Underground and alternative comics existed in a vacuum for years, where money really wasn't an issue. No one would get into doing a black-and-white comic because they thought it might be a route to riches.

You start to get nervous when the value of a comic book or graphic novel is relative to the achievements of some other medium.

I wanted it to be as readable as possible. I had the ambition of reaching a broader audience.

Especially for people of our generation, who really celebrated certain attitudes - the outsider, the loner - it can have a real impact on the art when they realize, I have friends, I'm married, or I have kids. That's certainly happened to me.

Underground and alternative comics existed in a vacuum for years, where money really wasn't an issue. No one would get into doing a black-and-white comic because they thought it might be a route to riches.

Maybe you're not even in a position to really judge how good your kid is at that endeavor.

I wanted all the responsibility to rest on the content of the story. I tried to make the visual style almost invisible.