My Influence Map

Check this noise. It's the Influence Map meme.

Upon creating this, I realized that there really hasn't been that much that's *really* influenced my life. So this map is of the few things that's struck me and stayed with me throughout the years. I know the meme was originally intended to reflect your artistic influences. I could do that, except I can't draw like any of the artists that I like and have inspired me to pick up a pencil.

Warning: It's long winded.
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Superman: Hi, how you doin? If you've known me longer than 5 seconds you know I've always been a fan of the character. His powers aside, Superman embodies what people can be. Overall kindness to everyone but if there's a problem, diplomacy comes first. If diplomacy fails at first, then it's time to bust some ass. Being a fan, I look up news and information using - -

SupermanHomepage.com: This is not only where I got my news, but it's where I've made a few of my closest online friends. Meeting one of these friends led me to - -

Pendant Productions: I joined with this group when it was still in it's infancy. For those unfamiliar, Pendant is an online podcast site that does both fanbased and original OTR type series. It's here where I started my voice acting hobby, and where I drew the Last Son of Krypton and Star Trek: Defiant covers you see in my gallery.

How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way: While I'm on the subject of drawing, this was the biggest influence on me. The VHS was in my Jr. High library and actually taught me more than the art teacher. It's through this video that I have any concept of proportion.

Night, by Elie Wiesel: While in Jr. High, I started learning about the Holocaust. If Superman (a creation of two American Jews) taught me the basics of right and wrong and how to feel as a person, the addition of this book written by a Holocaust survivor cemented those ideas and took it to a new level.

Dragonball Z: This series started hitting big while I was in High School. While this isn't the first anime I've ever seen (Transformers, Voltron, Pokemon) this is the one I followed for almost its entire run [due to no cable, I never finished the Buu saga]. This led me to experiment some with the Anime/Manga art style, though I never got good at it. The American dub of the special titled History of Trunks featured quite a bit of music from - -

Dream Theater - Scenes From a Memory: During High School I met a friend who is into Progressive Rock/Metal. This was a genre I'd never heard before and the first album I remember him introducing me to was this one. From then on I shunned mainstream radio and started to dive into this genre of music, as well as back catalogs of older Progressive acts.

Lilo & Stitch: This movie came out in my early 20s. To me, it's absolutely ballsy of Disney to have made this film because it showed a modern broken family. Lilo and her older sister Nani, lost their parents when they were a bit younger. Nani since then has done her best to raise her sister, who becomes a social outcast while trying to deal with the loss of her parents. She constantly gets into mischief, and Stitch comes along and doesn't make things better. While Lilo is trying to teach Stitch to behave properly, they get into enough trouble where the DCFS is called in and they try to seperate the sisters. I could go into more detail, but do me a favor. Don't Wiki or IMDB to read the plot. Rent the movie if you haven't seen it.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: In my mid 20s I started to become politically aware. I was 18 when Bush raped Gore in 2000, and I didn't know enough or care enough to vote in that election. Then Bush's first 4 years happened, and I learned I couldn't completely trust the mainstream media outlets due to their bias (MSNBC for the Left, Fox News for the Right). While Daily Show isn't exactly "the news", I gain more insight from his political guests than I would on a Sunday morning on any other channel. Politics aside, Jon's a brilliantly funny guy who took TDS from the crap it was with Craig Killborn and made it culturally relevant. Also, if it wasn't for Jon, there'd be no Colbert Report.

Tombstone: This film came out while I was in Jr. High, it wasn't until recently I realized how *awesome* the Old West was. It's one of Kurt Russell's last roles as a hard ass for a long time, and probably the last good role Val Kilmer had. While it's not 100% factual (and really, what Hollywood movie is?), it's a good look into the lives of all the players at the shootout at the OK Corral.