If you find yourself enjoying what you see here on PunkCartoons, then you'll more than likely enjoy some of my personal favorite comics that helped shape my writing and artstyle. All of the following links will take you to Amazon using my Associate code, so if and when you do decide to buy something listed on this page you're also helping to support the site!
There wouldn't be a Rusty and Lila if there weren't a Calvin and Hobbes, it was by far the biggest inspiration for both the artstyle and inception of the strip, and for that Bill Watterson has my eternal gratitude. Calvin and Hobbes isn't so much your classic family funny strip, as much as it is an artistically driven celebration of imagination, a theme that follows into Bill Watterson's newer book The Mysteries, a collaboration with John Kascht which takes a far darker and more bleak look at imagination and its destruction at the hands of reality.
I'm going to link Calvin and Hobbes' first volume and the complete collection so you can budget accordingly, as well as Bill Watterson's other book The Mysteries in case you're interested in that.
Calvin and Hobbes Complete Collection
You know Peanuts, you know Charlie Brown, you know Snoopy, you know it's great. If Bill Watterson was the biggest inspiration for Rusty and Lila's artstyle, then Charles Schulz was the biggest inspiration for its dialogue. I don't think you're going to find a more laid back and down to Earth comic series than Peanuts, it's the gold standard for comic strips!
I would recommend saving up for a new car before trying to buy the full Peanuts collection, it'll probably take up as much money and storage space. But if you're gonna buy just one book then I'd probably recommend The Complete Peanuts 1959-1960 since that's around the era the strip went from great to iconic.