Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn’t grow out of either of our species’ two basic instincts: survival and reproduction.
~ Scott Mccloud
Learn from everyone. Follow no one. Watch for patterns. Work like hell.
If you just write the kinds of stories you think others will want to read, you'll be competing with cartoonists who are far more enthusiastic for that kind of comic than you are, and they'll kick your ass every time.
Today, comics is one of the very few forms of mass communication in which individual voices still have a chance to be heard.