by Jonny Jimison
The stories I create are inspired by the art that I consume, and I consume what I like. So you’d think that a swords-and-dragons story like The Dragon Lord Saga was built on the back of some pretty heavy fantasy. For better or worse, that’s only partly true.
In all the realms of elves, dwarves, and men, it is often said that modern fantasy stories are, on some level, Lord of the Rings fan-fiction. Tolkien’s shadow looms large over books, films, games, and the Renaissance fairs where I nom turkey legs every summer. Even if you received it second- or third-hand, you probably got a heaping helping of Hobbit with your favorite fantasy.
It’s probably not fair to say that all fantasy stories are a Tolkien tribute … but mine certainly was. The story of the Dragon Lord came to life in my mind as a prose novel, and a pretty derivative one at that—Tolkien’s writings were the inspiration, and not just The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. There was an especially heavy Silmarillion influence, florid language and all.
Yes, there were notebooks full of gibberish as I tried to invent my own language.
It took a few years to loosen up and let the story become its own thing, but it eventually evolved into an all-ages graphic novel series. A funny thing happened along the way, though. What started as a slavish Tolkien tribute took on a flavor of its own.
For those unfamiliar with the story (and a hearty welcome to you), The Dragon Lord Saga is an adventure story of two brothers—Martin, a knight for the King’s Guard, and Marco, a young stableboy. Martin’s enthusiasm and wanderlust leads him to charge headlong into adventure, but he turns out to be wildly out of his depth. Marco desperately wants to stay home where everything is safe, but despite himself, he ends up on his own hero’s journey. It’s easy to get their names mixed up—they’re used to that.
Two volumes of the series have been published by Rabbit Room Press—Martin and Marco and The River Fox—with a third volume now available for preorder! I’m not gonna mince words, friends—volume three is really good. You’re going to want to preorder this one.
Anyway. An obvious transformation has occurred: My fantasy novel is a comic book now, and visual story has replaced verbal prose. But that’s just the beginning. As I told the story, little by little, the tale began to find itself, and things began to change. My love for Tolkien is still present in the pages, but I found other favorites flavoring the story as well. Elements of The Wizard of Oz began popping up as my characters went on far-flung journeys as unlikely as Dorothy’s. The Legend of Zelda series made itself known in many ways, none more blatant than Marco’s green tunic. And say what you will about Star Wars as a franchise, but the original 1977 film had a chemistry between its main characters that’s always on my mind when writing character interactions.
But let’s take one specific example in a little more detail. Because me, I like cartoons.
It’s probably inevitable that Looney Tunes was an influence on The Dragon Lord Saga. I’ve absorbed so much classic cartoon comedy that it was bound to take my comic book series in a cartoony, slapstick direction. But I never expected my Silmarillion-fueled fantasy epic to include so much Daffy Duck.
For a brief period in the 1950s, Daffy starred in some of my favorite cartoons of all time, all directed by Chuck Jones. In cartoons like “Drip-Along Daffy,” “Robin Hood Daffy,” and “Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century,” Daffy is paired with Porky Pig in a series of genre parodies. Daffy, cast as the epic hero of these scenarios, launches into his role with gusto—only to have his overeager impulses backfire again and again. Porky, meanwhile, plays the simple-minded sidekick (and Greek chorus to Daffy’s antics), whose actions end up saving the day in the end.
And then there’s “Duck Amuck.” In this masterpiece of cartoon chaos, Daffy just wants to star in his own cartoon … but an unseen animator foils him at every turn, seemingly just to troll him. In a brilliant deconstruction of the cartoon medium, the animator’s paintbrush erases and redraws the image, the music and sound effects malfunction, and the film frame goes haywire. Over the course of seven minutes, Daffy exhibits confusion, frustration, bargaining, bitter resolve, and finally, a frantic, desperate plea to know who the sadistic animator is that has it out for him. Daffy never discovers the animator’s identity, but we do—it’s a mischievous rabbit in a last-moment cameo.
Back to The Dragon Lord Saga. Remember Martin, the knight with a thirst for adventure? I never set out to make Martin a Daffy-Duck-alike, but the Chuck Jones influences just fit him like a cartoon glove. I love how enthusiastic and full-hearted Martin is … but his overeager impulses to launch into heroic adventure only get him in over his head. That’s so Daffy. He even has his own Porky Pig—Martin’s best friend Lingo is the simple-minded sidekick who balances Martin’s fervor with laid-back common sense.
The thing is, I never tried to write a Daffy Duck story. I tried to write Tolkien—Daffy just elbowed his way in, by way of all those cartoon viewings that imprinted Daffy into my brain. I also never intended to steer The Dragon Lord Saga in a Wizard of Oz or Legend of Zelda or Star Wars direction … they just showed up, because my imagination works with what I fueled my imagination with. Seems like a foregone conclusion, but it took me by surprise. It all happened so fast!
I reckon this is the way of all storytelling. Why is most modern fiction transparently Tolkienesque? It’s because Tolkien wrote stories that mattered to us, so we read them again and again. They fueled our imaginations and became part of us. The same thing happened to Tolkien—his love for classic mythology fueled his imagination so much that the stories he created uncannily recall Norse tales of magic rings and reforged swords.
Influences can be deliberate, but they can also take you by surprise. The deliberate ones are aspirational. The ones that take me by surprise? Those are just truthfully sharing who I am.
Watching my unintentional inspirations color and shape The Dragon Lord Saga is reshaping the way I think about imagination in general: Everything I observe and explore and consume fuels the part of me that creates something new. The world looks different with that lens. Books and paintings and meals and movies aren’t just a way to pass the time—they’re fuel for who I am and what I have to say.
Jonny Jimison is a freelance cartoonist and illustrator from North Florida with over a decade of experience in visual storytelling via comics, book illustration, and design. He is inspired by the playful humor of classic comics and the wide-eyed exploration of classic adventure stories.
In addition to his all-ages graphic novel series The Dragon Lord Saga, he is the creator of the webcomic Rabbit Trails for The Rabbit Room, as well as his own webcomics Getting Ethan and Lili and Leon.
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Photo by Andres Perez on Unsplash