Erica Kruse
Kentucky, Comics and Cartooning– A Window into Artist Erica Kruse’s Practice
How this Fort Thomas-born creative is penning herself as needle mover of the illustration zeitgeist– one cartoon page at a time.
Self Portrait
12 x 16
Oil on canvas
2025
Comics have long played a pivotal role in the art of storytelling, for children and adults alike. They're a time capsule of culture – preserved so well that they’ve maintained a robust industry even in the age of rapid digitisation. Erica Kruse is an Illustrator and senior at Parsons School of Design championing herself as an anchor of this cultural medium through her Northern Kentucky roots.
With a practice centred heavily around cartooning, Kruse has carved out her distinctive style of rendering characters with bold outlines, geometric shapes as well as strong line drawing with spot coloring. Kruse has a body of work spanning cartoons of original stories, fictional creatures and even adaptations of existing TV show characters in her own design, which she has refined with her creative endeavours spanning different art fields over the years. In addition to being a cartoonist and film enthusiast, Kruse is also an avid musician, writer and puppet maker.
“I love cartoons and anything to do with them,” she laughs.
Gospel of Matthew
2359 × 3350 px resolution
Digital
2025
As a creative, Kruse allows the interdisciplinary nature of her interests to guide her in technical skill and inspiration. Looking to film for references for framing, visualising and storytelling, she explains that there is a lot to learn from fields that might appear to be completely contrasting to what they’re looking to improve in.
“They’re different but they inspire each other.” Kruse says.
As a result, Kruse has often found herself making music or writing for musicals; She has designed posters and sets for theatres and even taught at these establishments in her home state of Kentucky–- which is also where the heart of her artistic inspiration lies.
First Prom
Digital
6000 × 4800 px resolution
2025
Her identity as a creative is intensely nurtured by her cultural backdrop of Fort Thomas, Kentucky– be it through her sound in music attuned by Bluegrass tunes or the closest project to heart today– a brainchild of every artistic and traditional avenue she’s known, called I Was A Teenage Poltergeist. A self-written and illustrated comic book Kruse is producing as a part of her senior thesis, the location for this supernatural narrative is set in present-day Northern Kentucky, factoring in its urban legends, folklore and geography. The chronicles in the comic are inspired by ghost stories Kruse heard herself from elders while she was growing up. The intention behind crafting a project like this is to create a work culturally representative of an overshadowed area like Fort Thomas. To make a work that can find its armature in a society that she proactively researches everyday, and a work that can speak to the youth irrespective of their own cultural background.
Cover of ‘I Was A Teenage Poltergeist’ Comic
Digital
5 × 8 inches
2025
