I read something in a magazine the other day about an illustrator who reads or looks at something like 400 rss feeds per day. Apparently that’s where he gets his inspiration. Shit, I thought, I better subscribe to more feeds or I’ll get left behind. It’s a race… Mmm… hang on a minute, I thought, how much inspiration do I really get from all these daily feeds that I usually forget to check and maybe just end up skimming a few once a week? The fact is that most of them are too frequent. There’s just too much crap. If they published perhaps 10% of what they do it would be mediocre… but, blah blah… etc…
I’ve looked at quite a lot of all sorts lately and perhaps the only thing that endures is a battered old book that I picked up at a second hand book store. It’s called “CARICATURE OF TO-DAY”. Yes, today is actually spelt with a hyphen! Basically it’s an antique. In fact I think it is. It’s a treasure trove of old Punch classics and wonderful old caricatures and cartoons from all over the world. I don’t know if it’s something about the old craft and inevitable slowness of the production but the creations just seem stronger and of higher quality than a lot of contemporary work.