"Hi! you've reached Surly Hack Studio. Leave a message and the Hack will call you back." That message has been on my answering machine for a few decades now. Back when Doug Rice and I created Stupid at Image Comics, I noticed that all the Image guys had named their studios. Since I was doing a book that would parody Image comics, I decided I should also have a parody studio name.
Somehow the darn thing stuck. And now, years later, I often sign my work "Surly". I think of artist Graham Ingels signing his EC comics as "Ghastly".
Above: drawing done for The Artist Within, the second volume of Greg Preston's photographs of artists in their studios.