Hamzah also had success with comic strips on family life, such as Mat Jambul's Family and Dol Keropok and Wak Tempeh. These cartoons imbued Lat with a fascination of family life and the antics of children, which served him well in his later works. Lat was interested in studying the details of his surroundings and capturing them in his works. Keluarga Si Mamat and The Kampung Boy faithfully depicted their characters' appearances and attitudes. Their narrations were written in a style that was natural to the locals. Thus, Lat was able to make his readers believe his stories and characters were substantially "Malay". Later style After his study trip to London in 1975, Lat's works exhibited the influences of editorial cartoonists such as Frank Dickens, Ralph Steadman, and Gerald Scarfe. In 1997, Ron Provencher, a professor emeritus at Northern Illinois University, reported that Lat's style reminded his informants on the Malaysian cartooning scene of The Beano. Muliyadi elaborated that The Beano and The Dandys "theme of a child's world" is evident in Lat's Keluarga Si Mamat. Others commented that Lat's art stood out on its own. Singaporean cartoonist Morgan Chua believed that Lat "managed to create an impressively local style while remaining original", and although comics historian Isao Shimizu found Lat's lines "somewhat crude", he noted that the cartoonist's work was "highly original" and "full of life". Redza's judgement was that The Beano and The Dandy were "early formative [influences]" on Lat before he came into his own style. Lent gave his assessment in 1999: Lat's work with pen and ink so impressed Larry Gonick that the American cartoonist was tempted into experimenting with this medium for part of his The Cartoon History of the Universe. Gonick tried to use the medium as he did his regular brushes; however, the results proved unsatisfactory. Lat occasionally colours his works, such as those in his Kampong Boy: Yesterday and Today (1993), using watercolour or marker pens. According to Lent, Redza judged that Lat had "elevated cartooning to the level of 'high visual arts' through his social commentary and 'construction of the landscape'". The art critic was not alone in having a high regard for Lat's works. Jaafar Taib, cartoonist and editor of Malaysian satirical magazine Gila-Gila, found Lat's cartoons retained their humour and relevance throughout time. He explained that this quality arose from the well-thought-out composition of Lat's works, which helped to