have been working and reading alot lately. 
finding the more intake on reference, particularly 
reference of the brilliant kind (books, comics, movies, music)
the more outstanding faults and problem areas i start to 
see in my own work. this is troublesome due to the that fact 
that in order to keep our own ideas flowing, we must feed on 
others ideas. in that feeding, if we feed on high level work, 
we inevitably make comparisons and find ourselves quite short 
of the mark. The old saying "if you saw your own book in the 
store, would you buy it? would you even read it? or in a more 
tangible circumstance, if you happened upon your website, 
would you surf it? would you check every illustration as soon 
as you saw a few sample pics? would you bookmark it? Its hard 
for me to answer those questions.. im not really sure if i can 
in all honesty.

Its really a strange problem. i suppose one way of dealing with
it might be to on occasion, take in truly awful reference as well,
sit thru a classicaly bad movie, or a cheesy romance novel. i
recall a stephen king interview where he actually advised this,
for the sake of finding weak areas in a more immature work and 
knowing what you would improve upon, were it your own work. a 
silent critique in a way, but also a reminder or encouragement 
to oneself of how far one has come. its strange, but i remember
when first starting to draw comics, i was reading greats like 
Shirow and Otomo, yet i had no fits of depression or discouraged
thoughts about my own work in comparison. i can only assume the
closer i come in my own work to nearing my original heros in 
art, that i begin to see how far away i actually am from them.
"the more we know, the more we know how much we dont know" kinda
paradox.

the line between inspiration and depression is a thin one. 
on another note, we recently captured a mouse that had been
consistently raiding our food supply since we moved into this
house nearly a year ago. after containing the beast in a plastic
jar, we decided that we should celebrate his capture. the party
was short for the mouse, or "Bobby" as he has come to be known 
in our studio. it consisted of a shot of vodka poured into the
jar. Bobby upon contact with the vodka went CRAZY. He began to
run about wildly and breathe erratically. next he sunk into a 
deep drunken state, slow movements, sleepy eyed and confused at
the world around him. a few minutes later he began running, out
of nowhere.. insanely. he shook his head in high speed vibrations
and dropped DEAD. He was given a proper burial in the backyard,
but like all good horror stories, his body was missing the next
day. I'd like to believe that was the doing of the neighbors cat
over the idea that some cursed zombie mouse rose from the dead 
and is now seeking some sort of twisted revenge against us. God
forbid.

The moral to this story? Some people cant hold their liquor :[ 

-L0cke                             October 16 / 2000