"There's one at every convention or comic mart or work-in or signing, always one nervous and naive young novice who, during a lull in the questions-and answers session will raise one fluttering hand aloft and inquire, tremulously, "Where do you get your ideas from?" And do you know what we do? We sneer. We lampoon and ridicule the sniveling little oaf before his peers, we degrade and humiliate him utterly and rend him into bloodied slivers with our implacable and caustic wit. We imply that even to have voiced such a question places him irretrievably in the same intellectual category as the common pencil-sharpener. Then, when we've wrung every last sadistic laugh out of this pitiful little blot, we have the bailiffs take him outside and work him over. No, I know it isn't nice. But all the same, it's something that we have to do.
The reason why we have to do it is pretty straight forward. Firstly, in the dismal and confused sludge of opinion and half-truth that make up all artistic theory and criticism, it is the only question worth asking. Secondly, we don't know the answer and we're scared that somebody will find out."
The reason why we have to do it is pretty straight forward. Firstly, in the dismal and confused sludge of opinion and half-truth that make up all artistic theory and criticism, it is the only question worth asking. Secondly, we don't know the answer and we're scared that somebody will find out."
-Alan Moore, Behind the Painted Mask
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