and I'm like "What do you mean?" Often I see the people that I've ripped off filtered into my own work. In other people's work, I can only see specific, tiny little instances of inflections stolen from another artist.

I do sculpting sometimes when I have the time, and the first thing I sculpted was a bust of [Albert] Einstein. It still sits on my table and still inspires me. He was a person who triggered my imagination and my ideas.

I had to find a way to paint abstractly, which is what I wanted to do. I couldn't forget Wassily Kandinsky and Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian, I mean that was the basis.