The 10 Cartoonists Who Influenced Danielle Corsetto
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Danielle Corsetto is probably best known for her long-running webcomic Girls With Slingshots which she started soon after graduating college. After her first year drawing and posting GWS, she had enough of a following to work on it full-time. She self published ten GWS collections over the 11 year run. For GWS, she took home the 2014 National Cartoonists Society’s short-form online comic award (often called the webcomic award in the early days).
Between then and now she’s worked with licensed comics with BOOM! Studios. She wrote three Adventure Time graphic novels: Playing with Fire (2013), Vol. 2: Pixel Princesses (2013) and Graybles Schmaybles (2015). She’s collaborated with writer and illustrator Monica Gallagher on a sex-education webcomic called BOO! It’s Sex that runs on Webtoons.
Her current project is a graphic novel called Elephant Town set in the town of Shepherdstown, West Virginia where she currently lives and has taught illustration at Shepherd University. The story is about “the slow-burn tale of Kris, Paul, Berto, and Miranda, four people who live in the same house, but don’t know each other. But when you live in a town as small as Shepherdstown, you’re never far enough from your neighbors, especially when you share a wall.” The series is funded completely through Patreon. Elephant Town will be available as one large volume (~600 pages!!) around 2030.
Now that you know more about Danielle and her comics, here are the…
The 10 Cartoonists that Influenced Danielle Corsetto
Charles Schulz – Peanuts
“When my dad was in the Navy, he took along some of those little pocket-sized Peanuts books. He let my brother and I have them when we were old enough to read, and I read through them so much the covers fell off. I was drawn to those Peanuts books for reasons that I couldn’t pin down. I didn’t even get most of the jokes. I started making comics about the dogs in our neighborhood, and sometimes I’d make a “master study” of a Peanuts strip by putting my own dog characters into the exact same panels, just to see if it would change my perception of the joke, but it still wouldn’t make sense to me. It made less sense when I did it. Schulz just poured some sort of magic out of his pen, and I respected him for what I didn’t understand.”
Jim Davis – Garfield
“I used to check out the horizontal compilations of Garfield at the school library so often that my name would be the only one on the whole sticker in the back of the book. The first time I ever made a comic strip was in 3rd grade – our art teacher made a whole project out of it, so I got to take my time with what instantly became my favorite language. I drew an orange cat with a middle-aged human male who lovingly resented him, and called it Fat Cat. I think I was a little embarrassed by how obvious the theft was that I never drew another Fat Cat comic again.”
Lincoln Pierce – Big Nate
“I was ten when Big Nate became syndicated, so this comic was immediately appealing to me. I don’t remember there being any other comic strip in the newspaper that felt as relatable to me at the time – Calvin & Hobbes eluded me, I guess because I was a young dork and I wanted more obvious, slapsticky kid humor. The fact that Nate was a good cartoonist AND a kid was like… I probably had a crush on Nate, because I had crushes on any boy in my class who liked drawing cartoons.”
Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman – Zits
“My love of this comic knows no bounds. The art is exquisite and the storytelling is fun and funny and charming and feels like real teenager energy. I loved this comic shyly in high school, because I didn’t feel cool enough to be friends with any of the characters in it. I especially loved the quiet moments when Jeremy and Hector would hang out and work on the van together and shoot the shit and talk dreamily about the future.”
Frank Cho – Liberty Meadows
“I’m a sucker for expressive line work and beautifully-drawn women, and Frank Cho delivers both of those. Liberty Meadows felt edgy and kind of petty when it landed in our local newspaper, when I was an edgy-adjacent and petty high schooler, so it appealed to me the moment it was added to our paper. Cho was one of my first artist idols that I got to meet in person; he was local-ish and I told him I was thinking of transferring to the same college he went to in our native Maryland (he told me he didn’t go there for art, so I didn’t bother).”
Lynn Johnston – For Better or for Worse
“This is one of those comics that I read religiously in the newspaper by default, because I knew it was good, but appreciated much more as I got older. I loved that she let the characters grow and change naturally, like real friends and family, with all the challenges of time passing. It made the series feel more important and meaningful. When I’ve taught comic strip format to classes, I included the strips where Lawrence comes out as an example of how to tell a serious story in a weeklong series of comic strips, successfully ending each strip in a punchline or a satisfying conclusion.”
Greg Evans – Luann
“Our local newspaper didn’t carry Luann, so I only got to read it when we visited my grandparents in Maine, because theirs did. This is another one that I include in that comic strip format class; the storyline about Luann starting her period was monumental in so many ways! Greg managed to find a punchline – a GOOD punchline – for every single strip in that arc. He’s an absolute master at the craft!”
Jim Rugg (Street Angel) and Farel Dalrymple (Pop Gun Wars, The Wrenchies)
“I don’t think Jim or Farel have ever collaborated, but I’m clumping them together because they had the same effect on me. I met them at the first conventions I went to – probably Pittsburgh Comic Con and SPX. Besides being approachable and kind, their work was beautiful and, most importantly to me, they showed me that there was space in the comic book world to be expressive and fantastical and funny in a way that didn’t need to be superhero-fantastical, or full of adult-y muscles and weapons. They both still work with traditional media and keep improving and expanding their skills, and I continue to be in awe of them.”
Bonus: The 3 Cartoonists Danielle Corsetto Admires
Dustin Harbin
“Dustin’s design sense and pen control and hand lettering are all out-of-this-world, but what I love the most about his work is how easily he tells a story. He can make heartbreak end in slapstick yuks. He can make looking at the clouds bring you to tears. He can fit a tiny film inside four panels. I have more of his art in my house than anyone else’s, partially because his originals are criminally underpriced, but mostly because looking at them makes me want to make better work.”
Craig Thompson
“Inside my first copy of Blankets, I put tiny post-it notes on all the pages that had particularly great examples of backgrounds, expressions, creative storytelling elements, etc., to go back to when I needed to feel inspired. This proved futile; the whole book is filled with post-it notes. Every page is perfect. I can’t even say that Craig’s work inspires me, because it’s so good it’s at a level that’s unattainable. His books are some of the only graphic novels I can read and let my guard down, instead of picking apart what makes them good. His books are too good to emulate. The only choice you have is to enjoy them.”
Julia Wertz
“I’m looking up at the bookshelf near my drawing board, where I’ve limited myself to just one shelf of graphic novels that inspire me, and noticing that all of the books I have by Julia are up there (except the one I’m currently reading). Her writing is so genuine without coming off as pandering or perfect. She writes about the worst and grossest shit without apologizing for it, but somehow she also does it in a way that’s not a) juvenile or b) offensive. Since we both do a lot of autobio work, I re-read her books when I’m trying to get out of my habit of self-censoring or writing in defense of myself. I will always aspire to be as cool as her.”
You can follow Danielle on the socials (Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, Patreon, and Substack) and of course her homepage.
Thank you, Danielle for sharing with us your list of cartoonists who influenced you, and those you admire.
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