It certainly was an important moment for me, that realization that I was not going to get what I wanted. It was very freeing. I keep using that word "freeing" or "liberating." I feel like Houdini sometimes, like I'm just getting out of one set of shackles after another, hanging upside down inside a burlap bag with handcuffs on. Hopefully one day, I'm going to get out of this tank of water.

I wish I had a typical workday. I struggle to get up at seven and almost always fail. I just try to get to my office as soon as I can, but it's always later than I would like.

Drawing is more fun to me than writing. I think it's interesting to talk to different cartoonists about how those activities work for them. I'm a very writerly cartoonist. I certainly spend more time on the writing than I do on the drawing, even though the drawing, of course, is very time-consuming.

The satiric ethos of Mad was a much bigger childhood influence.

Grief takes many forms, including the absence of grief

Who embalms the Undertaker when he dies?

I probably read Harriet the Spy about 70,000 times.