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For the past few days on Cartoon Brew's Instagram account, we've been running a series called 25 Cartoonists You Should Know. The entire series is below, and yes, the list could easily be twice as long and still incomplete.

Ah, the writing life — or a book gone wrong, or right, I don’t know.

Hat tip to my newest blog find, a most worthy site for inspiration: The Improvised Life.

Check it out. Great photos, easy reading. A site that always gives you a quick take-away.

As a kid, I was a fan of Krazy Kat, the brick-tossing Ignatz Mouse, Offissa Bull Pupp, and company. I was too young for the original George Herriman newspaper strip, but enjoyed the cartoons and, later, learned to appreciate Herriman’s singular world view.

Too cool for words, though original, healthy, and legitimate are a good start.

Thankfully, there are pictures.

Those must have been righteous days, when you could open up a newspaper and find Krazy Kat and Nancy, originally drawn by the sublime Ernie Bushmiller.

Here’s a favorite, passed along by my pal, illustrator Greg Ruth.

Actually, calling the above illustration a favorite doesn’t quite do it. More like, a recent obsession. I printed it out, now it’s hanging on my wall by the computer. An arm’s length away. I want to write a book that answers that illustration. I want a version of that reflective moment on a book cover.

It reminds me of the ending to one of my favorite films, Bob Rafelson’s “Five Easy Pieces.” For my money, it’s one of the great endings, ever. For the clip below, I’m thinking specifically of the scene in the bathroom at 2:30 - 3:30, though of course the full five minutes are worth watching, as Karen Black (Rayette Dipesto!) in anything so often is. But the real killer is Jack Nicholson catching a glimpse of himself in that mirror, turning away, the head’s slight turn, thinking, wondering, and finally coming back it (the reflection of his self) in that mirror: Who am I? What am I doing with my life? Where am I going?

We all understand that scene. Even Nancy. And I can watch it over and over again.

I was working on something for someone else and I was bored. This was a couple of years ago, 2007 I think. I needed to draw something to save me from going nuts. I was reading a lot of George Herriman's Krazy Kat (one of the best comics ever created) and Edward Lear's nonsense poetry and listening to a lot of folk music from the southern States. So when I decided to do something to keep my sanity while doing this project it was like Harry and Silvio were waiting for me. I didn't know who they were at first, I didn't know the were cloud cartographers but I did know I loved they way they looked and I sensed a lot of personality in them. I started a comic but didn't write anything, I just made it up as I went along. I used a rule at the beginning: just draw,draw,draw and don't worry about how it looked. I did the first few strips this way but as I discovered more about these guys and their world and I found more characters in their world I started to slow down and take this nonsense more seriously. Funny how the silliest thing I've done is also the most personal. The above page is from the strip Harry and Silvio and the Girl in The Purple Boat.