To The Point: Interview With Dave Perillo, aka Montygog

          I find the common misunderstanding that television stifles creativity to be very funny. Looking at an artist as talented as Dave Perillo, one can see that television can also be a source of great inspiration depending on the person; In my opinion, a true artist can find inspiration in anything. The shows and artists that Dave found his inspiration in have inspired so many other artists as well, in the form of other television shows, movies, Easter eggs, prints, songs, everything; The artists who created them no doubt found inspiration from other artists in some way shape or form. There is one Bugs Bunny short in particular that comes to mind; “What’s Opera, Doc?” which parodied Wagner’s 19^th century opera.

          I relate to Perillo, in that I had a hard time concentrating on the subject matter at hand in grade school. I would constantly get called out for doodling in the margins of my notebooks. I even drew caricatures of all of my fourth grade classmates. All I wanted to do all day every day for a number of years was sketch everything around me and give my creations to my grandmother, my fiercest supporter.

          I find it interesting that sketching has moved onto sketching then editing in the computer. I feel conflicted about it. There is something really special about that original hand-drawn piece. It’s like a children’s creation in kindergarten; It’s inspired by something, but it’s not perfect, and each piece is a little different, sentimental and unique. On the other hand, it’s near impossible to create the exact uniform shade of purple for those violets on the front porch by hand, and a computer makes it a thousand times easier to get that crisp line for the shadow on the hand of the grandfarher next door.

          With a computer, we can save our artwork in a cloud in case of fire or flood, etc. Lastly, connections are made by using sites such as Deviantart. If it wasn’t for someone discovering Perillo on Deviantart, I would not be reading this interview right now, nor would I be wishing I owned his Gotham Records piece, or Mario Bros. piece for his Squares 4 Squares exhibit at Gallery 1988. I’m also a huge Whovian, and I sincerely hope he gets picked up by BBC to do an official piece, preferably featuring the Tenth Doctor.

          I can only hope to one day be successful enough to work with companies like Disney and The Simpsons. I have officially found an artist to seek out at Comic Con. I’m going to work on making my own style. Like Perillo said, “a million Garfields” is “a scary though.”