Animism. And anthropomorphism... it's as wierd, or no more wierd, depending on how you look at it, than any of the more ancient traditions of calling ships "she" and reffering to them as "her", assigning names and personalities to cars, mystical qualities and names to swords, or names and personalities to hurricanes and typhoons. ;] I agree with melanie: I write fiction also. And my fictional characters develope personalities, quirks, and take on a sense of "who they are" - you can tell when you're writing when you're being true to the character or having them do things that that "person" wouldn't do. 2D and 3D characters can take on the same shape in the mind. You may find it eerie in the gallery, but I'd almost be willing to bet that if you picked up a comic book and saw the writer and artist having Superman murder a helpless child in the storyline... it'd jar, suddenly and sharply. It wouldn't be consistent with the "personality" of Superman, even though "he's" a collection of colors and lines like Vicki is a collection of pixels. "But - Superman wouldn't DO that, dammit!" Lundquivst's Frank, Lee Alverson's Twins, and my William Nighthawk or my Aiolanni and Maziri develope the same kind of consistency in our heads when we work with them - when we do something "out of character" with them, it jars on the imagination. Cracks the suspension of disbelief, just like it would if you were watching Gunsmoke and Matt Dillon suddenly turned into a bad guy. ;]

"I am a good person now and it feels... well, pretty much the same as I felt before (except that the headaches have gone away now that I'm not wearing control top pantyhose on my head anymore)"

• Monkeysmell