Ricky Rat - October 2024

For the month of October, we would like to shine light upon Ricky Rat ( @rickyratcomix ) for our monthly artist highlight.

Ricky is a cartoonist from the San Francisco area, born and raised. He would also often do lots of cartoons and drawing with his father who is a cartoonist himself. He recalls doing many “drawing wars” with him which involves drawing one figure followed by the other person, drawing something more extravagant that one ups the other and so forth. He would continue to draw casually after graduating college, but it wasn’t until 2018 that he had a revelation when working a desk job that he hated.

This was when he created the Ricky Rat instagram and decided to take his craft more seriously. Many of the stories that are used in him cartoons are situations that either he himself or a friend have been in. Some inspirations for Ricky are his father, Bill Watterson creator of Cavin and Hobbs, Peter Bagge, Simon Hanselmann, and Robert Crumb. Some notable accomplishments that he is very fond of include when he went out every night and did street art for an entire year during Covid.

More recently, he recalls an art show in San Francisco that he did called “Bags 4 Us” which gave artists a chance to make a piece on a brown paper bag. In the grand scheme of things, Ricky would love for his cartoons to be a show, but he will continue to do sketches and make comic books because it’s what he loves. He also appreciates having a full time job and being able to have that comfort of making his art casually and not to put food on the table. If you’re looking to check out some of Ricky’s comics and learn more you can go on his instagram as well as his website Rickyrat.com. Do you have a favorite Ricky Rat comic?