There is a commonly-held belief that great art is the product of great suffering, and a tendency to romanticize the notion of what it means to be an artist. In order to create art of significance the artist must therefore be poor, under-fed, miserable... and alone.

As arguably one of the most well-known and oldest anthropomorphic animal (or "furry") comics on the Internet (indeed, having gone online in 1996, it may be among the oldest webcomics, period), Sabrina Online, created by Eric W. Schwartz, has been cited as inspiration for many Internet artists. Like Helen of Troy, the title character may be the face that launched a thousand strips.

Carl Jung called it the Shadow, though it's most commonly referred to as the Alter-Ego these days – a way of understanding how the different, and occasionally disparate parts of our personality relate to one another. The alter ego is that reflection of our inner-selves that we project into the outer world.